Vroom!

I posted this for the Jensen's!

I actually remember the white car in the background.

Eddie used to do donuts in the church parking lot in it (mid 70's!)

Sarah Palin

"The hand that rocks the cradle

is the hand that rules the world."

William Ross Wallace

Happy Birthday Eddie!

Today is Eddie's 52nd birthday!!!

The Missionaries just came over and brought a pizza and a cake for him. They had lunch with us. They're the greatest! Eddie has received a bunch of gifts this year. A few of them before his actual birthday! He got his remote control Harley, and a chain saw and two casual dress shirts and I still want to get him the gas BBQ, but he hasn't worked all week, so how am I suppose to surprise him with it. Plus, how am I supposed to get it here! He also received a "Luggable Loo!" It's the best. A 5 gallon bucket and a toilet seat! The little tent that goes over it for privacy and Double Doodie deoderizers!! Now he's ready for ALL emergencies!!!

Happy Birthday Baby!

Random Thoughts

This is Eddie's favorite James Christensen painting. We saw it in the Orem Mall a few years ago and he loves it!

Church: I "got" to play the organ for church today. My favorite comment of the day, "Were your fingers tied together?" At one point, sadly in the sacrament hymn, I lost my place and the music looked like it was in Chinese and I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be playing for the life of me. The automotive equivalent: "Grind 'em til you find 'em!" It's one thing to hit clunckers in the opening and closing hymn, but the sacrament hymn just should be perfect. Alas, I am human and I make mistakes. God Bless Zena! On the way home she told me she's never heard me hit a cluncker! I looked at Eddie and said, "Raw Meat!"

"Raw Meat" : from the Book of Mormon when Lehi and the gang can't cook their meat so the Lord makes it taste good for them! That's my theory! If something isn't actually so, at least in my opinion, but someone says it is, it's Raw Meat! The Lord can make anything sweet for others to see, hear, taste, etc.

Nothing exciting happened today! Some of you know what I mean, others will just have to wait until another Sunday! HA HA HA!

The closing ceremonies of the Olympics is on TV right now. It's actually been amusing to watch these last few weeks. Eddie and I were mesmerized by the rhythmic gymnastics yesterday. I've never watched it before. I didn't think it was all that before we watched it. Now that I've actually seen it...WOW! Those girls have very long legs and they can do some incredible routines.

Watching Michael Phelps win all his gold medals was pretty cool. The gymnastics is always good, although I didn't see all of it. I like diving too. No bonked heads this year! At least not that I saw. I usually don't get into track stuff, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching Jamaica! Can they run or what? new meaning to "Cool Runnings!!!"

Lame Olympic events: group handball? I would have rather watched group Slaughterhouse!!

Now that's handball! I hated that in Elementary school. Only played once and made sure I got our first!!! Dumb! Ping Pong? Where's Forrest Gump? Trampoline?

What's next....olympic tetherball? Napolean Dynamite could win a gold maybe!

Kayak? Why don't they have surfing? I vote for olympic marbles or jacks. How 'bout double dutch? Crack the Whip? Mother May I? Red Rover? SPUD! Hide and go Seek! Speaking of Hide and go seek......

News from the Neighborhood: Yrma sold the house next door. A young family of 5 will be moving in. Very exciting! They want to cut a hole in the chain link fence where the side walk dead ends and put some stairs in and a gate so their kids don't have to walk in the street to go to school. I thought it was a great idea.

While I was standing outside talking to Yrma and the new neighbors, Able and Joanna, the skunk went running across the street! We hadn't seen it lately. Or heard it! Eddie blocked the space to get under the house, so I don't think they like us anymore! Now we know they are still around the neighborhood.

A lady in our ward has a Huge raccoon in her backyard!!! It tried to take a whole container of cat food! She says it's the biggest raccoon she's ever seen. She was living in the garage until her daughter came out to see her one morning and she had 3 cats and 2 possums in bed with her! (She didn't know she had friends sleeping with her!) I told her she must be a princess from a Disney flick to get that kind of companionship! She now sleeps in the house!!!!

I heard sad news yesterday that an old friend had been murdered last week. I haven't got the whole story yet. I just dread calling her brother to see what's up. Not a fun thing to deal with!

I woke up in a horrible mood. Had a icky dream....we were at Universal Studios with the Lemleys. Joe & Julie Ferkin were there too. They, Joe and Julie, kept going on some crazy rides that I don't even think are at Universal. We kept seeing them on roller coasters and strange things that went upside down and spun around and they were having the time of their lives. That wasn't icky part. Strange they were in my dream, but lo and behold Eddie's former girlfriend was there and being a little to cozy with Eddie. So of course Eddie had to top my dream! He had a worse dream....he was kissing Hope, (his step-monster,) on the lips!!!!!!! So, I guess Eddie was getting a lot of action in both our dreams last night....ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!! When he told me about his, it didn't make me feel any better. I suffered through the first half of Sacrament Meeting. My mood and the perky ward chorister didn't help the organ playing AT ALL! Half way through the last speaker I started feeling better. Love at Home was the closing song and I did pretty good. Not perfect, but I'm sure it was Raw Meat for the congregation!

Next week is Eddie's big Sacrament Meeting talk! He's been practicing so much. He goes outside to the garage and sits in Gma's wheelchair and practices. I have no idea what he's going to say. Actually I know the quotes and the scriptures he's using, but I don't know what he's sharing in between! Personal stories!!!! This could be really interesting!!! I'll tell you all about it next week.

Eddie's family was over for dinner today after church and the 4 missionaries came too. We totally ran out of bread! I wanted some bread-like something tonight to eat, so....I made tortillas. Never tried that before! I think they're pretty darn good. They are definately not round! Kinda more like ink blot shapes! They are tasty though. I feel pioneerish with a hispanic flair! Don't think you could roll them into a burrito, but smeared with butter or with salsa....De-Li-Scious! Eddie's already asleep. Actually he could be awake now. He's a tired boy! His birthday is this Thursday. 52! hee hee! He'll be getting his traditional Chicken Cordon Bleu! and Cheesy potatoes that night for dinner! We just had funeral potatoes, so it will just be cheesy potatoes, which I've decided are better.

Caretaking: My fun meter is about out of quarters! I need to find someone to give me a couple days off. I'm thinking mid-September. Any takers?

I'm tired and have rambled on and on and I'm too tired to go back and proof read, so deal with the typos! Hasta-la-pasta!

Spaghetti Sauce

Yesterday I had tomatoes coming out of my ears! I needed to do something with them. I've had a hard time finding recipes that use home grown tomatoes in them. Or I find them, but they also want you to put canned tomato paste in them. What's up with that? If you want to make something with "fresh" tomatoes, why would you want to use a "canned" product in it. I guess I should find a recipe for tomato paste! Anyway, I spent a good chunk of time chopping and preparing everything for the sauce. I was excited that this recipe also called for fresh basil and parsley. I have both of those in the garden too. The recipe called for 10 pounds of tomatoes. Well, the only scale we have you have to put your feet on the feet marks for it weigh anything. So, I jumped on the scale and then I held a bowl of tomatoes and figured out how many tomatoes I needed. I needed two bowls full of tomatoes. The house smelled really good! It was a few hours on the stove top and then I wasn't real excited with the taste. It wasn't quite right. Eddie got home from work, but we all know he doesn't "do vegetables." He kinda tasted a finger tip of it. (From a spoon!) I gave my mom a taste. Of course she said it needed salt, because she thinks everything needs salt and she's not supposed to have salt! I did add salt. I normally don't cook with salt, but I threw a bit in. I cooked up some ground beef and Eddie thought I should throw in some left over vegetables from the shish-kabobs this weekend. So he chopped up the red, yellow and orange peppers and a zucchini we had. I threw those in with the meat. Cooked it all up, cooked the pasta and threw it all together. I still wasn't sure about it so I threw grated parmesan and mozzarella cheese on top. That will cure a thousand tastes! I took it to the ward picnic last night.....and it was DE-LI-CIOUS!!!!! I still have 8 cups of sauce in the refridgerator. The recipe says to put the extra in Ziploc bags...freeze flat and then stand up like envelopes. I may do that. I'll also see if Teddy needs dinner tonight. If so...she'll get pasta! I'll have to go get some peppers and maybe some Italian sausage!!! mmm good! Now I'm hungry. I guess it's time for breakfast!

Pageant of the Masters

So after months and years of torturing Eddie with Musicals and concerts, last night he introduced me to his cultural side! He took me to the Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach. He's been several times with his family.

It was so cool!

This is the poster advertising it!

The bottom picture up there is of The Spirit of History, Science and Art. It was amazing!

The ampitheater is actually quite small. We had great seats...thanks Michael and Kathleen! We were in the 10th row on the aisle. We had rented binoculars, but really didn't need them.

When you walk into the Festival of Arts, they had a miniture sculpture of this "Olympic Spirit," I loved it. We've been watching so much of the Olympics it was cool to see this sculpture, even if it was a much smaller version than the one in Bejing. I was really happy that it was one of the sculptures in the pageant. Although I had to giggle. The "models" weren't quite as svelt! The female model was down right chunky! Let's hear it for the big girls!!! Woo Hoo! There were so many great paintings and sculptures that were done. I loved when they showed how they were put together. It was amazing! If you've never been and you like art, this is definately a place to go...at least once. The tickets are a bit pricey, but it was worth it.

Before the pageant we went to the Sawdust Festival down the street. It's another place for artists to display and sell their work. There was a glass blower who was interesting to watch. Just fascinating stuff.

At the Festival of Art, we loved looking at the school children's art! What fun! Quite good artist too. They range in grades from Kindergarten to High School. They were so good!

After looking at all this art, I have decided I'm mostly drawn to seascapes, clouds and palm tree paintings. Black and white photography is really cool too. There are some really creative people out there who make art out of the most interesting things. The copper pipe was very interesting as was the wooden clothespin piece of work.

We loved some interesting clocks! I can't even describe them. They were very cool though.
The pageant always ends with Da Vinci's 'The Last Supper."

It was a fascinating evening! We will definately go again!

"There's something out there!"

So...Eddie takes me outside yesterday and shows me this!There's a varmint getting into our backyard!

He even shows me the holes it's making in the back yard!

This morning at 5:15 a.m. (sadly we were already awake) I hear this noise. Sounded like a varmint trying to dig it's way into the house!!! Eddie looked out the bedroom window, it wasn't quite dawn yet. He decides to go outside and take a closer look. So, I jumped out of bed and looked out the window and it's light enough to see shapes and OH! WHAT'S THAT?! There's a little fur ball underneath the window, it just jumped out of the hole where you climb under the house! OooH NO! It's tail goes straight up! What a nice STRIPE! It takes off running! It must of heard Eddie sneaking around the corner of the house! I watched it run across the yard to the chain link fence. It's standing in a hole! It's made a hole to get under the fence!

Dang Varmint!

Later, when it was light, I went outside to inspect the situation. Here's what I found:
The varmint is trying to get under the house! That's what we heard! It's moving the screen over the opening to get under the house!
This is the hole it was sitting in this morning after Eddie startled it!

It's tunneled it's way under the neighbor's bricks!

And I found another escape route!!

Darn you, Pepe le Peu!

Okay! On the bright side!

There are two things to be thankful for:

It didn't spray us this morning and....

Eddie didn't scream like a little girl when it jumped out of the hole!

I guess we all know what Eddie's doing when he gets home from work tonight!!!

Tessa Ann

Here is the first picture of Becky & Eric's new addition! She is so pretty. Don't you love the bow?

She's here!

The stork landed this morning in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Tessa Ann Nielson arrived at 8:19 a.m.

She weighs 6 lbs. 6 oz. and she's 20 inches long.

Do not know the rest of the particulars.

She's 3 weeks early. She was born C-section.

Becky and Tessa are doing fine!

Woo Hoo!

The Eddie Plummer Family

I just thought I'd share this adorable picture of Eddie and his children. It's from....I'll guess 1990.

From left to right we have:

Kevin Hi

Kristie Lynn

Eddie and

Jenny Michelle

What an adorable family!

New Website

Wow! I have a website now! I'm an Associate Demonstartor of Uppercase Living. I've been doing this since July 2007. As of a few minutes ago, I now have an Uppercase Living website! Go check it out! Our new fall/winter catalog is out! Very cute stuff! Let me know if you're interested in Hosting an open house or purchasing some great Uppercase Living vinyl lettering for the walls of your home!

I suppose an address would help: http://SandyP62.uppercaseliving.net
What are your walls saying?

A thought to ponder

For those of you not here in CA, this might not be worth pondering, but....last week Uncle Arnold signed a bill laying off a bunch of state workers and lowering other state workers pay to the minimum wage, because the state congress hasn't passed the budget bill. Wouldn't it have made more sense if Uncle Arnold had stopped paying the congress until they passed the budget? DUH!!!!!!!

Bear, Ninja, Cowboy!

Yes, the Elders are rubbing off on us! The above pictures are of Elders Beck and Niesen playing Bear, Ninja, Cowboy. The updated version of Rock, Paper, Scizzors! This morning Eddie and I actually played it to decide whose turn it was to pray! I won! Hee Hee! Then we had to figure out if winning meant you were the one to pray or not! Go figure! The last two days Eddie has been helping a sister in the ward move. I'd say it was a growing experience, but she was in a 3rd floor apartment, so it was more like a "losing" experience, if you get my drift!

There are so many stories to blog, but some will have to wait for a future date. I did receive a phone call yesterday asking me to teach Gospel Doctrine on Sunday. Not a problem, I have more than a half day's notice and it's on Alma 32-34! Piece o' cake! Eddie also got a call from the 1st counselor in the Bishopric. He gets to be the concluding speaker in Sacrament Meeting on August 31st. Thank goodness we have a whole month to prepare!!! So, if you're in the neighborhood on the 31st....come listen to Eddie preach!!!! hee hee hee!