Last week my friend, Shannon, called me mid-afternoon here at work to see if I could meet her for dinner and a drink after work. So I made arrangements for Dave to pick up Gavin after work in my place, and got a "hall pass" for the evening. I met her at her house then she drove us to our usual place, Mr. B’s in Royal Oak. Afterward, we walked around Royal Oak. She wanted to stop in the Barnes & Noble bookstore for a CD. Music was on the upper level.. I walk toward the escalators and Shannon refuses to get on. She’s searching everywhere for stairs, an elevator, anything other than that escalator. I have known this woman for 14 years and NEVER did I know that she has a fear of escalators.  Once I discovered this, I began to play into it, and boy was I having fun. I kept telling her, "Come on Shannon, you can hold my hand".. she just repeatedly kept saying "shut up."  Apparently she had an escalator accident when she was younger and since then she refuses to go on escalators.  She blames it on her equilibrium, or lack there of, and that it’s the actual mount and dismount of the escalator that scares her.  I just find it shocking that it took 14 years for me to know this.

She tried reminding me of a time that she, myself and 2 other friends were at the mall and when she chose the stairs between the up and down escalator, we poked fun at her by going up and down the escalator several times in the time it took her to take the stairs.

I looked in the Directory of Phobias and apparently there isn’t one for escalators. There should be one because as I discovered in my search, it’s a pretty common thing. Shall we call it, escalphobia?

This is just absolutely amazing to me.  We have gone from the bottom ten last season to the very top in the league standings this season.  The summer has been amazing with our Tigers.  Lets just hope they do just as good in the playoffs.  The big question these days is, "Are the 2006 Tigers as good as the 1984 Tigers?" (which is the last time we won the World Series).  The 1984 Tigers were amazing.  I was a big Tiger fan in those days.  I had posters of Kirk Gibson on the walls in my bedroom.  My mom was friends with the then General Manager and we used to get box seats right next to the dugout.  Those summers surrounding I practically lived at Tiger Stadium.  It was a great moment the day they won.  I’ll never forget it, and after 22 years, we need it again.

This Saturday is Fallapalooza and Dave and I have a date night to attend. Fallapalooza is like the Lollapalooza Music Festival, only it’s local bands playing in the parking lot of a local Sports Bar & Grill named Falls Bar. We’ve got an all night sitter for Gavin, so we can really let our hair down and have some fun.  Most of Dave’s friends should be there, and they’re always a blast.

On another note.. one of our cats is chosing not to use the litter box.  I’m not sure which one it is.  Gracie, that’s our new kittie. She’s about 5 months old. We got her at about 9 weeks old after my Nikki died. Then there’s Boots, she’s 5 years old and has also been around since kittenhood.  Gracie, the baby, I do see her using the box, both of them in fact (we have 2 litterboxes for them).  We’ve never had a problem with Boots not using the litter box, even when Nikki was around.  Both Boots and Gracie get along great, they play together, sleep together, bathe each other.  This morning, I went down into the basement to get a pair of socks and I look down and there on top of a plastic grocery bag on the floor is a pool of yellow. That wasn’t there last night. And it was right next to the litter box, so the culprit is deliberately doing this.  We have a laundry shoot down to the laundry area and I’ve already had to throw away a couple of my favorite shirts because I went to toss them in the wash and got a whiff of cat pee.  This is beginning to upset me.  Both cats are great otherwise.. I just need to catch the culprit. What I’ll do when that happens, I don’t know.  How do you stop a cat from peeing on the floor? And it’s just pee because I haven’t found any cat nuggets laying around.  I’ve PineSol’d the whole floor.  The basement is beginning to stink and I’m sure it’s because whomever is doing this has a spot I haven’t found yet.  I’ll probably spend a good portion of tonight looking for it.  Wish me luck.

I can’t believe it’s Friday already. Not only that, but it’s almost 5 o’clock pm, Friday.  I had big plans for this week as far as becoming a better blogger, and here it is Friday, and my last post was already almost a week ago.  I promise I’m going to get better at this thing.

Funny thing happened this morning.  Earlier in the week, Dave’s brother called and asked if he wanted to help him in being security at some couples wedding for tonight. Apparently the lucky couple both have former spouses that are rather, shall we say.. psycho? It’s a cash job, so why not.  Anyway, this morning I’m getting ready for work, Dave’s asks me, "Hun, is my suit clean for tonight?" I told him that if he hung it up immediately after wearing it to my company Christmas party last December, then yes, it’s clean."  It just goes to show you how often my husband wears a suit. He laughs at me and says, "Man, I just love our life."

Monday I ended up spending a few hours in the emergency room.  It was my day off and I had been out shopping with my mom and Gavin.  I’ve been driving my father-in-law’s Ford F150 for the past few weeks. We have a low-milage lease on our Explorer and since my father-in-law hardly puts any miles on his, we switched for a couple months to save on miles.  Anyway, it’s an F150 with the extended cab.  The extended cab door has to be opened after you open the main passenger door, and then shut first before the main door. It’s a layer thing, if you have one, then you know what I’m talking about, as it’s also hinged on the opposite side.  So we’re leaving the store and I’m standing there buckling Gavin into his car seat, both cab door and passenger door are open.  My mom hops in the passenger seat, and with me standing there, shut’s the passenger door.  That sharp bottom corner of the door struck me in the back of the leg creating a huge gash and suddenly I’m bleeding everywhere.  She grabs the closest thing she could find to wrap around my leg, a bright orange rubber rain poncho.  Gavin is crying wondering why mommy is crying.  My mom is crying, repeatedly apologizing, she felt so bad.  I ended up with 6 stitches just below the crease behind my knee, and a tetanus shot.  It’s feeling much better now, after 4 days.  It’s healing and the bruise is beginning to fade.

No big plans for the weekend.  Hopefully we’ll get a "Date Night" in.

Has anyone seen this yet? You can design your own handbag.  The possibilities are endless. I’m going to have to save up for one now. How original, to have my own self-customized handbag.

Design your own at Freddy & Ma.

Yea, yea, I know. I’ve been a horrible blogger. But hey, it’s summer. Lately the only thing I’m sitting at the computer for is to clear out my photo memory card in my camera. I try hard to avoid the television during these summer months too. The first week of July we took our yearly summer vacation. We toned it down a bit this year. I told Dave that I’d have no problem giving up a huge vacation this year and even next year if it helps us save to get into a new house this time next year. Dave said he really needed the vacation this year, so instead of scratching it all together, we just kept it mild, so to speak.

On Sunday, July 2nd, we hit the road. And headed north to visit my great-aunt in Levering, Michigan in Emmet County.  She’s about 13 Miles south of Mackinaw City and the Mackinaw Bridge. I’ve been going up there since I was a kid and have always loved it. Took us about just under 4 hours for the trip including pit stops. I’ve always loved the drive. Taken it by myself a few times. We arrived at Aunt Marylins at about 7:30pm. Dave showed Gavin around and took him out for a ride on her 4-wheeler. Monday we basically stayed there at her place. The view from her back patio is simply beautiful. We took a drive into Mackinaw City for a short while and also Cheboygan for some light shopping.  Tuesday was the 4th and that was the big day for us during our stay with her. We let Gavin sleep in, since we knew he wouldn’t be getting a nap in through-out the day.  So then early afternoon we went back into Mackinaw, and got our tickets to board one of the Arnold Line ferry boats over to beautiful Mackinac Island. We had our honeymoon on the island 3 yrs ago. It is quite a romantic place for a honeymoon or even a wedding. The infamous Grand Hotel is absolutely stunning. Although we didn’t stay there during our honeymoon, they to offer tours into this historical and famous hotel. One thing great about the island is that there are no cars. No motor vehicles are allowed on the island. When we stayed for our honeymoon, we were right on Main Street. Each morning you could hear the clop, clop of the horseshoes on the pavement, it is very nostalgic to stay there.  So this trip we spent a good portion of the day on the island just walking around. Took a carriage tour of the island. Stopped and spent some time in an awesome butterfly house. Early evening we took the ferry back to the main land to get ready for the fireworks display. We found a great spot to sit right on the shore near the Mackinaw Bridge. Gavin and Dave played near the shore while we waited for dusk. It was a great fireworks display. Though quite a few people thought it was a bit short. After they ended I overheard several comments "that was the shortest fireworks show I’ve seen." Afterward we went back to my aunt’s for the night.

Late morning on Wednesday, we said good-bye to my aunt and started to head south again. We had reservations for 2 nights in Frankenmuth at the new Zehnder’s Splash Village hotel and waterpark. That was a lot of fun. Gavin always enjoys the waterparks. We checked out of the hotel on Friday then spent sometime walking around Frankenmuth. It’s such a cute and quaint little town. And no one can visit Frankenmuth without making a stop at Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland, the worlds largest Christmas store; where it’s Christmas everyday.  They have tens of thousands of Christmas ornaments. So many themes, knick knacks and collectables. One section alone is just for stockings. You literally can get lost in this place. Being July, it’s wasn’t very crowded. Last time we were there in late October and the place was packed. We got home late Friday evening and spent the rest of the weekend at home. You can see all the pictures from our vacation here.

I promise to do much better at this blogging thing. I’ve got so much more to write about.

What a busy time this has been.  Things have been nonstop since before Memorial Day.  Memorial Day weekend, Dave took Gavin up north with his best friend and his daughter who’s about 6 I think.  Anyway, with husband and child out of the house for 3 days, my mom and I redid our bathroom.  That was ajob and a half.  We scraped the walls, pulled up the carpet, replaced the lighting, faucet, all door/drawer hardware, we spackled, we chaulked, and yes we painted.  There were 2 particular challenging areas. These were the areas of the wall next to the tub.  The original chaulking around the shower door was not doing it’s job and as a result the wall was water damaged pretty bad.  It was bad when I moved in with Dave 5 years ago and had gotten worse and worse. My mom and I tackled it with gusto and I have to admit we did a pretty darn good job.  But of course, you can be the judge.

The right and left side of the tub is seen here as it was before:

And the after pictures as seen here:

You can click on the pictures for a more up close view. I still have some minor touching up to do, some new chaulking on the floor and cleaning up some paint off the tub, but you have to admit it’s quite an improvement.  In the before pictures, those are gaps next to the tub, at least an inch gap.  We bought some of that expanding foam and sprayed that in the gaps. Once the foam hardens, you can cut away the excess, even sand it, then we spackled over it.  And who knew I had such beautiful custom tile work under that old nasty grey carpeting.  I spent over a good hour scrubbing and scouring and the result was some pretty nice tile work that I think goes wonderful with my new "Gothic Amethyst" paint color. I put some black floor rugs down and got black and white towels.  I feel so much better walking into that bathroom now.

And now for the reason of my post subject.. "All Grown Up"  That is referring to Ray, my first born, my baby.  Last week was his graduation commencements.  I can’t believe he’s all grown up.  It was such a proud moment.  He was a great student. Made the honor roll several times, he was in the ROTC all through high school. He often got straight A’s in his card markings.  Wednesday was also special because his grandfather (on his dad’s side) graduated with him.  He was in the Marines and after he finished high school was called into the Korean War, never recieving his diploma.  So in the beginning of the commencement ceremonies, the principal gave a wonderful speech about how he served our country, fathered 10 children and that this evening he was to finally recieve his diploma with his grandson.  Ray joined his grandpa onstage and everyone cheered.  He recieved a standing ovation. It was quite a tearful moment for me that’s for sure.  I had no idea Ray’s graduating would affect me so much.  I see a man now. Sure he turned 18 back in January, but now he’s done with high school.. his juvenile days are gone. Here he is when he was 18 months:

And here at 18 years, a high school graduate, that’s me in the first one and the second one he’s with his grandpa.

Sorry for my lack of posting lately.  As I mentioned, things have been quite busy.  I’m throwing Ray’s graduation pary this Saturday, and then next Saturday his dad is having a party for his side of the family.  We even had a huge weekend garage sale in between all this, it was quite a success.

This entry comes thanks to my blogging friend Shea and what she calls "Secret Single Behavior."  Most women probably know what that behavior might include.  It’s those things you do for yourself in the solitude and privacy of your own home, when you are single, that is.  I say that because in commenting on her entry, I mentioned that secret single behavior should be treasured while it lasts.  I can’t remember the last time I took a long relaxing bubble bath, surrounded by candles and a glass of wine that I wasn’t worried would be knocked over should some 3 year old come barging in on my Talgon moment announcing that he has soiled his diaper.  Or when was the last time I walked around the house nekked?  And oh the thought of having a linen closet all to myself once again. A place to store all my secret single behavior paraphernalia.  Now I’m reduced to about 12 inches of shelf space right next to the Desitin ointment and baby wipes.  The loofahs and aeromatherapy bath oils in my tub have been replaced with Winnie the Pooh splash island and Cookie Monster bubble bath.  Romance novels in my bedroom have been replaced with Curious George and that man with the yellow hat, who is he anyway?  Weekend afternoons are now consisted of park playdates, fingerpainting and playdoh instead of a quiet stroll of window shopping or curling up with a good book.

On the otherside of the coin, I get daily butterfly kisses, eskimo kisses and the security that my future beyond being single has arrived.  I guess what’s next is Secret Senior Behavior, huh?

I went out of town to visit my sister in Indiana.  Our last day there, Gavin was up early running around all day with my neices, never got a nap in.  Needless to say, this is what happened during dinner.  More soon.

The hedges that line our backyard are budding.

The daffodils in my frontyard are blooming.

The stores are stocked with fresh Easter flowers.

And hotdog stands are popping up everywhere.