Sue's Blog - Some assembly required.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

All Good (and bad) Things.

Just to let anyone who is interested know.......I have moved my blog. I think I gave everyone the new address. -x-

Friday, February 12, 2016

Birthdays and Daffodils

Alan's Birthday cake for 2016

I have had these football decorations for ages but they still come out every year.
We went out to dinner at Ruby Tuesday's for his birthday, one of our favourites. It was all lovely.

When we came back he blew out his candles and tried the cake.
I'm happy to say it met with his approval.
This year it is a chocolate cake. Last year was a ginger cake, before that there has been a carrot cake and fruit cakes.
I wonder what I will do next year? Any suggestions?

The weather hasn't been very lovely though.
It did this....again....

Mind you Father Christmas and his reindeer look very festive. Well, except the one that has fallen over. His nose is buried in the snow, poor thing.
They managed to get the stakes of some of the decorations out of the ground but these are still totally frozen in.

Of course that resulted in this.
Alan never seems to mind a bit of shovelling, which is just as well. Facebook keeps throwing up memories of "This day 1 year ago"..." This day 2 years ago" ....etc.
Every bloody day, going back 6 years, shows photos of poor Alan shovelling snow.
I think it might have something to do with the time of year :)

To top it all we have horrendously low temperatures again right now. We are going to see the Admiral's ice hockey tonight and I think it will be warmer on the ice than it is outside.
Minus 30 C (with windchill) continuing over the weekend and into next week.
Winter drawers on yet again.
I understand in the UK snowdrops and daffodils are blooming........sigh....I have never seen a daffodil or snowdrop here. I have seen the odd tulip but never until about June.
I do miss them.

I shall just have to make do with this arrangement of daffs and sunflowers, made and sent over to me from England, by an old work colleague.
Thanks Fred. They are still on my kitchen windowsill after all these years.

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Sci Fi.......fond memories.

We went to Binary Bar, the one that Donna recommended, on Thursday evening.
It is quite unusual for me to go out in the evening at the end of January.
But, oh it was so worth it.
There is nothing else like it that I know of in Milwaukee. I am so glad we managed to go during Alanmas as he really enjoyed it.

There is so much memorabilia in this place.

It was like being in 10 Forward or maybe 5 Backwards.

Everywhere you looked there was more cool stuff.

It was very busy when we first arrived but we found a table. We looked at all the games on offer.
You can donate a $1, if you wish, and then play any game you like. There were, board games, card games, trivia....and just loads more.
There were a pool table, air hockey...and various other pub type games.
It was also a brilliant place to people watch. I am good at that.
Everyone seemed so happy and friendly. Even though there were all ages in there, it still reminded me of a student union bar.
Memories of GenCon at Loughborough University came back and the good times we had there.

Every now and then we would go for a walk round and find even more stuff.
The food and drinks were cheap too (again like a student union). They even catered for oddities like me, someone who doesn't eat animals.
I had a veggie burger, salad and chips and it came to $5.
I think the carnivores had burgers too. It was all really good.

Alan and Philip had a few games of darts.
Neither of them had played for years but they did really well. Well, they did a bloody sight better than I would have done.
I blame my poorly hands but, in truth, I was always crap at darts.

Philip on the ockey. I think Eric Bristow would never had anything to worry about but these two did enjoy themselves. So much so, that Philip bought a dartboard the next day.
They played darts in the basement yesterday too, but today there arms hurt so much they couldn't play at all.
I did chuckle. Oh...and look at the sign on the wall....hehehe.

One last photo of Godzilla and the Alien Queen, at least I think that is who it is.
We had a fab night and I hope we go back.
We always say we will but, particularly in the winter, it is very easy to settle in front of the telly, or computer and stay indoors.
We should really try.

Finally, they managed to get some of the Christmas decorations in this weekend.
Not all though. The ground is so frozen that it is impossible to get the stakes out. So, Santa and his sleigh and reindeer are still out there...along with other things.
I wonder if I will be able to put easter eggs in the sleigh this year?

Monday, February 1, 2016

Storm Kayla draws near.

Another winter storm heading our way.
Don't you just love the way they give them all names now.
We've just had winter storm Bella and now her mate Kayla is hurrying to catch up with her.
I am sure it will be lovely....it looks like we are in the 8 - 12 inches bit. There's a novelty.
Alan will have some fun.

Another huge loss.
This has been an awful year so far. So, many well loved celebs have passed away.
Terry Wogan........wasn't he immortal?
I loved him. His gentle humour and sharp wit, got me through many a morning when he had his radio show.
He even read out a story I sent in once.
It was true too.

I had been coming back from London on the train. The ticket inspector was making his way through the train towards me.
He was a rotund, loud and jolly sort of person, who was speaking to everyone as he passed by.
As he got near me, he proclaimed loudly, "Oh yes, I've been on a course you know. Yep, they sent me on a course. We don't have problems anymore. Oh no. We don't have problems anymore we have 'solution opportunities'."

Donna tells me there is a radio show in the UK where you can confess to things you have done...maybe fibs you told your kids or something.
She is trying to make me tell some of the stories I have from my previous 'profession.'

One in particular she likes.
I was supporting my group of 'special needs' kids in a geography lesson. It had been a long, hard and tiring day.
In the text book we were using we came across a picture something like this.....

They were very curious about these cows, but I soon explained it all to them.
These were, I told them, a special breed of cow. They were mountain cows. They were specially bred with little short front legs so that they could stand on the side of the mountain with the little legs towards the top and the longer back legs, farther down. This helped them keep their balance on the slope of the mountain.
They all found this perfectly reasonable and I sometimes wonder if they ever found me out.....or they might even still believe it.
Sometimes when you are in a stressful job you have to have little ways of coping with your day.
It was either things like that or (as I often did) collapsing onto the floor of the staff room saying "Ahhhh Mr Fawlty.....I die here.".

Yes this was often me after coping with my little angels all day.
Happy times.
I might even tell you the one about the apples one day.

Friday, January 29, 2016

Alanmas Dinner

Alanmas Dinner was a huge success.
Starter was lobster (or chicken) ravioli with sage and lemon sauce - delish.
Main course for most of our party was pork medallions with madeira sauce and a conglomeration of vegetables (did you see what I did there? That was all 'cheffy').
I had halibut enrobed in a white wine sauce ( I've gone all 'cheffy' again). I haven't had halibut before but I shall certainly have it again.....enrobed or otherwise.

Then for dessert we had this....

This was a mélange of - apple terrine, a petite apple purse, ice cream with raspberries strewn over.....(getting good at this).

It went down a treat guv. Lubbly Jubbly.

We opened a bottle of fizz to slurp with it.
Many thanks to the chef who did a grand job.

I have to admit it is good to have so many of the family here. Ok, I know this photo looks like the opening of The Simpsons.
I wish all the family could be with us.

Apart from this......we have, what could be, a nasty snow storm heading our way for next Wednesday.
I don't want to complain, but I can if I like, the trouble is we still have all the snow and ice from the last one.

My knee is feeling better. I had a better day yesterday. Rest, it seems, is the key. My trouble is, I don't like sitting about do nothing.
So, as my hands haven't been hurting quite so much (thank goodness), I have been getting on with knitting blankets for the animal rescues.
Today I can walk almost normally but I am still being careful on the stairs. I don't want to bugger it up again.
Hopefully, by tomorrow I should be getting around much more gracefully.

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Whoops

This made me giggle.
There a lot of stickman (Bill) memes showing up on facebook.
They try to tell you how to behave in various circumstances. They get on my wick.
It would seem they get on a lot of people's wicks.
Hopefully they will fade away soon.

I seem to have hurt my knee.
I was putting out the squirrel corn last night and I slipped on, what was once snow, but is now 6 inch deep ice.
I didn't think I had done much damage but after a night of little sleep, I found I could barely walk this morning.
I have had to sit still for most of the day, which I find quite difficult.
Fortunately, it is our Alanmas dinner tonight, cooked by the man himself.
So, at least I don't have to worry about preparing dinner.
He is very busy in the kitchen and the aromas are wonderful.
I shall take photos.

Heh heh.......I can't walk much at the moment but as soon as I can I shall be doing this.

I wonder why people allow themselves to become bitter?
Bitterness, like hatred, is a very destructive emotion.
I rarely use the word 'hate' and never involving a person. I might hate actions, like abuse (child, animal etc) but 'hate' is such a terrible word that I could never use it against a person.
Hate should be reserved for the very worst situations, wars, cruelty, violence and brutality. Even then it just eats away at the hater, making them become more bitter. I have had dreadful, really awful things happen in my life, but it will never make me hate anyone. Well, I suppose this is just my opinion and if people want to hate then they should go right ahead.

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Hello Dolly

We went to see Lauren's high school musical on Friday.
Here is a picture of the cast and stage crew.
Lauren is about 3 in from the right.
At the back you may just see a man with grey hair. He is the Mayor of Milwaukee.
He had come along to see it too.
We hadn't realised he was in the audience.
I had never seen Hello Dolly before and I knew nothing of the plot.
It was wonderful.
Good god there are some amazing voices in that cast. When you are watch it, it is hard to remember that these are high school students.
I love the fact that there were some many guys in it too. The leading man is also on the football team (American football of course). He was a great big lad who looked about 30.
Quite surprising to us that a tough, footballing guy was proud to star in a musical like Hello Dolly.
There was lots of singing and dancing.
So much work had gone into it.
The last performance was this afternoon. Lauren, who was stage crew this time ( she can't do a southern American accent), has really worked hard on this since October.
She loves it.
Alan came with us and even he enjoyed it.

Stage crew.....Lauren 2nd from left.
Well done Ronald Reagan High School. You all did a great job.
I know that the staff put in an awful lot of hours on this too. Well done to them also.

They are already talking about the next production.
There is talk of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (which I really don't like) or West Side Story.
Lauren really wants to do Rocky Horror as she has more of a chance of getting in that than she has West Side Story....accent again.
I asked her to suggest Return to The Forbidden Planet.
I know they could do it and it wouldn't matter what accent you have for that.
We shall see...........
Oops.........time to Reverse Polarity.