Carrollton's Finest

Today was an eventful day!  And I didn't even have to get out of my pajamas!

You see, we have this problem.  The trash truck pulls down the power lines in our alley.  We have lived in our house since May, and this has happened four times.  This time was the worst as the truck actually broke the line.  See.... broken line.

Unfortunately for the driver of said truck, Chris was home and working in the garage today when the truck lumbered past our house.  So he saw everything, and proceeded to chase the truck down the alley to give the driver a piece of his mind!  So sorry I don't have pictures of THAT.

However, because this has happened so many times, we are a little desensitized to it.  We know if we call the city, they will blame the trash people.  If we call the trash people, they will tell us to call the city or the electric company because the line is too low.  If we call Oncor (electric co) they come out and tell us it's not their line, it's a cable line which belongs to Charter Communications.  When I call Charter, they tell me they'll be out in 14 days... which turns into never.  Eventually TXU gets tired of harrassing phone calls and comes out to temporarily "fix" the problem.  Within weeks, the trash truck hits the line... and the circle of life continues.

Today was different, though.  Today, the truck broke the power line, which caused a neighbor to call the fire dept. to tell them of a down power line.  (Why didn't I think of that??) 

I didn't think of that because I happen to know that the line is inactive... thanks to the number of phone calls I've had to make in the past.  I even pulled the line today to get it out from behind my garage... so I'm WELL aware that there is no power in this line.  BUT, since the FD was called, and THEY don't know it's not an active line, they blocked off the alley from all directions, had the police come out, who found a Charter guy working a few miles away, made him come to our house and see what he could do.

Well, what he could do was not much.  The power line was broken, which would require someone with a skill level higher than his to fix.  And more people came!  So they've been our there for the better part of 8 hours trying to fix this problem.  Oh, I can only hope I don't ever open my garage to this, again:

(It might look like shadows, but it's not... it's a crapload of cables.)

~D

Is it 1987 in here?

What: The Griffins 1st Annual (???) Christmas Party

When: December 19, 2009 (despite what the pictures look like) 7pm

Where: The Griffin Estate

Theme: Ugly Christmas Sweater

Cast of Characters: The KPMG Gang!

Everyone did a spectacular job with the sweaters, but the Masseys really commited themselves to the part.... check out the wine bottle!

Here's everyone else... The McDannels

The Smyths

Sorry about the hair! It's how he rolls.

Now let's talk about the food. Unfortunately, I didn't remember to take a picture of the spread before our friends devoured everything, but I'll go ahead and tell you what we offered...

• Sausage & cheese balls
  
• lil smokies
  
• stuffed mushrooms (PW's recipe... she makes me want to be a better person!)
  
• pheasant wrapped in bacon (courtesy Chris' hunting trip last weekend)
  
• cheese and crackers
  
• fruit (courtesy Ashley & the Dallas Arboretum) with fruit dip (courtesy ME... that stuff is GOOD)


• white trash chex mix


• mint chocolate chip brownie bites


• sugar cookies


• cheesecake (again, courtesy Ashley & the Dallas Arboretum).


• ALCOHOL (the key ingredient to a good party)

I almost thought that we were going to have waaaaaaay too much food, but our dear friends proved me wrong as they ate EVERYTHING! I think there were 3 crackers left over at the end.

Since I have just recently started cooking for real, it made me feel good for others to enjoy the stuff I cooked. There just might be hope for me and this cooking thing after all.

Activities:

We cheered on the Cowboys to a victory over the previously undefeated NO Saints... Go, Cowboys! There just might be hope for them after all... but probably not for kicker Nick Folk... sorry, buddy.

As usual, as some point in the evening there was a discussion of grammar, specifically apostrophe placement in contractions. Hey, what good party doesn't include a grammar lesson. For this Reading teacher, that is ALWAYS a good time.

The only thing that was missing was a good round of some sort of board game... Why, you ask? Well, because Chris and I don't own any board games. We are SO lame. Sorry, everyone. Maybe next time.

All in all... Party = Success.

Oh, I almost forgot. I gave prizes for the best (worst) ugly Christmas sweater...

Jordan was pretty excited about it. :)

Merry Christmas!

~D

A New Era

Well, I guess I'm doing this... blogging. I'm not so sure who, if anyone, will ever read this, but at least I'll have a place to write my thought, feelings, adventures, etc.

One might ask, "Why not just get a journal?" To that I answer, "It's almost 2010! Let's move it into the 21st century!" Jokes! But for real, they're always making me integrate technology into EVERYTHING I do at work, so I might as well do it at home too.

I worry that I might not be interesting enough for this sort of thing... I'm well aware that I spend my days at work, and then come home and retire to my couch for the majority of the evening. How can I possibly make that sound interesting???

Well, I have started cooking for The Hubs every night. That's new and fun. I could talk about how that's going.

I also watch a LOT of tv. Shocking, I know. I could give reviews of shows, or at least talk about anything particularly great I saw. (Or talk about how The Hubs looks EXACTLY like Finn on gLee!)

I'd really like to write a book about the REAL LIVES OF TEACHERS one day. Perhaps, I could actually get started on that and chronicle my work.

This is very stressful already.

I do know that I love my life! Which includes:

my husband

our dogs, Roxy and Lola

my family, yup, all those crazy Mexicans

and my friends.

These are the days of our lives. :)

Adios for now~D

P.S. - I've been trying to fix the formatting on this thing forEVER now... so if anyone out there wants to inform me on how to get blank lines, I would be forever grateful to you! Thanks!