Seeing as I have quite a few relatives and friends who enjoy Halloween so much, I thought this would be something fun to share here: CAT BOWLING. Enjoy and feel free to post your score(s) here. I got a 116 on my first try. Of course, the girls think I can do better and are screaming at me this very moment to do it again. Thanks, mom, for sending this my way!

At last, the patio we’ve worked so hard on for the past couple of months is complete. Of course, there’s a few finishing touches that need to be done such as spraying off all the sand and stone dust and putting all the furniture and grill on it. I’d say we’ll be able to have our first official barbeque by tomorrow night. I’m just so giddy with excitement to finally have this project finished.

As you can see, there’s still a lot of equipment to put away and such, but I just couldn’t contain my joy and wait to snap some pictures. Here’s the overall layout.

And from the other side.

The view of the opening to the yard and of the fancy columns.

And the magical steps. Ok, they’re not magical, but, man oh man, were they tricky to build. Of course, Mike did all the work, but I felt his pain as I watched from the sidelines.

Don’t worry, I’ll post pictures again once we have it all cleaned off and filled up with our outdoor goods. Join us some time for a barbeque. Consider this your official invitation.

The other leader in charge at Mike’s camp out the other night brought along the ingredients to make doughnuts. Mike was impressed with how easy and delicious they were, so he decided to make them for us last night. I, too, was amazed at how easy these were to make.

All you need is a tube of biscuit dough. Flatten out the biscuits to almost paper width and tear a hole in the middle. Heat up some veggie oil in a skillet. Once the oil is hot enough, then you drop a biscuit in. You’ll be surprised at how fast the dough poofs up. It only takes a few seconds on each side to fully cook. Then in a dish mix together some sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg to your liking to dip the freshly fried doughnut into. And, there you have it, homemade doughnuts. The process wasn’t messy either unless you count the sugar crumbs while eating the doughnuts. It was so worth it though.

I’ve been tagged again by Courtney S., and I swear this is the last one I’ll do. Anyone that wants to participate can, but I won’t force it.
Here are the rules:
1) Post the rules on your blog.
2) Answer the six “8″ items.
3) Let each person know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. (so not doing!)

8 Favorite TV shows (Sara asked if cancelled shows count, so I will count them.)
1. Chuck
2. Psych
3. Monk
4. Burn Notice
5. 3rd Rock From the Sun (we recently discovered it’s been airing on TV Land Prime)
6. House
7. Arrested Development (it’s been cancelled but we have the episodes on DVD)
8. Seinfeld

8 Things I did yesterday
1. Got the girls ready for school
2. Walked Annie to the bus stop
3. Drove Mimi to school
4. Worked out at rec plex
5. Pulled out frozen items from freezer for Mike’s foil dinner (he went camping)
6. Talked to Janet
7. Went to Burger King with girlies for dinner (a treat for us since Daddy was gone)
8. Took advantage of a free movie rental at Family Rental and rented a movie to watch with the girls

8 Things I look forward to
1. Halloween and all the candy I’ll get to eat (I’m a bit of a sugar addict.)
2. Finishing patio (Hopefully, today!)
3. On or around November 16th (I’ll explain later.)
4. Making the roman shades for the other rooms of the house
5. Mike mowing the lawn (It hasn’t been mowed for a couple of weeks since we’ve got all that patio junk scattered around the yard.)
6. dinner
7. For the girls to go to bed
8. To enjoy a movie rental with Mike tonight

8 Favorite Restaurants
1. Oceanaire (fancy and expensive seafood)
2. Maggianno’s
3. P.F. Changs
4. Fuddrucker’s
5. Steak ‘n Shake (Can you tell I like burgers and shakes?)
6. Outback Steakhouse
7. Lido Pizza (a local place in College Park, MD…the best pizza ever)
8. Luigi’s Pizza (a local pizza place here)

8 Things on my Wish List
1. That my kids will grow up and find as much happiness as I have found (stole this from Sara, but I feel exactly the same way)
2. That the girls would learn to clean the house and do it without my asking (ha, ha)
3. To have a live-in cook and housekeeper (I know this will NEVER happen. I don’t even know that I could allow this to happen even if we could afford it. It’s a control thing.)
4. To finally settle somewhere to live and stay and live happily ever after
5. To one day have a flourishing photography business with my own studio (this can’t happen until both girls are in school full days, and it may never happen)
6. That I would stop getting junk mail (electronic and paper)
7. To get a vacation sans kids for more than just a couple of days preferably somewhere warm and beachy
8. That none of us will get sick this winter

Mike informed me the other night that I had another one of my dreamy outbursts. This is all hearsay because I don’t ever remember any of what Mike claims that I do or say. Apparently, I sat up and was laughing hysterically and declaring that “the letter R is so funny”. Supposedly, I even went on to say, “It even has on a tutu!” I asked Mike if he’s sure it was me and not Annie because that is totally something she would say. Annie’s teacher has started sending home nightly homework assignments for Annie to do such as counting to 20 or going through a list of letters on a list. I think that these constant practice sessions are causing my brain to get a little out of whack.

For those of you who don’t know the history behind my animated dreams and nightmares, I’ll give a little background information. Maybe I should’ve listed this as one of my quirks. I don’t recall having this little problem until I married Mike, but then again I didn’t have witnesses before Mike. It all started on our first night in our apartment after getting married. I woke up screaming and saying that there were ants all over the bed. As you can imagine, this freaked Mike out. He promptly flipped on the light and searched for the pests in our sheets. Mike soon realized that there were no ants, and I was already back to sleep. Similar events involving spiders, worms, and other disgusting insects happened for several nights after that, but Mike was on to me by the 3rd or 4th time. Eventually he just started telling me, “I got them all, honey. Go back to sleep.” The nightmares stopped after a few more nights, and Mike could soon sleep soundly. However, they started up again when I began teaching. The bad dreams were usually the worst on Sunday night. Hmmm, I wonder why? Sometimes I would just wake up screaming at the top of my lungs and then go right back to sleep. Of course, Mike was always stirred from his slumber, the poor guy.

My theory behind the nightmares is that they come when I’m under a lot of stress. So I believe the reason I had them right after Mike and I got married was because I wasn’t used to the whole marriage experience. Teaching always stressed the heck out of me, so I can understand the nightmares during that time. Sometimes when we’re traveling I will have outbursts which must mean sleeping in a bed other than my own makes me a bit nervous.

The most embarrassing experience was when we were staying at the Arnolds’ cabin out in the Black Hills. On our first or second night there I woke up screaming hysterically but went back to sleep almost immediately. The next morning during fishing Ryan asked Mike if everything was alright. Not knowing what Ryan was alluding to Mike just shrugged and said all was fine. So finally Ryan asked what the heck had happened the night before to cause me to scream so harshly and to freak Ryan and Shannon out. Mike just laughed and said that that happens sometimes. Of course, Ryan felt compelled to mention it front of the whole group making me painfully aware that I had caused quite a raucous the previous night.

Another event has become an inside joke among Mike’s family members. Mike had just left for Iraq, and Mimi was a fresh newborn. Mike’s ma was staying with us, too. That night I went picked up Mimi and walked into Kathy’s room. Here’s the conversation that followed:
Me: Kathy, I think we have a problem.
Kathy: What’s the matter? Is everything o.k.?
Me: Mimi has lost her snake.
Kathy: ?
Me: (kind of waking up and realizing what must be going on) Nevermind. Go back to sleep.

Thankfully, I had warned Kathy about my possible outbursts, so she wasn’t too freaked out. In fact, she found a lot of humor in the situation and promptly told all of her children who now remind me about it every so often.

My mom also claims to have witnessed some strange things from me while sleeping. While house-hunting with me in Beafort, SC she says that one night she woke up with me standing over her bed. She asked me what was going on and I said, “There’s someone at the door.” Mind you, this was about 3:00 a.m. My mom says she told me to just ignore it and go back to sleep. Supposedly, I then grabbed her arm with brute force and demanded that she answer the door. She said she was more afraid of me than whoever could be at the door, so she just opened it to discover nobody there. By the time she walked back to the bed I was already tucked in and back to sleep.

Sometimes I will wake up Mike (or my mom if the case is that she’s with me) and make bizarre statements such as there being a white animal on the overhead light, or that there’s dog food on the ceiling, or that someone is staring at us through the window. Mike says that I will usually make sure he’s fully awake and swear that I’m also awake and that whatever I’ve said is actually happening.

Wow, sorry to go on and on about this, but I just felt I had to explain.