Did you know?

So my life has been really busy, I mean really busy and I love it! Lately, ok well maybe over the last year or so when I am unloading the dishes out of the dishwasher I have noticed  sandy looking particle on my glasses as well as a cloudy film. I would ask my plumber about it and he would say "Oh run some CLR thru your machine it probably needs a cleaning." Ok, my plumber lives 4 houses from me so I can ask him questions without being charged. CLR didn't help, vinegar didn't help nothing was helping get rid of those grains of grit. I figured I would just have to continue washing my classes by hand. AAUUUGGGHHHH!
Friday morning I got on Pinterest to pull up an activity for my kindergarten class and I saw a pin on how to clean your dishwasher. I opened up the blog it was pinned from and printed the directions for later and threw them into my purse, hoping I would have time to read them later.
When I finally got home from my meeting at 10:00pm Friday night I pulled out the direction and read that my dishwasher has a FILTER, who knew?!?!!? Since my house was completely empty (everyone was in San Francisco for the week and not coming home until Sat) I thought I would open up the filter and see what was going on.
Being 10:15pm I refused to go out into the garage and look for the sockets needed  to remove the filter. I had a pair of pliers and figured I would use it. With some patience I removed the filter from the back of my dishwasher. When I turned the filter over I was shocked at what I saw on that filter. . . years of built up dishwasher detergent, gunk and mold. Yes, mold the water under the filter doesn't drain all the way out (that will be another project to clear the drain).  It was the grosses thing I had ever seen.
After and hour and a half of soaking, scrubbing, and picking I got that filter cleaned and returned to the back of my dishwasher.  You should check your filter as well, I am going to try to make it an annual job because it was so nasty.

Manicure experience

The other day I went in to get a much needed manicure. I tried out a new place in Del Mar, not near the beach Del Mar.
I should have followed my instincts when I walked into shop and there were 4 inch red sticker numbers on each of the 12 manicure tables, a pile of towels in the corner (don't know if they were clean or dirty).
After being greeted and telling the pregnant lady who was walking around outside what I wanted I was directed into the back. One of the ladies was directing me to the pedicure chair, I explained to her that I only wanted a manicure.
My nails were a mess and the older lady says "oh your nails are soooo short and cute!" she begins trimming my cuticles where she cuts down to much on my middle finger and blood is gushing out like Old Faithful. She rips offa piece of cotton and takes a dropper from her purse with some blue liquid that was obvious she added herself. I told her to hold up an asked what that was. She replied "it will stop the bleeding", foolish me I let her continue bleeding finger an all.
Once my nails are filed short and painted she proceeds to move my hair and begins rubbing my overly tense neck ( it didn't feel to bad). Before I knew it her had was down the back of my shirt and he is rubbing my shoulders and back, really?!? I tell her to stop and she proceeds to move her hands forward towards my chest. OMG.! I jump up out of my chair and ask her how much I owed her.
I guess I will not be going to that place ever again!!

He's growing up

Wyatt is filling out an application for work. Yeah!!!

Happy 4th of July

Today was our annual Neptune Ave 4th of July parade, it was a lot of fun!

This is just sooo wrong!

A harsh realization

You know as a parent of a new born you want to do everything to protect them and raise them to be be a happy child who becomes a productive member of society. You try to do all the right thing for them, and sometimes those decisions are difficult ones.
My baby is now 17 years old and is a happy, healthy young man. Last night as I was texting him the same text I text him almost weekly, sometimes bi-weekly I realized that I am a horrible mother. What kind of living caring mother would continually subject their child to that? Did those words types ever so gleefully onto my phone change things? Did I change my mind? NO! As I am realizing this I thought I will continue these text for as long as I need too.
The text, the same one every time goes like this: meet me at happy hour. . . send and my 5 little words are gone, they end up on his phone which he received somewhere on his commute home. He gets off the train and comes to meet me and my friends as we drink the best $3.00 margaritas any happy hour has. I always have a come for him, sometimes calamari sometimes just chips.
Anyways I just has to share how sometimes you try do hard to do the right thing for your kids but then there are those 5 little words and you know that they are not the best ones for your child to continually read.
Have a wonderful day!

Mani/pedi

Yesterday afternoon I got done work early so I decided I would go get a mani/pedi and relax a little.
I sat down in my lumpy chair and placed my feet in the luke warm water, I adjusted the chair massager and positioned it just as I like it.
After 10 mins someone came to assist me, she pulled my feet out of the water then placed a pillow in my lap, placed a towel over it and proceeded to put cotton and acetone over my gel nails and wrap them in foil. As soon as both hands were wrapped she started unwrapping and trying to remove the pre-exsisting gel from my nails. She was very confused why they didn't come right off an ended up doing more acetone soaked cotton and filing off the polish. After all the polish was scrapped from my right hand she realized my feet were still out of the water and places them back in the now cold water.
She began removing the gel from my left hand which came off very easy after sitting for 30 mins. Then began the process of filing and buffing my paper thin nails.
At this point another non English speaking women came to begin my pedicure. While the gal giving me my manicure placed the light box on the pillow that had been placed in my lap. Remember the towel that had been placed over the pillow? It was left there along with the gel scrapings from my nails. I know YUCK!
At this point I am balancing the light box so it will not fall in the water while I am getting my feet massaged and getting gel applied.
After an hour the ordeal was over and I left the salon vowing never to return there again.

Crazy kid!

"It still fits!!!"

What's in your rear view mirror?

This is the view this afternoon in my rear view mirror. So sweet.

Sara Bareilles "Gravity"

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_U6iSAn_fY&feature=youtube_gdata_player


Sent from my iPhone

Busy week

I thought with the competition season over I would have more free time. Hahaha I was wrong. I had a mentors meeting, then interviews for new leaders and follow up meeting to share with each applicant as to weather they got a position or not.
I have been having som fun too. 3 friends have had birthdays so I got to go out and enjoy their special days. Now I am planning a trip to Indiana this summer. Yes, it's for robotics but now I have a friend trying to coordinate a trip from Michigan to see me I hope we can coordinate their schedule.
I am looking forward to getting away to Palm Springs soon I need a girls weekend away and the sunshine and warmth won't be bad either.
There was a bluff fall down from us last week, can't stop mother earth from doing what she would like.

Night out in San Diego

Last night I went out downtown San Diego, we had a blast. We started out our night with dinner at Bice an awesome Italian restaurant. The food was great and the adult beverages were amazing. I started out with an espresso martini, followed by many bottles of chianti, then after dinner my new favorite drink sambucca, a black licorice flavored liquor. It leaves the most amazing taste in your mouth.
After dinner we went to Prohibition, an underground club, you had to be on a list prior to getting the directions to the secret door. One through the door we went down several flight of stairs to a club decorated in the prohibition era style. The menu was gin, whiskey and scotch based drinks. I had a beer but it was really bitter. We had so much fun here I want to go back. Next we walked over to a club called Whiskey Girl and there was a huge line waiting to get in, we got lucky and didn't have to wait in line or pay the cover charge. It was so nice to be inside and dance. When we first hit inside security was cleaning up the tables, I mean people were seated and their seats and tables were taken from them to make room for dancing.
It was such a nice evening to be out with great friends and have no worries. The three hours of sleep we got was worth it, we all had fun and decided we need to do it again soon.

Happy Day

I love it when I find my secret stash of cash in my car, especially when they are 20's. Have a wonderful day.

Back from St Louis

We made it back from our robotics competition in St Louis. Wyatt had a great time and did really well down on the field getting those balls across the field.
We had a mini tornado blow through on Saturday but we were all safe inside the dome. On Sunday we took a lunch cruise down the Mississippi it was really cold and gray but we had a nice time.
Of course one would think l would be done but I have to plan the sponsor dinner, and we are already booked for some events this summer.

Packing

Today is the day to pack for our trip to world championships in St Louis. I need 4 team shirts and jeans. 2 netbooks, an iPad, my laptop, sketch book, 2 cameras, the flip, personal items, I joe I have room for everything. I need to pack a first aide kit an umbrella oh my.

Cover the Night

Flower fields

Today was another beautiful day, a bit over cast and sweater cool. I had Emily so we decides to go to the flower fields. They are so pretty and I love going anywhere even if it is all touristy or even full of schools on field trips.

Beautiful Day

Wow! The weather has been beautiful the last few days and days to come I love it. Sunday I took a drive down to La Jolla and sat on the each near the children's pool (where the seals have taken over the beach). It was such a peaceful place to clear my head after the crazy week.

Yesterday was a meeting with crazy mom. Not sure if I feel great may e the calm before the storm? I would line to think that she would walk away quietly but don't feel that way about this situation.

For now I am just going to enjoy the beauty of the day and get ready to go to St. Louis next week.

What a week

This has been a really long tough week. I don't understand how someone could make false allegations against another person, walk into their place of employment and demand someone's employee records, find out that is not an option and decide to make more false allegations there as well and think that there will not be any repercussion. This happened to my friend this week! Some crazy lady wrote an email to him and cc'd the email to some potential employer and made many false allegations. Later he found out that an hour before he was emailed this same crazy lady wend into his place of employment and started giving the receptionist a ton of made up crap! I all for freedom of speech but this is gone to far.

Pedicure

My toes were in desperate need of a pedicure today so on my way south towards San Diego I decided to stop and try out a new salon to get a pedicure. I walked into the shop and was greeted by some very cheerful women. I was directed to the wall of polish and asked to choose a color, so many colors and I had to choose only one.
After I chose a pretty blue I was seated in a lovely massage chair with heated seats. How did they know I love heated seats?!?! Next, they placed a large pillow on my lap and reclined my seat. Wow a nap too! Pretty soon she began working on my toes without a word to me. Did she know exactly what I wanted? I guess . . . I couldn't see one thing she was doing over the giant green pillow placed on my lap. Eventually the pillow was removed, my flip flops had been place gently on my feet and I was directed to a toe dryer. My blue toes looked beautiful, what would this cost me I had not told her what type of pedicure I wanted, all I knew was my back was so warm, sweat was beading up on my forehead and I had blue toes.
Wow $18.00 plus a tip was all I was charged for the mystery pedicure. Will I go back to this salon? Maybe. . . I will have to be sure that I do not get a fungal infection in my toes but the experience was nice and the place looked clean. Only time will tell.

Have a wonderful day

Yummy desserts

Here are some yummy desserts from when I took Wyatt to Extraordinary Desserts this past week. I want to work there so I can make such beautiful works of art.

He's 17 today

I love him so much and cannot believe how fast he has grown. We brought him home as a 22 inch 9 1/2 pound baby and now he is 6 ft 4 inches and almost 200 pounds. 17 years has been good to him. I hope the rest of his life is wonderful and he continues to enjoy and discover all the wonders life has to offer.

Last day of being 16

Today is my wonderful sons last day at being 16. He is such a a sweet teenager who doesn't mind his mom being around.
As per our tradition we have been celebrating birthday week! It is so much fun.
Monday we went to his favorite breakfast spot - 101 diner
Tuesday he got breakfast in bed well it was more like brunch
Wednesday he got to open his Dr Dre headphones.
Thursday we went to Extraordinary Desserts before practice
Today we went to his favorite lunch place - Miyabi
I cannot believe he is turning 17 he is so amazing and caring and sweet. He enjoys hanging out at the hospital playing video games with his friend who has cancer and will not be coming home from the hospital. It's nice to know that he will always be there for his friends.
I wish you the best year coming and may all your wishes come true. I love you!

My how they have grown

I came across this picture the other day and it made me wonder where the time has gone. This is Wyatt, Natalie and Sam at the San Diego zoo when he was 3 years old. Christina their mom and I still are good friends but the kids it so much, they have grown up, go to different schools and are busy. The one thing they have in common still is they all are on their school robotics team. Next week Wyatt's team and the girls team will be sharing a coach bus up to San Jose for the regional competition up there. Christina an I are hoping to get a picture of them together again.
Wish us moms good luck.

Day to relax

Today was the first Sunday since October I did not have to do anything, it was so nice. After a pedicure I walked do to Swamis and snapped some fun photos. It was a nice relaxing day

Heaviness

I guess I hadn't noticed the weight of my giant tote purse, not until one of the students in the engineering lab had to pass it to me the other day and made a comment.
I am sure I hadn't noticed the weight because it's like your child, you begin carrying it around as a baby and by the time they are 40 pounds you don't notice because you have been carrying them around since thy were 7 pounds. After the heaviness of my purse was pointed out to me I noticed it, I mean really noticed it.
I decided three days later that I needed to go to coin start and empty the change that had made the bottom of my. At their home. I knew there was a lot and did not want to roll it. After scooping and picking all the change out of the bottom my bag I had $76.04 worth of change that I had been toting around.
My bag is so much lighter now.

4th times a charm

Late Sunday night it was announced. . . they won their 4th Chairman's Award. It was a lot of work and a lot of pressure. The Holy Cows were up against 19 other teams at the San Diego Regional, all their hard work all summer and before kick off paid off. Now moving on to Championships in St Louis the pressure is mounting! No 4 digit team and no west coast team has ever won Championship Chairman's Award. Between now an April 25th we have a lot I work ahead of us. I get to be the mean one again, they thought they were tired of practicing and working on their speech before just wait.

Fun pictures

Last night I was fooling around with a piece of green plastic, pretending I was taking night vision pictures and they e out pretty cool.
Next weekend we find out how our robot Daisy Diablo works and how we did with all our Award submissions.

Late night

Tonight is another late night in the engineering lab. The dilemma toning is that Daisy MUST loose weight, she cannot be more than 120 lbs and right now she is over by 3.3 lbs. where does she loose it from?
Sadly she can not go in and sweat it off. Watch for the results soon.

Look what I found

Today I was going thru my picture on my phone and someone took this random picture of dinner during build season. I guess I should be careful where I leave my phone.
Yup they requested a cereal bar for dinner. Tuesday is the at we bag the robot them I can share video and pictures.

Making gifts

Made some yummy chocolate covered strawberries to give to my friends and lived ones today. The local fields are picking and they are so tasty.
Happy Valentine's Day.

Happy Valentines Day

Lots of balloons

This weekends Microsoft store in the Fashion Valley Mall hosted The Holy Cows and Team Spyder in an event at their store to promote the San Diego Regional.

Busy day

Yesterday was a crazy busy day. It started out with a quick breakfast with Wyatt where I spilled salsa down the front of my shirt.
Next we headed down to City Hall for a robot demo to get politicians excited for the up coming San Diego Regional. I dropped the kids off on the corner with the totes and went to the parking garage where I locked my purse and keys in the trunk. Luckily I had not locked my car door so I was able to quickly get retrieve my keys.
When I got to City Hall I found out that my camera lens is broken, it will not zoom. I am so bummed but hoping I can take it in to get repaired. The amazing thing about City Hall was all the news media that came out to see our demo.
One more week and all the award submissions need to be submitted and it is getting a little crazed.

Need I say more at 9:30 am

It's just another beautiful Feb 3rd in paradise.

What do you have on your list

I have to write myself reminders lately because I have been doing all those edits and sometimes I feel like I am knocking my head against the wall. Then I remind myself to smile and of course enjoy the edits.

Interesting art

Last night I went into the boys bathroom to learn how to wet sand a part of the robot and I saw some very interesting art I had to share with you.
Yup, these and many others hang over the urinals. They definitely have more interesting art in the guys restroom than the girls have.

What I have been doing this week

I have been crazy busy lately, I have been editing award submissions, magazine write ups, and a giant business plan. I went to eat sushi one day and one beautiful day I went to the beach and edited.
I also had to take a picture o the sign because it. Makes me laugh every time I drive past it.
Have a wonderful week!

One of those days

Have you ever had one of those days? You know the ones where you are in a texting conversation and you type something, send it and as soon as it is gone you realize OH NO! That sentence wis going to be taken sooo wrong. Well then the texting went down hill fast and the best thing I could do was to stop texting. Yup that was so not good.

After the issue with the text I went to the restroom and I saw this on the floor, yes it was set up just like this and it made me smile and think how long it has been since I had a donut.

Thought for the day: be careful when texting.

Chinese New Year

Hope you had a wonderful day and are excited for the year of the dragon!
This will be a great year for doing good deeds, innovative ideas and big projects. I can't wait to see what is in store for all of you!

Robotics and Patriots

Today while designing and working on the robot the kids put the Patriots vs. Baltimore game on the computer and projected it onto the giant screen.

Great game. Now as type they have on the San Francisco vs Giants game.

How did you spend your Sat?

How did you spend your Saturday? Well this morning started out raining and cold as Wyatt and I left to drive to San Diego.
Then I spent 5 hours in different meeting with members of the robotics team.
The meetings were followed by hours of editing award submissions.
Finally I got to leave and drive home after a 13 hour day of volunteering.

Great Friday Deal

$5.00 for 2 pounds of delicious, red, juicy strawberries from the grocery store this morning!

The fog

This morning and early afternoon the fog was just laying in the valley. It looks so pretty from above.

A new photo love

I have decided that I really like taking pictures of gears, sockets or anything else cool looking. The kids will now tell me to get my camera ready they ate pulling out some cool things.
I know that one day they will tell me that and they will pull out the petrified dead squirrel they keep threatening to put in my car.

I hope this post

It has been awhile since Ezekiel has had cat nip and boy did he enjoy it.

Cool octopus

Each night I spend many hours with the robotics team usually editing one of many award submissions, magazine write ups or business plan. I do take breaks and crochet or watch the octopus in the classroom next to the engineering lab or I crochet. I have already made 2 beanies, an afghan for an American girl doll bed and 3 scarves.
I thought you would like to see the octopus he is so cool.

Guess where I am?

It's that time is year again where many, many long hours are spend in this room.
It's is the season called FIRST robotics competition season. Today was almost 80 degrees and I did get to enjoy the first half of it outside.
Now I sit here penning this from the back of the lab feeding hungry teenagers pasta, garlic bread, salad and lemon bars with a macadamia nut crust. The Internet is down at the school right now so I am going to have to pull out my old lady crochet bag and make something until the late night dodge ball game begins.
Hope you had a great day.