2008 - A year in pictures from the House of Crackers

January

My hooligans watching a little TV together

(without fighting over who should sit where - a minor miracle)

February
The Cracker Family does Disney

March

Wow - Mr. Crackers builds a snowman larger than any member of the family.

It takes weeks to melt away

April

(not really - this is also March. I just didn't take any good pictures in April)

All dressed up on Easter Sunday.

May

A reluctant flower - Mother's Day pageant @ C's pre-school

June

Vacation with all of the extended Cracker Family in North Carolina.

(I am craving a little warm beach time right now!)

July

With friends at the local balloon festival

August

K & C head off for the first week of school.

August #2

My 20th High School reunion: not at all scary like I initially feared!

Had a terrific time with"old" friends!

September

C has fun in the first batch of leaves that fall.

October

Halloween fun

November

Sadie just hates having her picture taken.

She must've been a paparazzi-shy celebrity in her past life.

December

The family Christmas card

Happy New Year from my House of Crackers to yours!

I hope 2009 brings you and your loved ones health and happiness!

My very own mini-me

The Christmas and birthday festivities are winding down here at the House of Crackers. The tree is down in anticipation of some house guests who will be arriving at our home this evening and who will be staying with us for the week. Since we bought the tree right after Thanksgiving, we thought it prudent to take it down before it burst into flames right in front of our guests one evening. Although it would make the trip more exciting, it would also send them home sooner than we would like.

Looking back over the past week, I have to say that this year's Christmas was really nice and peaceful. There was a lot less rushing around. We enjoyed what we were doing rather than worrying where we had to be next.

Mr. Crackers and I had a blast watching the kids open their gifts this year. While C exhibited the normal level of excitement over each present he opened, K took everything to an even higher level. A level not seen since I myself was just a young hooligan.

You see, when I was small I would get so excited about the act of receiving and opening a gift that I would declare loudly "It's just what I always wanted!" after opening every single gift. I would do this even if I had absolutely no idea what the gift actually was. This was brought home very clearly one year when I opened a particular present on Christmas morning & declared my undying love for it. My parents had cleverly deduced that I had no idea what it was.

And so, they asked me, "Karen do you know what it is?"

"Yes, it's a book!!" I probably shouted loudly & excitedly.

"Yes, honey, but what kind of book is it? Do you know?"

"Yes, it's a Dick Toyon Airy!" I called back.

"Umm, honey, read it again" Mom said ever so patiently (And probably sadly, as she was now discovering that her eldest born daughter may perhaps be just a little bit dumb).

"It's a Dick Toyon Airy! Thanks Mom and Dad!"

"Honey, please read it again, more slowly" (At this point she was probably thinking she'd like to set up a conference with my teachers once school was back in session...)

"What? Isn't it a Dick Toyon Airy?"

If memory serves, it took at least 1 to 2 more tries and then some direct intervention from my Mother until at last I understood what I was looking at - A dictionary. Here it is, I still have it:

Darn those tricky bastards at Thorndike-Barnhart! Why can't they just put the letters all together to spare their young readers some embarrassment?

I'm not sure a dictionary was ever met with such enthusiasm before or since. Even after discovering the true identity of the gift, my love for it did not dim. To this day, I am teased mercilessly (& rightly) for my enthusiasm over things that I often do not fully understand.

So, you can imagine my own amusement as K started to exhibit this same tendency for excitement about gifts even when she had no idea what they were. Several times this Christmas, she declared "Look Momma, it's just what I always wanted!" And, when I asked her what it was, I would hear back, "I don't know! Isn't it beautiful?" Ahhh, the enthusiasm of youth! It is what makes Christmas so fun.

So far, all the gifts seem to pretty big hits with both of my hooligans. K's Christmas gifts were primarily in the 3 themes of horses, princesses or furniture for her doll house.

C received a lot of Legos (he especially loves the Star Wars ones), cars and Playmobil sets.

I know they must love their gifts because they have asked several times if instead of watching TV, could they please play with their new toys? Yes! I am very psyched about this new development. Hopefully, this excitement will not wane before school starts up again next week.

Now I am just hoping they can share those new toys with our houseguests who will be arriving in about an hour. What are the chances our week will remain this peaceful? Hmmm, I'll try to keep an optimistic (dare I say enthusiastic?) outlook.

My hooligan turns 6

Here at the House of Crackers, December is not only filled with Christmas cheer, it is also chocked full of birthday celebrations. My sister, two of my nieces, 5 of our neighborhood friends and my own hooligan C all celebrate their birthdays within 2 weeks of Christmas. I must say, it makes for a more stressful and expensive fun holiday season!

Today is C's birthday - my baby boy turned 6! We had a small family party featuring his favorite meal - spaghetti & meatballs. We'll have the party for his friends in a couple of weeks after everyone recovers from their post holiday hang-overs. C wants a Star Wars theme this year & he wants to have the party at home. He has become quite the homebody lately. There was nothing myself or Mr. Crackers could say or do to entice him into having his party at another venue where less damage would be inflicted on our house. So now I am trying to figure out what I can do to keep 6-8 boys his age happy and entertained without destroying the place. I am currently having nightmares about arming 6 boys with inflatable lightsabers. I'm not there yet, thank goodness I still have about 2 weeks to figure out a plan. Any ideas?

Anyway, in honor of C's birthday today, I thought I'd share 6 pictures with you. One from every year.

Here he is at about 4 months old. Those blocks saw a lot of action...

This one was taken in October 2004 - he was about 21 months old (just shy of 2)

Here he is breaking in the new playset that Mr. Crackers built for him. He's just shy of 2 1/2 here.

I have always loved this one. Summer 2006 at the beach on St. Georges Island, Florida

This one was taken in 2007 at the Children's Museum in Indianapolis.

November 2008 in our front yard playing in the leaves (still in his school uniform). All of his smiles lately have been the open mouth kind to better show off those missing bottom teeth.

I can't believe how big he's gotten. Sometimes it feels like just a moment ago he was still in diapers. Happy Birthday C! May the force be with you.

The final hours....

The presents are all wrapped.
The reindeer food has been sprinkled on the lawn.
The Christmas outfits are laid out on the beds.
K is taking a short nap.

We head to church in an hour to kick off our Christmas festivities. This year we'll head to my parent's church to celebrate with them. Then it's back to their house for a wonderful dinner followed by some dessert shared with neighbors we have known and loved since I was a very small girl.

Then it's time to open a few gifts before returning home to get my hooligans down for thier "long winters nap" & so Mr. Crackers & I can fill stockings and get ready for the early morning wake-up call from those very same hooligans.

Tomorrow morning the family will come to our house for a new tradition - brunch at the House of Crackers. Hopefully I've purchased everything I need for the casserole & quiche. If not, I'm sure I can throw something else together. At this point I'm just enjoying the ride.

Merry Christmas to you and yours from the House of Crackers!

Some good news, and some wait 'n see

A couple of days ago, I told you in an issue we discovered on Mr. Cracker's credit card,where the company RESERVATION REWARDS had been charging us $10.00 a month (for the past 20 or so months) without our knowledge to the tune of a little over $200.00! Since we already covered in that post how stupid we are how it came to pass that it took us so long to discover these recurring charges, I won't rehash that again. (You can check out the whole story here.)

I did want to check back though & give you the good news - I looked today & true to their word, the folks at RESERVATION REWARDS credited our card for all the charges they had made since March 2007. Even though I still maintain that their marketing efforts are just plain sneaky, I respect the fact that they made the whole restitution thing as easy as they did. I was anticipating months of back and forth to get it resolved. It was a nice surprise to find them so amiable to make the situation right.

I'll take that $200.00 back, thank you very much!

Unfortunately, I can't say I have good news to report on the whole iKitchen front. I can already tell that it is not going to be resolved as easily as our issue with Reservation Rewards. I have found as many complaints about iKitchen as I have freckles on my left arm (in short, there are a lot!). It appears that iKitchen may indeed be in the business of defrauding people out of money by taking orders for goods that they have no plans on ever shipping. Buyer beware, for this site looks legitimate. I also discovered after doing more research that the guy who operates iKitchen also runs the following websites with similar results:

EKitchenGadgets.com

KitchenHomeGadgets.com

KitchenKaboodles.com

HomeBrands.com

MetroMarket.com

Red-Tag.com

GiantSavings.com

OfficialRedTagSale.com

dotcomproject.com

Kitchen and Home Concepts HCG Logistics

It would appear that you have as much chance of receiving an item that you paid for from the sites listed above as you would fitting into the jeans you wore back in high school.

Not even in high school did I look this good in a pair of jeans...

In short, it looks like you'd be throwing money away by ordering from these companies, so save yourself the hassle and the money & don't do it.

Since I don't want to end this post on such a down note, I'll give you a little more good news just to put your minds at ease. I know you will all be happy to know that Mr. Crackers has already gotten me a new present to replace the one we clearly won't be receiving from iKitchen. I knew you'd be worried about it - no fear, I will have something to open on Christmas morning. Whew, that's one less burden for you to be carrying around. I hope knowing that I have something to open will help make your Christmas a little brighter! You're welcome.

Happy Birthday Linda

Today is my sister Linda's 37th birthday. In past years she & her family have traveled the 4 plus hours in holiday traffic to stay at my parents' house for Christmas and a small birthday celebration. This year, she and her family have opted to stay home to start their own family traditions. We will miss them this year, but completely understand their desire for a less hurried, more peaceful Christmas celebration without all the rushing around. (This is one of the big reasons Mr. Crackers & I moved back to Ohio from Atlanta 4 years ago. We wanted to be closer to family & honestly those holiday trips were real killers!)


In honor of Linda's birthday, I present to you a photo montage of my younger sister, because nothing says I love you more than a bunch of embarrasing pictures posted on the internet. I kid, I kid because I love. (Don't worry Linda, there aren't too many oldies in the mix- I haven't gotten them scanned into my computer yet, so you are safe. But, just wait until next year - hee, hee, hee!)

Here she is as just a wee thing. I am not sure why I am standing over her, but I am sure I had no thoughts except for loving ones for my new baby sister.

Right Ma?

Ummm...I think she's starting to lean a little to the side. Help someone??

It may look like I am pushing my way into a picture trying to steal the limelight, but I am sure I was just protecting her from the glare of the photographers... I only had her best interests at heart. I'm sure that somewhat worried look has nothing to do with the way I appear to be pushing against her head with my own.

Right Ma?

Yes, I know I've shown this one before. I love it though, so here it is again!

Here she is with her husband & her son A. A beautiful family, are they not?

Such a good aunt. Here she cuddles with my baby K on a visit soom after her birth.

This one is from our family vacation a couple of years ago. That's Linda's daughter M. What a cutie!

Here's Momma Linda with her two hooligans taken in summer 2007. According to my uncle, Linda & I are just like bookends. Somehow we managed to have boys just 7 months apart, followed by girls 11 months apart. Built in friends as well as cousins. It worked out really well!

Finally, a shot taken last year right after her birthday party. She got a pair of slippers that actually fit her feet! I can't find the shot where she is opening the gift, but trust me it was a good one. She was very excited. Linda suffers from a genetic disorder passed to her from our father. We call it Fat Feet Syndrome. Unfortunately, neither can buy shoes (or slippers) in places that the rest of us do. I think this was the first pair of slippers that she had owned in years. Thank goodness for Nordstroms & Zappos!

Happy Birthday Linny Linda - hope you are having a great day! Love you!

Scam hunting 101: a beginners course

You know how you sometimes go looking for one thing & accidentally uncover something else entirely? Have you ever, without your knowledge, given a random company your credit card number and then allowed them to charge you $10.00 a month for services you wouldn't even use even if you knew they existed? And, have you ever done this for so long that you suddenly find out that you have given them $200.00 of your hard earned money for no reason what-so-ever?!! Aaarrrrggghh!


Never mind the screaming, that's just me & Mr. Crackers finally realizing that, through a series of small misunderstandings & oversights, we are the dumbest people in America we have thrown $200.00 right into the trash. Bitter? Me? Never!

And so, let me share with you my many readers reader, how we uncovered a sneaky scam that cheated us out of money right under our very noses for almost 2 years. It all started back in March 2007, when my husband ordered some flowers for his boss from FTD online after hearing that he had a heart attack. (That Mr. Crackers can be a very thoughtful guy!) After he hit the purchase button & finalized his order, a pop-up asked him if he would like a $10.00 rebate good toward his next FTD purchase. All he needed to do to redeem the rebate was to re-enter his email address. Being the man he is, he clicked yes & entered his email address to save himself some dough on his next floral purchase (here, I like to imagine he was going to get me some flowers -something big and showy like a 2 dozen roses in assorted colors. A girl can dream...)


But, instead of a rebate, entering his email address apparently authorized the company RESERVATION REWARDS to charge his credit card $10.00 a month for services we never wanted. It did this without even asking for his credit card information again. Let me repeat: he only gave them his email address. He never provided RESERVATION REWARDS with his credit card info, nor did he authorize them to sign us up as "members" for their services. Somehow this bunch of shady characters company was able to access his credit info directly from the FTD site!!!

And so, for the past 20 months RESERVATION REWARDS (notice how I keep saying their name to remind you who you should be wary of? Clever, huh?) has been charging us $10.00 a month for nothing, nada, zilch.

You may now be thinking, " Mrs. Crackers, are you guys completely idiots or what? why didn't you or your husband catch the $10.00 monthly charge?" Well my friends friend we actually did, but due to a slight misunderstanding and a small communication error we thought (I guess I should say, I thought) that the charges were a recurring business expense for a website that my husband hosts for his company. I also assumed (again in error) that we were getting reimbursed for this monthly expense. So, I diligently (& later found out stupidly) logged the monthly charges into Microsoft Money as I paid all of our bills without giving it a second glance.

If not for a problem Mr. Crackers was having with another company we believed may have been scamming us, we would never have discovered what was going on.

Last night, Mr. Crackers asked me to pull up his unbilled activity on his Visa card online. You see, he had ordered my Christmas present from a company neither of us had ever heard of called iKitchen (I'll just point out here that I did give him a link where he could buy the gift from a more reputable place, but he found it cheaper there...) and he had no word on the status of his order. Not only that, when he tried to reach customer service, he discovered that the only way to reach them was via email - they had no phone service. This of course started to make him a little nervous. He had emailed iKitchen to check on the status of his order & (not surprisingly) had never heard back from them. Getting more and more leery of this company, he wanted to check his Visa to see if they had billed him for something that it appeared we may never receive. As I had a vested interest in all of these goings on (it was my gift after all!) I jumped at the chance to help him investigate what was happening.

It was during this search that we found the $10.00 charge from Reservation Rewards.

Mr. Crackers turned to me & asked "Ummm, what's that charge for?"

I politely replied "Oh, you know, that's the monthly charge for your website."

"Uh, no, it's not", Mr. Crackers replied, "that charge is on my American Express Card."

I will now spare you the ten minutes of not so polite back & forth where we eventually learned that perhaps we don't always do such a bang up job of listening to and/or understanding each other as we had previously thought.

After doing a bit of research online, we found countless articles that warned readers about the bad bit of business trickery that RESERVATION REWARDS uses to scam people who think they are getting rebates into paying a small monthly fee on their cards that may go undetected for, let's just say, as many as 20 months!

Mr. Crackers immediately called the customer service number we found & after a few minutes of talking, got someone who agreed to shutdown our "membership" and refund the $200.00 they had stolen charged us within the next 3-5 days. Now, I am not sure yet if this will actually come to pass, but I just wanted to send a warning to all of my readers, to you my friends, to you Mom not to get sucked into this terrible scam. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we can resolve this issue with them as quickly and as smoothly as possible. I have my doubts, but I will keep you updated.

Please learn a lesson from us, the dumbest people in America the Cracker family, and resist the urge to respond to pop-ups promising great rebate deals, even if they just want your email address. Afterall, you may just be one click away from a slow and random draining of your cash reserves.

Christmas Cards

In honor of the fact that I finally got my Christmas cards mailed today, here is an early preview of the family photo that will grace the front of the card this year. Not too shabby. Some (namely me) would even say it looks professionally done.

I owe a Thank You (get it? a big thank you? Yes I know I am a dork!) to my Dad who patiently tried to capture the attention of both of my hooligans while we froze outside without our coats in 25 degree weather. This because I thought it would be "really cool" to get a picture in front of the big pine tree in our front yard. Never mind that it was freezing outside that day. Maybe that's why we all looked a little pale in the photo this year.

Well, I do have to say one thing, the cold temperature was a good motivator!

"Smile for Grandpa kids and then Mommy will let you go back in the house."

Thankfully my hooligans' need for warmer temps overrode their need to ham it up in front of the camera. We were able to get the photo done in just a few minutes - a record for us.

Thanks again Dad, I love the picture!

We've got a lot of hope hanging on 2009.

I interrupt what would normally be another blog about holiday cheer and merriment to bring you some important news: The economy is bad. I know that is not really what you would call breaking news (an investigative reporter I am not!), but it is really and truly starting to freak me out a bit.

The city that I live near is a GM town. The automaker has contributed to the local economy in the form of jobs at their local plants as well as all of the jobs in the companies who tie their existence to the auto industry. This includes steel plants, engineering firms, auto supply manufacturers and the hundreds of other small businesses around town who rely on the auto makers for their livelihood. This is not a post about the auto industry, they are just one of the more recent victims of the recent economic downturn. I read an article on Yahoo last week that named the town 12 miles to the south of us as one of America's Top 10 Dying Cities.

I've been watching all the news reports on the economy, just as I know you have. Mr. Crackers & I (like countless other Americans) have watched our retirement accounts & kid's college funds dwindle to mere shadows of their former value. But for some reason none of this really started to freak me out until it started affecting our friends & family in a much more direct way.

About a month ago the woman who lives next door to me, who by the way is raising 5 boys between the ages of 10-17, lost her job. Did I mention that she is a single Mom, raising these boys on her own? Yes, her husband lives about 15-20 miles away, but he's not what you call "involved" in the finances or the actual hands-on raising of the kids. So, my neighbor has been hard at work trying to find a new job. She has been focusing her efforts on a couple of local universities, so that she can get reduced tuition for her boys when it comes time for college. She figures the salary cut she'll take will be more than off-set by the savings she'll get on their education. She's an attorney & one smart cookie. I am hoping that 2009 will bring her some good news in the form of a new job.

Today we heard some more upsetting news. The engineering firm where a good friend of ours worked was closed today. They shut their doors at 3:00 & told the employees that they hope to re-open right after the New Year. There was no advanced warning & there will be NO PAY until the company opens it's doors again. This family has 3 sons, 2 of whom are my son's very best friends in the whole world. We see them almost every day either during our daily carpool to school, in church or just running around the neighborhood. Tonight, we were supposed to go to a Christmas light display together in a neighboring town to soak up some holiday cheer. Instead they will be sitting down to figure out how to make the money they have in their bank account last them until the next paycheck comes.

They are a single income family like we are, so I know it will be extremely tight. We've invited them over for dinner tonight & we will do whatever we can to help them through the next few weeks. I hope they decide to come and eat with us. We will pray and keep our fingers crossed that the plant opens back up in the New Year and that his job & pay will be restored.

I could go on about other people who have been affected by this downturn - whether they be relatives of our friends or other neighbors (I won't even mention here my parents who are just 1 year into retirement & have already seen the value of their investments plummet more than I can fathom. Ooops, well I guess I did just mention it, didn't I?). These are truly freighting times.

Mr. Crackers & I have have been trying to tighten our own belts just in case. We have racked up some debts of our own while I have taken off work the last few years to stay home with the kids. We figured that we would get ourselves back into the black once I rejoined the workforce in a few years. But I am now afraid we might not have a few years to wait. We need to get ourselves in a better position financially now, just in case we get caught up in this whole mess too. I fear that no matter what we do it will not be enough. As we discussed all of these goings on earlier, Mr. Crackers & I decided that we need to do more - so we will be joining our good friends and try to live off much less. I'm not sure how we will do it, but until things turn around in the economy we need to make it happen.

I know that it might be a bit early to start talking about wishes for the New Year. We haven't even gotten to Christmas yet, but as this is all happening now, I'm going to do it anyway. So here is my wish for 2009: I hope that it brings more security (whether that means financial security, better health or keeping you and those you love out of harm's way) to all of us. I think we all could use it.

Now, we return you to your normally scheduled programming of Christmas Merriment.

Sleep in heavenly peaks

I know I have been absent for quite a few days, so here is what's been shakin' at the House of Crackers.

On Sunday, Mom, Grandma & I spent the day completing our annual Christmas cookie bake-off. It was fun as usual & we had some laughs as we baked our 9 different types of sweet confections.

I can assure you that none of our cookies looked like these! This image is courtesy of Google images.

As Mr. Crackers insists on telling me all the time will tell you, I am a messy cook. So, this year I finally remembered to wear an apron. In addition to the usual wreckage I inflict on myself while I bake, it came in handy when I dumped an entire cup of powdered sugar down the front of me. Of course, my shoes were not as lucky as my clothes. Next year I'll have to buy some of those surgical covers, so my footwear can also escape the mayhem that ensues while I am in the kitchen. Thankfully, the damage wasn't too great & I was able to get most of the sugar off of my suede boots later that evening.

After just a couple burned batches (neither Mom nor I are good at multi-tasking in the kitchen), we finally found our groove and managed to get all of our baking accomplished.

Here's this year's list:
Russian Tea Cakes
Shortbread Stars
Chocolate Raspberry Linzer Cookies
Chocolate pinwheels
Gingerbread Cookies
Dreams (a butter cookie recipe passed down from my Great-Grandma)
Jam Thumbprints
Spritz
Rugelach (kind of)

Due to a somewhat tragic dough mix up, this last batch will be remade by Mom later this week.

At the end of the day, the Cracker children came by to help decorate some gingerbread people & to dump entire containers of sprinkles put some sprinkles on the spritz cookies. If you have never decorated cookies with kids before, you've been missing a lot of saliva in your cookies fun.

C's become something of a perfectionist lately, but K's rule of decorating is: some sprinkles for the cookies, some sprinkles for me. I am hoping some of those germs burned off in the baking process. If not, my advice would be to avoid the cookies that look like they were decorated by my kids. They are not hard to miss ! (I think I left these pictures in my Dad's camera - I'll have to post 'em later!)

On Tuesday, C had his Christmas program at school. This was my first such event as a parent and it was much better than I thought it was going to be. It was the tale of the very first Christmas. All of the kids did a great job, even if it was hard to make out what some were saying. It was nice because all of the kids really got into it, they are still young enough that they really let their enthusiasm shine right through.

That's C - up in the top row on the far left. You know, the handsome kid with the brown hair!

The program alternated between songs & spoken word. Every kindergartner got a chance to go to the front & have their moment to shine. Even the shy ones got up there, but went with another child for moral support. As C has never had a shy day in his life, he was very comfortable saying his line alone on the mic in front of everyone.

C's turn at the mic:

"The man took them to his barn, where he kept his sheep and cows and all his other animals..."

After his moment in the spotlight, he returned to his place on the risers where the children continued their recital including the song Silent Night. Try as we might, none of us (my parents included) can convince C that the words at the end of the song are "Sleep in Heavenly Peace". He insists on singing Heavenly Peaks. We tried to point out to him that this makes no sense, but he will not listen to our crazy brand of adult logic. It makes me wonder what else he was singing up there....

Sleep in Heavenly Peaks, Sleep in Heavenly Peaks

After the concert we adjourned to the kids classroom where we made the cutest nativity set out of clay pots, wooden beads and small pieces of cloth. I am not crafty at all, but I thought it was really cool.

Baby Jesus' head is somewhere under that blanket - you'll just have to trust me on that.

Once our art project was done there was a little time left for my hooligan to mix it up with all of his best hooligan buddies...

They just look like trouble don't they?

Then we got to leave early & it was time for a quick hot chocolate run before we picked K up from school.

Oh yes, and then we made the second run of the day to Starbuck's once K got in the car and IMMEDIATELY noticed our empty hot chocolate cups...we were so busted!

That should pretty much bring you up to speed on the goings on around here. Have a restful evening & may you sleep in heavenly peaks.

The car wash: embarassing & awkward.

In an earlier post, I proclaimed my love for my new mini-van. I got it this past summer & I had been doing a pretty good job keeping it clean during the warmer months. Funny how that first blast of cold weather stopped me right in my tracks. There is nothing that can get me to wash the car myself once the temperature gets below 60 degrees. I am too much of a wuss.


And so, my beloved new car has been getting dirtier & dirtier. I finally decided today I could take it no more, so K & I drove over to the local car wash. Since my carpeting was all covered in mud & hay (don't ask), I decided the time had come for the full treatment. This place is more expensive than the gas station, but they will vacuum & dust the inside of your car after you go through their automatic car washing tunnel (or whatever you call those things you drive through).

Courtesy of Google images
Can someone tell me why there are so many nearly naked & wet women when you type in a search for Car wash on google images?

It must be a guy thing!

First the embarrassment:

So, I get through the automatic part of the car wash fine.... and just as my car is emerging (but still on those track things that guide your car though), a bearded guy rushes toward my car with a towel. The rear part of my car is still being washed, but I guess this guy was feeling uber efficient, so he decided to get a head start on the drying process. The problem though was that I was afraid I was going to hit him with my car. He was like the energizer bunny. He was darting & ducking & I was having trouble keeping him in sight.

All of the sudden he startled me by appearing at the front driver side bumper (I'm still not sure how he got there so quickly). As he approached my door he started talking to me. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I figured it was pretty important, so I decided to stick my head out the window, so I could hear him over all of the noise. But, since I obviously just gone through the car wash, MY WINDOWS WERE ALL CLOSED! So instead of sticking my head out, what I really did was manage to smack my melon so hard against the glass, that I SHATTERED MY SUNGLASSES COMPLETELY (I was using them as a headband. I was not wearing them on my face rock-star style in a dark car wash. Just an FYI).



Thankfully, my head is hard as a rock, so it only slowed me down a moment. When I finally got ahold of myself & realized what had happened I rolled down my window, only to be confronted by the same bearded man who was now laughing so hard he was having trouble talking to me.

"Your window was closed" he said still laughing quite hard.

"Yep" I replied turning dark crimson (darn this pasty skin of mine, I blush at the drop of a hat).

"I just need you to pull around to the vacuums."



That's it? That was his important message for me?! Duh! I knew that already. Why the rush sir? Why not just wave me on like all the other guys do? Geez. And if that weren't bad enough, he must've told all of his co-workers, so by the time I made it around to the vacuum station they were all chuckling & giving me the look. You know, the one that says, "Hi there dummy!"



No worries, I am pretty used to embarrassing myself, so I recover pretty quickly. I trip over nothing all the time in public. I walk into walls & fall up stairs. I wave back to total strangers who aren't waving to me at all, but are actually greeting the person behind me. I also talk back to people who are using those hands-free cell phone things because I don't see them hidden in their ears. And let's not forget the time I got stuck in the doors of a NYC subway car...

but I digress.... The point being, since these things happen to me so frequently, it no longer fazes me & I am usually able to laugh along with everyone else in pretty short order. So, I collected the shattered remains of my sunglasses & K and I headed inside to pay for our car wash.



Then the awkwardness:

K & I huddled in the nice warm waiting area while they finished removing all traces of mud & hay from the inside of my car. I was happy that the bearded guy wasn't the one working on my car. I was over the "incident" but I didn't want to relive it again. I started pulling together my tip money when I noticed the Mr. Beard approaching my car. Aaagh! Now I had to fish more money out for tips since there were now 2 of them working on the car. I don't consider myself cheap, but the wash is $15.99. Now I needed to tip 2 guys which brought the car wash up to $20.00. Since, it was 25 degrees outside & I sure wasn't game to wash it myself, I sucked it up and got out the extra cash.

The bearded buy disappeared again right before we got to the car, which was fine with me. I gave the first guy my $4.00. I figured all of the guys working pool their tips at the end of the shift & then split them out evenly. Is that right? Can someone verify that for me?

Image courtesy Google Images

'Cause here's the thing, right as I was getting K back into the van. That bearded guy appears out of nowhere - again startling me! Seriously, this guy should go into espionage or something, he's talents are being wasted at the car wash. He wishes me a Merry Christmas & starts talking about how tough times are. Then he mumbles a bit, and the vacuums go back on so I can't make out everything he's saying, but I am thinking he is fishing for a tip.... and I just gave the other guy my last $4.00! I thought they'd share it!

Now, I am starting to feel bad. Don't they share tips? At this point, I am just not sure what's going on anymore, because (of course) I am blushing again & wishing this guy Merry Christmas over & over again, while trying to get K all buckled in. He holds up his hand & he's holding what looks like two singles, but by now I really can't hear him over the vacuums & I can't tell if he is thanking me or asking for more money. So I said Merry Christmas (again...yes I am a dork!) and then jumped into the van & sped off....

I think I need to find a new car wash place....
Any recommendations? Maybe I'll just wait until spring & wash the darn thing myself. Stupid new car...

A few blasts from my (sister's) past

This afternoon I was cleaning up our guest room in anticipation of some friends who will be coming to stay with us for a few days right after Christmas. I was sorting through the myriad of crap stuff we've crammed placed in the room over the past year in order to clear some drawer space for our guests. I was desperately searching for a place to stash a couple of afghans when I remembered that the trunk currently serving as a TV stand in the room was empty.


Or so I thought... I opened the trunk & came upon a bunch of photos. Some were of a vacation that Mr. Crackers & I took before C was born, and some of them were of my sister Linda & I. In today's blog, I have chosen to humiliate my sister! Just kidding, Linda the pictures are very flattering. Seriously! (As you will see we look nothing alike, but trust me, we're sisters. We both have the same painful scars happy memories to prove it!) I told Linda I had come across some pictures of her that I was going to post & she seemed to get a little worried. Puh-lease! I don't think she's ever taken a bad picture in her life. See for yourself...

Egads! My best guess on this picture is somewhere circa 1989 or 1990. I am basing this on hair style, the color of my parent's carpeting (did we really have rust colored carpeting in the living room Mom? Somehow I must've have blocked that out) and the pets we are holding - that's Bandit the cat & Tibbs our beloved basset/beagle mix. Is it me or do those pointsettias need some water? And Linda, there are those pegged pants I was talking about! Nice!

I think this is a picture of her when she joined her sorority - so I am thinking maybe this was around 1990 or 1991? Am I right Linda? Anyway, she was worried I'd be mocking her big hair, but I gotta say it, I've always loved this picture of her. Isn't she beautiful? Seriously, I've always been jealous of her photogenicness (leave me alone, I know that is probably not a word, but you know what I mean). And look at that hair! Sure there's a lot of it, but it just works on her, darn it!



OK, I definitely know the year here....this is at my college graduation back in 1992. God, could I be any shorter? I promise you we share the same parents, but you just wouldn't guess it by looking at us would you? Don't even get me started about chest size -talk about differences! I think I was absent the day cleavage was being passed out...but that may be a blog for a different day (or then again maybe not!)

I'm going back to the guessing game here on the year. A little help here please? This was taken at my friend Kelly's wedding sometime in the early-mid nineties (Geez, my memory is getting really bad. Pretty soon I'll be forgetting my children's names!) That's Linda laughing & generally having a great time. I'm the one catching flies, or singing, or asking Linda to check my tonsils? Well, I really have no idea what I could be doing there.

I am one of those people who take horrid candid shots. Seriously, warn me before you take a picture. Give me a chance to compose myself for heaven's sakes. Most of the time I have some totally whacked expression on my face that just does not translate well on film. It's a good thing I have no acting talent, because I'd be all over the tabloids with the most unflattering pictures imaginable if I were famous (or talented).

I'm not trying to trick you, this is not my sister Linda, but I had to include this picture. That is my friend Kelly of the aforementioned wedding. A seriously beautiful bride, is she not?! The only thing that concerns me with this photo are the shoulder pads. Wowee! Those things are huge! The poor photographer could barely fit us & our shoulders in the picture together. But again, a lovely picture of my friend Kelly. What year was this anyway? A little help please!

And now I am off to finish off my cleaning project. Who knows what I will find next?
Be afraid, be very afraid..