And it's all Adam's fault. Let me explain. For my birthday, Adam bought me 2 Scrapbook layout materials. But Nicole, you don't scrapbook. Well that's true I don't, yet. You see a friend of mine from college is a Stampin Up dealer, and Jess and I went to a stamp party she was having. I got so excited about the idea of stamping and scrapbooking after that, but I couldn't bring myself to spend the money on yet another hobby that I wasn't going to really follow thru on. So what did Adam do, he spent the money for me. Now I'm all excited about starting scrapbooking, and what does he go do? He buys me all the stuff I need to make hand stamped Christmas cards for our anniversary! The man is fueling the fire!
I've already planned the layout completly for one of the pages he bought me for my birthday. and the second one is in the works, I just have to hunker down and pick pictures. But why do I have this sinking suspicion that he just wants me to have another hobby so he can spend more time on his hobbies without getting crap from me....oh I hope I haven't caught MHS from him!!!
Re: Failure to Perform Duties set forth by your employer - The People of the State of Illinois
Dear Rod,
This is to inform you that your actions as Governor of the State of Illinois are unacceptable. The duties expected of your position have not been fulfilled. We, the people of the State of Illinois and your Employer, wish to notify you that your Resignation needs to be filed within the next 30 days.
List of Greivances:
You have squandered your budget and spend money not authorized to you
You have enabled criminals to continue their actions, therefor not protecting the citizens
You have refused to live in your appointed housing
You have billed us for unauthorized travel expenses
You refuse to work in the office appointed to you. We have not authorized Telecommuting.
You have threatened to block access to public lands. We, the people of Illinois, own these lands, not you.
You have blatantly lied on your statement of applications. Promises made have not been fulfilled. As is standard with applications for employment, falsifying statements can result in termination.
When hired, you were expected to work well with others hired by us. You have failed to do so, up to and including open fighting with your co-workers.
You have eliminated or reduced vital services that we wish to provide.
You have billed us for unauthorized personal grooming expenses.
You have been implicated in connections with Known Convicted Criminals. Your employer (us) can not risk an employee tarnishing the public opinion of the general population.
Again, I restate, the People of the State of Illinois and your Employer, hereby notify you that your job performance is unacceptable. We expect your resignation letter shortly. We want to end this employment relationship as amiably as possible. No hard feelings, and we hope you find employment elsewhere and in a position that fits your skills and desires.
Sincerly,
Your Employer, The People of the State of Illinois
I finally did it. Last night I went out and attacked some of the weeds in the garden. Adam had taken the string trimmer to the section of the garden that was growing nothing but weeds on Sunday, but hadn't gotten to any of the purposely planted areas. Last night after work, I tackled the area around the tomato and pepper plants. Now I have to admit that it wasn't my intention when I headed out to the garden to attack the weeds, but rather to save the tomato plants. You see we didn't get cages around all of them when they were planted, and now about half of them were FAR too big to hold up their own weight. Adam had tried to tie them up, but even that wasn't holding. So after a trip to Wally World and Fleet Farm I was out there armed with bamboo stakes and old tiki torches trying to support these poor plants. However, in order to figure out where the base of the tomato plants were to stake them up properly, I had to get rid of the weeds too. SO be it. Now the tomatoes are completely weeded, and I'm motivated to do the zucchini and acorn squash next. Maybe
Something totally wierd happened today. After work I went out to pull some weeds from and take a look at our finally blossoming garden. Adam and I have a very large garden in our backyard, and although we only planted about half of it purposefully this year (the other half planted itself) it's coming alone quite nicely. We've got several tomato plants, peppers, zucchini, acorn squash, eggplant, cucumbers, snow peas and green beans all coming up. Some stuff is doing better than others, the zucchini and acorn squash are trying to take over, and weve gotten some decent snow peas, but much to my dismay the cucumbers have not really done well. Last year the cucumbers that I planted from seed never came up at all, so this year I bought 3 starter plants. I put the in mounds at the beginning of the season, at the same time I planted the zucchini from seed, and hoped things would be better this year. Today when I went out to weed, I noticed that we had cucumber plants finally, but some really big thistles had appeared in the middle of them. I went and got my gloves and pulled out the biggest one to discover that it wasn't a weed at all, but a TURNIP! in the middle of the cucumber plant!!! We didn't plant any turnips!!! How it got there I am clueless, but there were some in each of the hills. I pulled 6 or 7 in total ranging in size from like a large radish to bigger than Adam's fist! Talk about wierd!
Well Adam and I made it back from Washington state safe and sound, and oh my goodness what a crazy week that was! For those of you who don't know, last week Adam and I traveled to Deer Lake in Washington (near Spokane) for a Shake family reunion. This was a big deal for 2 reasons. 1. Adam has not seen most of his Dad's extended family since 1984, and anyone for at least 10 years and 2. Since Adam has not seen anyone for at least 10 years, I had never met any of his extended family! We had a really good time with all of them, ate FAR too much, and laughed so hard we cried many a time. I am so glad we made the trip, it was definitly a priceless experience.
I'm sure Adam will have lots more to say, but I felt we needed to get something up. I will be working on pictures tonight and tomorrow, and I promise captions, however realize that posting pictures with captions will take longer.
I just wanted to say Happy Fathers Day to all you fathers out there. Being a dad isn't always easy, but all the Fathers I know do pretty well at it. Hope you all have a great, relaxing day.
Today is a very sad day for me. Today was the auction of all the sets, props, costumes, and everything else that was in Creatures Crypt Haunted House. That event holds some really special memories for Adam and I, including our first date away from campus way back in 1998. (WOW can you believe it's been that long!!!) Adam volunteered there for all 12 seasons, and I've been involved for 10.
John and Laura, we love you. Thank you for so many years of fun. We will never forget the great times we've had and the good friends we've madebecause of Creatures Crypt.
Sunday after church, Brian and Damion joined me for a brew day. We put together a kit from Brewers Best. Specifically, their Red Ale. It was a good time, and a good chance to use some new equipment. We got to try out a new burner/kettle stand, my new Keggle, and my DIY copper Immersion Cooler. Was very entertaining and a good day.
2nd Item - Building a Bar
Nicole and I have been working slowly on building a custom wet bar for our basement/family room area. It will be an 8 foot bar with a draft tower serving 2 different home brewed beer (see the connection to #1). We are taking our time on this project to spread out the cost, but its been fun so far, even with some less-than-straight 2x4s... hehehe
Both pictures are links to the gallerys with more pics, so enjoy!!
I did no editing, no sorting, no removing blurry or bad, but over 400 pics of our cruise are in the gallery. You can either click "gallery" or find the link in this article. Shouldn't be tough.
Official Letter of Reprimand to Rod Blagojevich
