The Chit Chat Chit Chat Thread

[Gabe1]

Hi again. Still stuck in the US. DH and the kids went back a week and a half ago, then promptly all caught the stomach flu. Then it was Easter break so they went back to work/school today. I have no idea when I'll be able to go home. We hit a couple of snafus that slowed everything down. I got sunburned on Thursday when the death certificates FINALLY came in after more than 2 weeks and my brother was already back home so I had no transportation and I walked 5.5 miles to pick them up and drop them off everywhere they needed to be. But I've gotten everything done that I can do until the lawyer lets us know if we have to go through probate, so I'm hanging at my brother's house for now.

Your drivers licence from the Netherlands should be accepted here for unto a year. You can also with the Netherlands licence get an International Permit, not mandatory but you can.

 

[Gabe1]

And when the local farmers are supported, that also brings money into the community as well.

We lost yet another local farmer. Sad because we had very few left that grew multiple family type veggies. Our farms here are more about soy and corn.

I do love the fresh corn but everything else seems to be trucked in to professional framers market vendors. If that is the case I may as well go to the grocery store.

 

[donaldtoo]

My grandfather had an early 50s Ford. I remember all the times he drove it with the hay baler while we followed behind putting the bales on the wagon for the barn. That tractor was a workhorse.

Cool! Fun stuff...!!!

I actually got to drive the Farmall many times between the ages of 11-15. I was 15 when my pops pop died, and they moved my grandmother into town about 7 miles down the road. All the farmland was leased to the nextdoor neighbor (that's also one of the farms with an oil well on it).
I know I've probably posted about this before, but my pops pop didn't bail hay, he made haystacks (my moms pop bailed hay).
The hay was cut and then pilled up into separate piles about 4-5 ft. tall and 8-10 ft. wide, in the field. A long wire that had a latchable hook on the end was attached to the back of the Farmall. You would back the tractor up near the pile, and then the hook would be attached to a long rod. You took the rod with the hook on it and ran it underneath the small stack until I came out the other end, then you pulled the wire through the bottom and over the top to the front to latch it to the wire at the base, and sinch it up tight. You then dragged them to the base of one of 3 tall tree trunk poles, and got about the first 5 small piles packed in tight around the base of each pole.
After all 5 bases were built, it was pitchfork time...!!!!!
I really would have been nice to somehow get those whole piles up on the stacks, after you relatively easily formed the bases, without a pitchfork...!!!

The haystacks looked pretty much exactly like these...

 

[MOXOMUMD]

I went to the Steakhouse 55 lounge at the Disneyland hotel for dinner tonight it was excellent. I got the rib eye,truffle Mac and cheese, and the 24 layer chocolate cake.
View attachment 199668 View attachment 199669 View attachment 199670 View attachment 199671

I had to leave this behind as I was too stuffed. I could have taken it with but I didn't want to carry it around.
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Mmm steak!

 

[StarWarsGirl]

I go back and forth on real tableware in quick fast services restaurants. BOG, where they bus the tables woot. Nice.

Places like Panera and there are many others that have you awkwardly scraping your plates dividing up your silverware, glassware plates and bowls while looking at others scraped up food. Not a fan of all that. I'd rather have paper in those type of venues. IKEA at least allows you to place your entire tray in a rack and walk away.

You don't have that at DL. CMs clean up after you.

 

[Gabe1]

He's taken a liking to political discussions. Every night, hubs and I have these in-depth political and world events discussions, and Jack will bolt into the kitchen, sit on the floor and take it all in. You should see his dog face--he intently listens, but sometimes he sorta tilts his head, like he completely disagrees with our viewpoints. (And yet, he adds nothing to the discussion . . . )

Hmpf. Wonder if Jack was a politician in his former life?

I would have liked to have been the fly on the wall today as Jack listened to you and hubs as you discussed the World News of
Pope meet & greets the creepity News dude in St. Peters Square and then is promptly fired for being a lecher. Jack's ears must have stood straight up.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

View attachment 200355

That makes me mad, that officer should know better.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

That makes me mad, that officer should know better.

Such irony.

 

[donaldtoo]

I need to borrow some ketchup from @donaldtoo. I'm only about 25 pages behind.

View attachment 200323

Hahaaa...!!!!!
And, I'm only 50 pages behind, now...!!!

 

[MySmallWorldof4]

My arm is a little sore from my shingles vaccination. There is a little pink patchy area around the injection sight, and a few pimply spots. Nothing too serious, I believe. I read that about 1 out of 3 people get this sort of reaction after the shot.

I think that as long as you don't have any breathing problems, swollen glands and a high fever that your reaction is a normal mild reaction to the vaccine. Hopefully the discomfort is just for a couple of days.

 

[Gabe1]

Pool, lounge chairs, umbrellas, BYOB adult beverages I'll bring my beach music close my eyes and dream of TL Between my dh and my ds either not being home during the day or sleeping I'll get lots of quiet pool time by myself this summer

Would Grandma consider staying with the boys for a long weekend, or an Aunt or Uncle?

 

[donaldtoo]

I wonder if most people are just shopping online and stores are just decreasing their in-store merchandise.

That is definitely part of it. Most of the things you can't get in the brick and mortar locations anymore are available online. I remember much of our merch also getting replaced by newer IP merch, such as Marvel, Doc McStuffins, Princess Sofia, etc., etc., etc.
Also, we were required to do in-store returns of online-purchased items...and they counted against our hourly/daily sales goals...especially frustrating when happening during your managing hours...
I can remember things, such as a lady having ordered 3 different sizes of adult holiday pajamas online for three different relatives, because she didn't know their sizes, and returning the 6 that didn't fit, to our store, during one of my management shifts.
It was what it was, but, anything returned from an online purchase, we took the hit for...

 

[Goofyernmost]

In something completely random.. this morning had yet another horrible nightmare featuring a quake.
I still have no idea why always have the nightmare in the apartment building we used to live almost 10 years ago. I was never there when the biggest quake hit my town. I was at school. Yet I always see the apartment building and all surrounding buildings collapsing in a monstrous quake.

It's probably just the "wall" falling over from the weight of everybody climbing over it while laughing. That type of dream can be just symbolic of a different collapse.

 

[Gabe1]

They don't get out until the end of June too in NJ right? My SIL is a teacher in Clifton and she said their last day is in the 20's. Forget which day but here in PA they are done Memorial Day weekend. Public schools don't get as many holidays here. You would think though that they would give a week reprieve for the kids so families could go on a vacation.

Yep. It has gotten out of control. Band-land, Sports Clubs and Camps, one is nuttier than the next with the pressure of
you made a 'commitment' Family time seems to be expendable more now than ever.

I had year round swimmers. I pulled them many a time at the beginning of summer (plenty of time for the coach to get over himself.) I took kids out of school for vacation too. When the kids were being confirmed in our diocese they were allowed to miss only 2 Saturdays the entire school year or they were forced to start over the following fall, repeating the CCD course. Their viewpoint, God trumps Soccer, Band, etc.

It is hard raising families now with so much guilt and punitive actions tossed at kids for just trying to be kids. Unfortunate.

 

[Goofyernmost]

Naps = wonderfulness

I never enjoy a nap even when I'm extremely tired. Now that I have a part time job the runs until 12:30am, by the time I drive home, unwind and get to bed it is around 2am. I usually hit the sheets at around 11pm and wake up at around 6 or 6:30am. Now I am still waking up at 7am. Fortunately, it's only 3 nights a week, but, I hate getting up later then that or taking a nap during the day. I do doze off occasionally while watching TV in the afternoon, but, like getting up late I always feel like I am throwing away a part of my day.

I probably got that from my mother. My dad loved to nap, she hated to and always yelled at him when he did take one, which was almost daily. She would say... "Wake up!... your wasting your life... you will have time to sleep forever soon enough". He ignored her, of course, but, some of that same attitude must have washed over and affected me too. She felt justified when he died at age 76 and she lived until she was 87.

 

[Gabe1]

Yes, pretty darn crazy...!!!
I usually ('cause I'm curious ) ask the partner what the client(s) do for a living. We've done homes for owners of high tech companies, doctors, lawyers, car dealers, politicians, etc., and everything in between. In this particular case I was told they do nothing...one of them is a trust fund baby... Must be nice...!
And, obviously, their 3 kiddos are still young because of all the stuff they want for them in the home.
More trust fund babies, I guess...?!

One of my nieces (inlaw) graduated as did her hubby all from the same University as my DD did. He is about 30 and niece about 28. He was a power plant engineer and she was a tech based engineer. He is an old old money trust fund babe. A Kenilworth family. Well about 2 years ago he quit his job (and a real good one at that) this past year my niece quit her engineering job too. They have been travelling the country and the world continents. Usually a month per trip with some state side trips in between. I really like her hubby. And my niece well she married UP and married well. And for a wedding present they got from his family a condo in Lincoln Park. No Kenilworth but dang close.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

I never enjoy a nap even when I'm extremely tired. Now that I have a part time job the runs until 12:30am, by the time I drive home, unwind and get to bed it is around 2am. I usually hit the sheets at around 11pm and wake up at around 6 or 6:30am. Now I am still waking up at 7am. Fortunately, it's only 3 nights a week, but, I hate getting up later then that or taking a nap during the day. I do doze off occasionally while watching TV in the afternoon, but, like getting up late I always feel like I am throwing away a part of my day.

I probably got that from my mother. My dad loved to nap, she hated to and always yelled at him when he did take one, which was almost daily. She would say... Wake up!... your wasting your life... you will have time to sleep forever soon enough. He ignored her, of course, but, some of that same attitude must have washed over and affected me too. She felt justified when he died at age 76 and she lived until she was 87.

My husband can take really long "naps", they are usually an hour or two. So I don't think that is really a nap. My naps are usually 20 minutes, maybe 30 and I wake up refreshed. If I nap longer than that I get cranky. I usually only nap on weekends or on an afternoon break on my Disney vacation.

 

[donaldtoo]

Most of the Disney Stores aren't around anymore, across the nation. I have access to two very large malls (which I avoid--I don't care for malls), but I can tell you that both of those malls have been missing their Disney Stores for quite a few years now. Too bad--I actually would go to the mall, just for that store to poke around. Now, there's nothing at all that I like at the malls.

Sympathy like.
As I've posted before, our Disney Store, merch-wise, has changed a lot over the years, but, it is still one of the older "Pink and Green" Stores.
It is around 3,000 sq. ft., not including Backstage merch storage. Boy howdy, as I've posted before, did that ever take a while to vacuum at the end of the night, along with rebuilding Plush Mountain, replenishing, etc.
A lot of hard work, but, also a lot of great Magical memories...!!!!!

This is so very similar to our Plush Mountain and Store...!!!

 

[Cesar R M]

Do you eat a lot of spicy Mexican food? I think your nightmares might be a result of not sleeping well, due to undigested food from dinner!

Hu no...
I get them regardless of what I eat.
I once ate very heavy nachos.. apart from the bloated feel, didnt dream anything XD