here's the O'scoop- about my St Patty's Day

This St Patty's Day I went to the parade with my cousin's Jeanmarie and Colleen  her friend Jim  and her son Landon my husband Bill and our friends Claire and her partner Dewene. 

Claire{ left} Jeanmarie{ center }Dewene{ right }me { back}
at the parade

The parade was great, lot and lots of different floats, bands. Irish groups, bagpipes and others. I have to say I attended this parade years ago and it has grown tremendously these past years, the crowds were huge.

This is a shot down to the end of the parade where the festival was to take place when the parade concluded. It was such a mad house and was so crowded with people we actually skipped it and went to a local restaurant and had lunch. My cousins were having a party so....

We arrived early and got a place on the curb  much like the people in these pictures. Actually I took these pictures which were to the left  and across the street of where we sat. Oh my aching rear end, we didn't bring pillows and the curbs are granite!

St Patty's Day is a big day for people of Irish decent. Actually my Aunt Frances would say everyone is Irish on St Patty's Day! On this day in the company of friends and family, we'll share food and beer, shots of Jameson Irish Wiskey and to listen to Irish music; and we did!

 my cousin colleen thinks if she smiles we're not going to notice she's drinking
Italian beer on St Patty's day, shame shame!

Katie with Jameson Irish Whiskey Jello shots- green jello of course!

Did I mention the funny hats? My husband's hat was so funny he actually got the Guinness truck drivers attention. The man stopped the truck in the middle of the parade to give him a thumbs up on his original head wear.

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Bill, my husband

Hans and Jeanmarie are wonderful hosts and have a beautiful home. Hans cooked up a storm and became Irish for a day, he cooked a ton of corned beef and cabbage, potatoes and carrots and I shouldn't forget to mention that my Mom peeled for him!

Hans O'Schuler taking a quiet moment from all the madness

 We told jokes, sang songs and some of us even wore green hair and red hair,  the more embarrassing the better.  We're very good at it, it's what we do!

Jim and his beautiful flowing green hair

Claire with her cap and red hair wig

Hans and Amy

My cousin Hans who is my favorite beer brewer and his lovely wife came ready to "party" to the party at his parents house. Their little son was visiting with his other grandparents since this was an adults only party!

We returned on Monday, very tired after a few great days hanging out with the cousins and our friends down in Charlotte. I promise once I catch up on things here at home { like sleep} I'll catch up on all my blog reading and commenting.

the scoop - my weekend plans, well glad you asked!

I'm up before the birds this morning. Frankly I usually like to sleep in, but it just wasn't happening this morning. The ole brain was running a mile a minute. Of all the days too! I'm having the girls over for dinner tonight. Small group, just two this time. Many of our group have prior obligations, sick grand-kids, a few are on vacations or spending time with their own visiting adult children, but we're a committed bunch and we  love our little get together's so we do it no matter what.

On the menu tonight for us, Mom and Bill  is arugula salad with olive oil and lemon, a  selection of different home made pizza- meatless since it's Lent { caramelized onion and gorgonzola, cheese } {tomato, mozzarella and fresh basil }{eggplant, artichoke and feta and Greek olives with oregano} with a nice bottle of Narley Head Vin which is a nice red about $10 or so a bottle, very reasonable. For desert I'm making a flan, which is a custard that  I love because it's very light and moderately sweet and goes so well with coffee.

Two days ago was my little brother's birthday, he was 49. Happy birthday baby brother....about that card..... Gerard if you didn't already know is the brother i mention frequently who comes down from NY with his family for holidays and vacations. He is also my son Matthew's godfather, I couldn't have made a better choice! I love you Gerard, can't wait until next year so I can pick on you properly for being old. Uh! who could believe it Matthew that little baby, my son is going to be 30 this summer, hard to believe!

Gerard & Matthew Aug 1982...cuteness right?

I going to a baby shower on Saturday afternoon. My friend Bertha is going to be a grandmother, her daughter-in-law is expecting a little girl in about nine weeks. This is her first shower thrown by several of the mothers that were an important part of Bertha's son's life growing up. And Lauren the new mom, well it's her first baby....it's a very exciting time! I know I had a good time shopping for all those cute necessities, crib sheets, baby blankets and soothers; good times for me too.

Having the girls over pushed me to get the house back in order, it's been quite a mess! The painting of our great room has been done for days but I was being very lazy at putting everything back together and put away. Pictures of the before and after will follow in another post some time soon.....

Other than that things are all good here! How about you, any plans this weekend?

the scoop- a bunch of randomness

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days, you know how it is life gets in the way. I had a boomer of a migraine since my last post. I usually get about one a month but this weather has been so crazy it's been a trigger for more than my usual. My doctor who has worked with me for years to get me to a minimum of headaches joked saying he wanted to bottle me because he's been pleased with my headache health. Anyhoo...this one sent me back to bed and believe you me I haven't done that in years. We had originally planned on starting our painting adventure but add some paint fumes to a horrid migraine and my head probably would have exploded all over the living room.

On Saturday, dragging my ass literally with a headache hangover I removed all the crap from the walls and removed every bit of china and all those neat glasses with the gold from my parents old mid century modern break-front and Bill painted from behind the fridge thru under the balcony. The green is so yummy and although bright it is so serene compared to the yellow that was up before. We've decided not to put the break-front back, I think I'm gonna sell it on Craig's List along with some of the china. Mom gave me the OK to sell the furniture since she and. Dad purchased the piece back in the late 60's maybe early 70's then for about $125.00. Don't know what I'll get for it now but we can't put it in the garage, it's already overflowing with stuff.

there two drawers and the two pieces of sliding glass too!

I confess I have a lot of stuff, I have a huge side board filled to the brim with stuff too, 30+ years of china and glasses and tea sets and things people give me, two sets of silver because heck one isn't enough when you have a family of seven and it's a service of eight! Your not a hoarder if it's stored neatly are you? Because I've had this china for years and I've never used it once? To be honest we inherited these beautiful dishes (some dinner plates are missing from the set) so that kinda makes them rather lacking in function but I hate to part with them for the sentimental value.I think it's time however to see what I can do about selling them.

nice huh?

Now I don't give a darn if I have to stick these babies to the ceiling and space is lacking in my side board but I'm not getting rid of these glasses. I love these things! Bill's uncle left them to us, my parents had ones like this too, all gold and glittery in every different size, stemmed and tall glasses too. How'd ya like to sip your Shirley Temple outa one of these babies?

Today we took Mom shopping and then to lunch, it's Friday so it's fish today, being Lent and all! We had fantastic little shrimp baskets at a local restaurant before hitting the market. Mom was happy to get out of the house and cold weather is not her friend. Remember just the other day when I posted pictures of our first snow? first-snow Today here in Virginia it was 80 degrees, unbelievable and what can only be described as tornado weather.

Oh crap, the thunder is starting to rumble outside now so I better rap this up before we loose power, that's been known to happen here!

The scoop, what's on my mind today

Gosh today is one yucky day, and I'm not only talking about how I'm feeling but I'm talking about the weather too! Mine started off with one zinger of a migraine, I hate waking up with them, that's the way it goes with me.  I always awaken with them. Then I was off to the doctor for some answers about the sudden onset of that joint pain that started two weeks ago. Well, if you missed it it wasn't Lyme's Disease, good news. My full blood panel came back normal, I'm normal, go figure! Seriously, all levels all organs working as they should and the pee in the cup tests wasn't any more humiliating then it normally is....., more good news. So we're left with the answer; why did Jen have such bad joint pain that made her run to the doctor like a little cowering weenie? And I'm not a little cowering weenie! My doctor's answer is, he doesn't have an answer at least not from any of the tests results! Do I have a condition like arthritis...maybe but that would just be guessing and I don't go to my doctor to guess. Can my joint pain be a symptom of another condition, maybe maybe not! So for now we are both just content to watch and wait.

After the doctor we went to Denny's for a late breakfast, last time we went there the service had a lot to be desired, but we were starving and Mom's a diabetic and she wanted egg's so, Mom rules. Anyway as we waited to be served this lady went up to the register to pay her bill and very loudly yelled at the girl about how long she waited, how bad the food was, how cold the food was, how bad the service was, she thought the bill was incorrect and so on. I really don't know if any of her complaints were warranted but it kind of struck me as this kid behind the counter cowered as this rather large loud woman screamed at her that there's a difference between lodging an appropriate complaint for bad or incompetent service and then there just plain bitching for the sake of being mean. I'm all for the former, the latter is wholly inappropriate, enough said!

Have I mentioned that Bill and I have decided to paint our great room? Last week we went to Home Depot and got a bunch of those little sample paints and put them up all over the wall to see how they looked on the wall at different points of the day.We have windows on the east, south and west so there's lots of sun that affects the color at various points of the day. The color we have now is sort of a maize color, anyway I really really wanted a color in the orange family but it just wasn't going to work in such a large space (living, dining, kitchen and balcony), its just to much color. We also picked a bunch of different bright and fresh greens so that's what we're going with a color called grass something or other.We really like color and are not afraid to use it. I'll put before and after pictures once we get going on the painting, most likely after this weekend.