Category: Neighborhood

Earthquake

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I woke up this morning at 4:40 am with a start and attempted to swat Joe because the bed was swaying and it was annoying me. Except Joe wasn’t in bed; he was still downstairs from having stayed up most of the night playing games and watching tv (he has the day off from work today). I laid really still thinking maybe I somehow shook the bed, but it continued to move on it’s own accord. It was freaky.

So I jumped out of bed, met Joe on his way up the stairs (finally coming to bed), and asked him if he felt that. He had no idea what I was talking about, so I told him what happened. His response? “It was probably from a plane passing overhead”. Uh, I don’t think so, buddy. Planes pass overhead all the time and they don’t make the bed sway. So then he told me it was probably a train. Wrong again, bucko. There’s a difference between the rumbling we sometimes feel from the train and the bed moving back and forth as if something was underneath it. By this point he was exasperated with me because he just wanted to go to sleep so he told me I must have been dreaming. Grrr! I gave up and got ready for work.

The second I got to work someone asked me if I felt the earthquake. I was like, “Thank you! I knew I wasn’t nuts!” I immediately called Joe (and woke him up, muhaha) to gloat. Don’t ever insinuate I’m crazy, hon! I know when something isn’t right. And what an odd feeling that was. I can’t imagine how a big earthquake would feel. I hope to never find out.

Could they be any more annoying?

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It’s January, and yet my neighbors’ Halloween pumpkins are still by their front door. I guess I should consider myself lucky they didn’t put up any Christmas decorations or I’d have to look at those until St. Patrick’s Day at the very earliest. It’s bad enough last year’s Easter welcome sign is still propped up on the ugly-ass bench outside their door.

Seriously, they are the laziest people in the universe. Someone forgot to inform them that we’re not living in a trailer park.

Gallery of Ghoulish Homes Tour

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How cool is this Halloween decorating contest? I love stuff like this! I was perusing all the local towns’ park districts’ websites last weekend when I stumbled upon it.

Tonight we printed out the tour guide, loaded the kids up in the car, and toured some homes. I have to say, however, that it would have been nice if the tour gave directions from house to house instead of from the same “starting point” to each house. It made finding many of the houses difficult and even though we were out for over two hours I know we didn’t see all 27 participants.

We did see some real cool stuff, however. My favorite houses had people dressed up following you around to creep you out or sitting really still so you were convinced they were dummies and then making sudden movements to make you jump.

I am tempted to put each address into MapQuest and plotting a route so we can do the entire tour before Halloween. I want to get more photos!

Gallery of Ghoulish Homes Tour on Flickr

If you’re looking for some decorated homes in your own area, I also came across this site called GooGhoul where you put in your zip code to locate Halloween related events nearby.

Chili Cook-Off

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Today was our town’s 1st Annual Chili Cook-Off. The flyer listed the fees for chili tasting at $3 for adults and $1 for kids yet when we asked where we had to pay, the guy looked at us like we were nuts. So we went around to all the booths and tasted everyone’s chili for free. Even the police and fire departments had entries. Neither were particularly tasty, however. I’m glad we didn’t have to pay for the tasting since I wasn’t impressed with any of the entries. They weren’t bad, just nothing that made me go “wow”.

We ended up voting for the first one we tried for the People’s Choice award. There were “official” judges there too. I’m not really sure when the winners will be announced, or how. Our town isn’t that great with communication; in fact nowhere in the flyer did it ever say where the cook off was being held; we just figured it out. And their website kinda blows. My guess is they decided to forgo the fee to generate more interest since there wasn’t a huge turnout. I appreciate the effort, however. It’s nice to attend community events.

After our “light brunch” we did some running around. One of the places we stopped at was Borders books. We don’t go there often but I had a coupon and a gift card so I got the new Pinback album for only $0.86. :)

We also stopped at Petsmart to get Peanut some new treats since her old ones expired. And since I’m back to being able to eat carbs (there goes the weight I lost), we ate lunch at Noodles & Company.

I got the cutest Christmas tree ornament from Pier One next door too. I really hate that Christmas stuff is already out at the stores so I almost didn’t get it simply out of principle but I liked it too much to pass up. They have the most gorgeous ornament wreath too so I’m considering ordering a Pier One card from my Discover cashback so I can go back and get that too.

After more errands we came home and I cleaned our front door and storm door. It’s so clear now you might walk through it and not notice the glass. ;) I figured it was the least I could do after my wonderful husband cleaned the house, did the dishes, and did laundry on his day off yesterday.

My excitement for the week

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Late last night as I came out of the master bathroom, I noticed flashing lights coming from the girl’s bedroom. Upon investigation I saw that there was a police car across the street. There was also a red convertible in front of it, so I assumed they had gotten pulled over for speeding. An ambulance pulled up shortly thereafter, however, and a guy who had been sitting in the driver’s seat of the squad car (not a police officer), was led to the the back of the ambulance by two paramedics. Some people milling about went with them and another guy got into the red convertible and drove off. So I’m not sure what really happened. The squad and ambulance sat there for another five minutes before leaving. Too bad they don’t keep the police blotter up to date in this town because my curiosity has been piqued.