The holidays are upon us and once again I find myself in that mode where you question everything a dozen times.  Oh the fun of the shopping, for me it goes something like this.  I make myself a  list so that I will not forget anything that I need.  Well the first thing I forget is to bring is the list.  I don’t know about the rest of you but for some reason that all important list finds itself everywhere except for with me when I need it the most.  Now minus my list I start down the aisles figuring if I see the items it might make me remember that it was on my list.  This is just the grocery store list mind you. So as I was saying I start down the first aisle racking my brains out to see if I can recreate the list.  OK, first aisle down and I put a few things in my cart because I believe that I forgot to put these items on the list and I am not sure if I have them in my refrigerator or pantry.  Anyway this goes on and on till I hit every aisle in the store.  Surely, I think to myself I must have gotten at least most the stuff on my list.  Then I head to the checkout and the first thing they ask you is, “Have you found everything you need?”  My answer is well if I would have brought my list I probably would have but I think I got it all.  This usually gets the cashier laughing and telling me that they do the same thing.  Oh good I am not the only one so that makes me feel better.  

Now in California we have to bring our own bags to the store or pay the 5 cents a bag if you didn’t think to remember them.  That at least is the one thing I 99% of the time remember as I have this little holder from a company called bag podz that has 12 reusable nylon bags that squish down to nothing.  It even comes in its own little holder that attaches easily to the cart.  I attach my car keys to the holder so I don’t forget the bags when I leave and so far that has worked wonders.   So now the stores bagging person gets all my items in the bags and back into the cart.  I head home trying to recall the list once again.  I don’t live that far from the store but I still hate forgetting things.

Time to bring the groceries in.  I got to admit I have what I call a granny cart to bring the groceries from the truck to the house as I hate having to make a dozen trips just to bring the groceries in.  First thing I see on the counter top is my list.  So I look at the list and then the Oh Shit moment arrives.  Yes I forgot this item, and this and oh how in the world did I forget this.  Well now I have to make another list for the items I forgot the first trip.  But wait the fun does not end there, oh no not by any means.  I start unloading my trusty bags and putting stuff away.  Oh Shit moment number two  I have this item and this and this, in fact most the stuff I bought I already had.  So now in my refrigerator I have 4 dozen eggs, 9 pounds of butter and cheese’s up the wazoo.  Don’t even get me started on all the doubles and triples in the pantry.

Like I said before tis the season and once again I make a new list for all the things I forgot.  Once again I forget the list.  I don’t know what it is about the holidays that make me so forgetful, all I can say is thank god I use the internet to do my Christmas shopping for my family because if I did that shopping like I do my groceries I would be spending half my life in the returns department bringing back a ton of double plus items.

Tis the season to be jolly so I will not let these things get me down.  So now that my fridge and pantry are full it’s time to kick back and not be a scrooge.  No there will be no bah humbug here as I have at least remembered to write my blog this week.  I hope this has made some of you laugh and I hope that you remember that we all have our Oh Shit moments  that we can choose to let drive us crazy or just laugh them off and  just get on with living.  Tis the season to say may your holidays bring you joy and your laughter be plentiful as life is only as good as you are willing to make it.

To make up for my lack of post these past few months I have given you five chapters of my book to read.  Just go to the preview page and enjoy

Hello to all my readers.  I really do need to apologize for taking so long to add to my blog.  Once again life got ahead of me and I must catch up.  It’s so hard for me to believe that the year is almost over.  I am and have been working faithfully on my book but my blog has suffered from my life being too busy.

I would like to thank my sister Mary for letting me know that I have been slacking off and she told me if I didn’t get back to doing it soon I would end up suffering from regrets and she is exactly right.  I can make up all the excuses in the world but it will not change the fact that my blog has remained dormant for way to long.  

For those of you who read my blog I am going to do my very best to not let time get away from me and to continue to do what I do best and that is to write.

I have had a lot happen since my last post.  I now have a full house with my niece and her husband and their two babies staying with me till they find a place of their own.  They moved to California in the beginning of November.   It is great having them here and so nice knowing I will get to see my great nieces grow up.  Family is such an important thing and should always be cherished to its fullest.

This past week has been a very hard week for me and my wife.  We had to put our one cat to rest.  She was 13 years old and was suffering from cancer.  She had lost so much weight and had become so weak that we could not see her suffering any longer.  I had cried this whole week while mourning our little kitty.

Her name was Misty and she was named that because she was brought to us during one of my Halloween parties that I used to have every year.  It was a night when there was a lot of fog rising up from the ground so we named her Misty.  My sister Jane had brought her to us because the people who had found her had a son who was allergic to cats.  The poor thing would have ended up in a shelter if we did not take her in.  She was a Norwegian Forest cat with beautiful long fur.  She was about 6 months old at the time.  I fell in love with her the moment I set eyes on her.

Misty had a tendency to get into mischief.  One time she climbed up a tree and could not get down so we had to get a ladder out and rescue her.  Another time she somehow got onto the roof of the house and could not get down.  It was 3 am when we heard her crying.  I had to get the ladder out again and get her down.  There was another time she ran out of the house in a huge snowstorm, my wife had to rescue her as she was buried in a few feet of snow, this of course was when we lived in New Jersey.

After we moved to California, Misty still found ways to get into mischief.   One time shortly after moving here she got out of our yard and got stuck in my neighbors jeep engine.  We did get her out and she was not hurt but it did scare the heck out of me.  Misty was also notorious for bringing in plenty of desert critters.  The cats have their own kitty door so Misty would bring in hummingbirds, lizards, desert rats, all alive mind you.  I think she just loved to watch us scurry around trying to catch what she brought in.  I remember one night she jumped on the bed and came right by our heads and dropped a live mouse right in between us.  You never seen two people jump off of a bed as fast as we did.  I can laugh at it now but at the time I was a little on the p o’d side.

Life was never boring with our little Misty.  She brought us so much joy and love.  Her brother Socks has also been mourning his sisters loss.  He looks all around for her and has taken to laying in the spot she used to lay in on the bed.  It really has been a rough week and I think by me writing about her it will help me heal sooner.  We had her cremated and will be spreading her ashes on the back lawn were she always love to lay while she  was outside.  Our Misty is now in heaven with my mom watching over her.

Good bye my little one, I miss you so much.  You will always be remembered forever in my heart.

For all of you who own pets, remember to cherish every moment that you have with them.  Our pets have become huge parts of our families and they always give us unconditional love so please be sure and return that love.

You know fall has arrived when you walk into the stores and see pumpkins everywhere.  In my area the pumpkin craze started the minute September began.  The first week I went grocery shopping there was a little display of some pumpkin coffee and some pumpkin flavored candy, week two that display doubled, now we have pumpkin cereals, muffins, cakes, pies, cookies and more.  I love pumpkin so for me this was pumpkin heaven.  I could not believe all the items that contained pumpkin.  Yes I filled my cart with almost every kind of pumpkin item I could get my hands on. This is my thing, pumpkin is good for you so hey that cookie can’t be that bad for me can it?  When I got all my pumpkin goodies home I was so excited.  In my house you very rarely find any type of sweets and goodies, 99% of everything I buy is healthy.  I spend hours at the store reading labels.  So what happened this time?  Suddenly my nice healthy habits go flying out the door.  I bought things that I never ever buy just because they were pumpkin.  I even bought pumpkin pie pop tarts, are you kidding me.  What on earth came over me?  Was it the way they displayed the items, which was the thing you first saw upon entering the store.  I don’t know, all I knew was it is pumpkin season and this limited flavor got the best of me.

It has now been a couple of weeks since I went on my pumpkin happy high.  Yes I even ate many of the items to see if I liked them.  Let me tell you a true fact, pumpkin is very good for you but and I mean but in most of the items I purchased the goodness of that pumpkin was outweighed by the badness of everything else in those items.  My body was on overload from lots of unnatural ingredients that I had shoved into it.  After going on pumpkin fix I decided to read the labels of the stuff that had in my system reeking havoc on me.  This was a wake up call because once I had read all this I have decided that I would no longer be swayed by the stores shameless marketing of the pumpkin.  Most of the items had high fructose corn syrup in them, in my house that is a number one no no.  Most of the items also had at least 5 ingredients in them that I could not even pronounce, let alone know what they were.  Most of the items had more saturated fat in them than a meal at McDonald’s.  Most had more sugar in them than I would normally eat in one month.  The list goes on and on.

I have to tell you I did enjoy a lot of those items and I would have probably been ok if I had ate them in a lot more moderation then I did.  One thing it did prove to me is that I am only human sometimes you need a little binge to put you back on track.  Luckily for me my time off track was only a couple of weeks.  My body was the thing that paid the price for my pumpkin love and beings I am not getting any younger I will spend the next month getting my body back to normal.  I know for a fact that by eating all those sweet goodies my body started craving them and it made it very hard not to run to the pantry to satisfy those cravings.   So you think I would have learned a lesson here and I really thought I did.  I went shopping at Trader Joe’s this past week because they carry a lot of healthy foods that I like.  They also jumped on the pumpkin band wagon.  As I was heading to the checkout I noticed a display that had pumpkin Kringle on it.  I had never heard of Kringle before  and so I had to check this one out.  This one had no artificial  anything in it but it was not a healthy item by any means.  Did I just walk past this item and stick to my cart of healthy food.  Honestly, no once again my brain was influenced by the name pumpkin.  This time around we did do a lot better and made our Kringle last longer then the other items.  What can I say but welcome to pumpkin season.

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It’s that time of year, kids are back to school, nights are getting cooler and the sun is setting sooner.  Hard to believe summer is coming to an end.  There is one thing though that makes this a great time of year – FOOTBALL.  I don’t know how many of you are excited about this, but in my house the saying is “Bring it On”.  Oh yeah, we look forward to this day every year.  You see, we do not watch a lot of TV because there are always things to do and most of it involves being outdoors.  Yes we do have a few favorite shows that we watch but most of them end by June.  In the summer there just is not enough on that interest us, even with the 315 channels we have.  We do catch some of the WNBA games but you don’t always find them on.  In my house we love sports but our favorite one is football.

This is the time of year when weekends bring together good friends all wearing their favorite team jerseys.  Unhealthy foods like buffalo wings and chips and dip and of course lots of beer.  This is when you walk into a sports bar and see TV’s broadcasting all the games.  This is when you have to shout to be heard over all the commotion.  I don’t know of any other sport that have fans that can scream as loud as they can when football is on.

Football has come a long way over the years.  It used to be a guy thing, but now I know just as many woman who watch and cheer for their teams as I do men.  I know some of you are thinking, that’s not me, I would rather be out shopping.  Trust me I understand that it is not for everyone.  For those of us who enjoy the sport though this is the time of year when we seem to get together a lot more.  Tailgating parties have become a ritual and the food that is cooked at a game is no longer just burgers and hot dogs.  Everything from college games to NFL games get celebrated.  Weekends are spent in front of TV’s with groups of people.  Betting on games is a whole sport on its own.  Everyone is either doing a football pool or a fantasy league team.  You can feel the excitement in the air.

We have two teams in my household.  The Philadelphia Eagles and the Miami Dolphins.  Every year we watch and hope our teams will win.  Some years have been great let downs and others were hopeful.  When game day rolls around we both are in our teams jerseys, hats, socks, bracelets and any other thing that we think will bring our team luck.  It has always amazed me at some of the rituals people will do for their teams.  You also see vehicles decked out with team logo’s.  Players become hero’s to kids.   This is a very emotional time of year.  True fans will cry when their teams lose and cry tears of joy when they win.   I know I always have high hopes going into the year that this might be the year we become champions once again, of course every year has not brought me that far, but I am a true dedicated fan and will always root my team on.

My bird Simba even gets into the game.  She can sing the Eagles fight song, she sits on her perch and watches the games and shouts and hollers just like the rest of us.  You will hear her crying for defense and yelling for the team to get the ball.  She even says touchdown when one happens.  You would swear she is human.  Most people who come over during a football game cannot believe the birds actions.

Did you ever notice when you get a group together, the one thing that gets a conversation rolling is football.  You can meet a stranger in a store wearing a football jersey and comment on their team, hopefully with nice words, and end up having a 10 minute conversation with them, where if they were not wearing the jersey, you might have just passed them by.   Football brings people together, it is unbelievable just how much this happens.

Tonight is the first game of the regular season and I have my spot ready and waiting.  Tonight the Carolina Panthers vs Denver Broncos and the season officially begins.  Sunday is the day though that most fans are waiting on and consider the true opener of the season.  Thousands upon thousands are waiting to see if this is their year.  The grocery stores are packed with people buying food for the games.  Me, well I am super excited this year, I got the football package on my TV for free this year.   Now I actually get to see my team playing instead of hoping my game will make the regular channels.  I am in football heaven here.

Are you ready for some Football,  I say bring it on!

Let’s Go Dolphins!

Do you ever find yourself overwhelmed with a list of things that have to get done?  Seriously, I find myself in just that kind of situation right now.  I feel like no matter how much I do I just cannot get caught up.  The clock just seems to move at lightning speed anymore and I find that the older I get the faster it goes.  This is when I also know I am trying to do too much too fast and have to force myself to sit back and chill out for a bit and that is exactly what I did.

I have to say I just  had three perfect days.   My wife, Denise, had vacation this past week and beings I was away for over a month we did not want to leave our furry and feathery children for a full week, so we decided on a mini vacation to San Diego.  San Diego is only a two hour drive from our house.  Both of us had always wanted to see the San Diego Zoo.  I am one who loves a good bargain.  When we decided on going to San Diego one thing that was a must was a nice hotel room that would not break our pockets.  Drum roll please, Priceline, need I say more.  I don’t know how much I can praise this company.  Every thing from air fare, rental cars, cruises and hotels I have gotten from them.  If you really want a bargain then you must try them.  We were able to score a four star hotel  for $89 a night.  We ended up staying at the Omni in the Gaslight district and only two blocks from the bay.  In fact our room had a view of the bay and of the Petco Arena, which is where the San Diego Padres play baseball.   From the moment we pulled in we were treated with first class service.  Everything we wanted was gotten for us and in record time.  When our bell man brought up our luggage we asked if we could get a mini fridge for our room.  He called downstairs right away and within 5 minutes we had a fully running mini fridge to store our drinks in.  The room we had was very clean and the bed was extremely comfortable.  Normally I go to hotels and almost always walk away with a backache when I leave,  this was one of the things that extremely important for me in the hotel.  One of the other things I loved was check out was at noon, not like a lot of hotels that make you check out by 10 AM.  Check in was also at 3 PM instead of the normal 4 PM at other hotels.

Our first day was spent walking around the town just checking out the different sites.  It was a beautiful night with temps in the lower 70’s.  The city was alive and active. We enjoyed a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant on 5th street.  After a few hours of touring the town we went back to our hotel and had a great nights rest.  Our second day was our only full day in the city, that day was spent at the San Diego Zoo, which just happened to be celebrating its 100 year anniversary.  The zoo is huge at 100 acres.  It houses 3700 animals and 650 species and sub species.  Honestly I wish we had a few more days as we were not even able to see half of the zoo in the day we spent there.  The zoo is one of the pioneers in the concept of open air, cage less exhibits that recreates the animals natural habitat.   What we did see we totally enjoyed.  The zoo is currently constructing a few new areas that I am sure we will go to when finished.  One of my favorite things was the polar bears.  There was one in the water that was having a ball going back and forth.  I think I could have just stayed there for hours watching him swim.  That was my first time ever seeing a polar bear and I was just amazed at its size and how gracefully he moved.  The panda bear display was currently under construction so the panda’s were housed in the monkey area.  We did get to see the baby panda but the mamma was a no show for us.  We also got to see a koala bear sleeping and monkeys swinging around.  The giraffes at the zoo are a  different variety from the ones we have here in the desert and we were able to get up close with them.  After hours of walking we took the kangaroo bus around before heading out to our hotel. We were so tired when we got back we didn’t even bother to eat dinner.

The third day we decided since we did not eat dinner we would have a room service breakfast of bagels, a pot of coffee, and juice. The meal came up exactly on time and I was pleasantly surprised that I was given a full carafe of coffee and we were given 12 ounce glasses of juice.  After checking out of our hotel we decided to drive up to the Seaport Village and harbor.  There was one cruise ship in port that had arrived that morning.  This was the first ship of the cruise season.  We also saw the USS Midway, which I would love to tour on my next visit.  We did not get to walk around the village this trip but we will make a point of it in the near future.

Our mini vacation has now come to an end and once again I find myself playing catch up.  Here’s to life and all the adventure it can hold for those who are willing to take the journey.

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Three short weeks ago I had never heard of the newest craze sweeping the planet.  That craze is an app titled Pokemon Go.  My brother Allen had called my sister Mary while I was staying at her house, he asked her if the kids had been playing Pokemon Go.  My sister never heard of it and she asked me if I had.  I was clueless, I don’t usually tend to keep up with the games the kids play unless they tell me about them.  I should have paid no attention to this one either, instead while my sister described what my brother had told her I became intrigued, after all who doesn’t like a game that’s interactive.  I go to the app store and look it up, sounds pretty cool so I decide I might as well check it out, after all if I don’t like it I can just delete it.

Right after I have the app downloaded and ready, my sister asks if I would like to go to the store with her.  Great, now I can actually try   the game out.  Not long after we get in her car my first Pokemon shows up.  Now I did read a little on what to do so I flick my poke ball at the cute little creature and I catch it on my very first shot.  Wow, I gotta say I was pretty impressed.  We get to the parking lot at the store and more Pokemon show up and I continue to flick poke balls and catch the creatures.  I look at my phone and see that my battery is almost dead.  How can one game use up so much power?  At this point I am not as impressed with the game.  When we get back to the house I plug my phone back in and let it charge back up.

After reading a lot of reviews on the game I find that I am not the only one who suffers from battery loose, but there is a battery save mode on the game.  I also read that you can conserve more battery life by not keeping it in camera mode.  So now I do both of these things and I am once again ready to do battle.  Well while sitting at the house you do not really get many Pokemon come your way so I get up and start walking.  This is a great way to get some exercise in.  My battery is lasting a little longer and all is right in my own little world.

Next we head out to Ocean City, MD for our week of fun and sun.  I think to myself, how great is this game going to be while walking on the boardwalk.  Well let me tell you I was not at all disappointed as the boardwalk is full of poke stops, this is when you collect a lot of poke balls and other items that you will need to enhance your game play.  This is also when I discover that you can get some really fun shots on your camera.  OK, now I am hooked.

I did not set out to be so engrossed on a game but here it is, I am a Pokemon Go addict.  I find myself keeping the app on most of the time, hoping for that little stray creature to enter my path.  I am hatching eggs and leveling up.  I find myself searching out the many gyms where you can do battles or just help out your team.  Oh yeah, I forgot after level five you have the option of joining one of three teams and so I join team Mystic.  While at the shore I also noticed that there were more adults hunting Pokemon then the kids were.  Now everywhere I look I see people hunting down these strange-looking creatures.  I also see just how big this game has become in such a short span of time.  This really beats Angry Birds and Candy Crush.

Now that I am hooked I wonder if there is going to be any counseling done to help those who are way more hooked then me.  I actually see people driving and looking for Pokemon, or crossing streets without looking.  I am glad that even though I am a Pokemon addict I still have common sense enough to no when to put the game down.  I still refuse to play while eating dinner out, while driving my truck and while crossing roads.  In the end I still can know that it is just a game.

Greetings all, I know it has been a while since my last blog post so let me explain why. Plain and simple it is called “Vacation”. Now when I originally knew we were going to Ocean City, MD, I figured I would get in a few blog post while being there. Well I was wrong. First off the WiFi in our condominium sucked and I mean big time. Even talking on your cellphone was a chore.  Now the good news is it forced me to concentrate solely on having a great time with family and friends.

We had 3 condominiums rented.  Floor 2 was rented by my sister Dolly and my brother-in-law Curt.  Floor 3 was rented by my sister Mary and my brother-in-law John.  Floor 4 was rented by my extended family Audrey and Cam.  Yes, 3 floors on top of one another with 3 balconies so we could people watch from any floor.  Each condo had all rooms full for a total of 28 of us enjoying an ocean view right on the boardwalk.  Now we have been doing this trip for many years and we always have a blast.  Normally my wife Denise would also be there but she choose the lake house this year instead, that was the only sad part.

When my family gets together it is an instant party.  We  always have a drink of the day board where someone is in charge of making a specialty drink for everyone that day.  My drink was an Apple Bikini Martini, which is basically an Apple Martini but with a little more kick.  Our days and nights were filled with sand, boardwalk, beach, food and  lots and lots of drinks.  With all the drinks come the drinking games, we played flip cup, some game that you had to wear a dental mouth stretching piece and try to have people guess a sentence that you pull out of a bag.  Talk about laugh, we had so much fun with that one.  The kids main objective was to get their wrist bands and ride as many of the rides that they could during the time the bracelets were in effect.  I did get to go on the Haunted House ride with my niece Brielle, it was fun and I was glad to see that they had made some nice improvements on it.

One afternoon a bunch of us went down to Secrets.  Secrets is a restaurant and bar on the bay where you can literally sit at tables in the bay and enjoy cocktails and that is just what we did.  Now I was not expecting to sit in the bay but when we got there my nieces Krystal and Katie had already had a table there for us to sit.  Again being unprepared to sit in the bay, I was in a pair of denim shorts which did get wet a little.  My phone must have also gotten wet at some point because after we had left the place and went to another bar near the condo’s I noticed that my screen was acting up on my phone.  I made the mistake of plugging it in when I got back to the condo and lets just say the phone never worked after that.  Now I need my phone, especially when traveling, so I was lucky that there was an AT&T store nearby.  That was an expensive lesson to learn, plus they don’t allow you to just by your phone like you used to, now you have to lease it, which means you are paying full price on the phone by time the payments are done.  No longer do you get the $200 upgrade cost, now you pay a hefty monthly fee.  ChaChing, that is the sound of my shore vacation not even 3 days into the trip.

I am also a big fan of Claw Machines, I am also usually pretty good at them and I did end up with a few small items.  Mind you I said a few small items, I swear every year they make the claws on the machine a lot harder to pick things up, especially anything that is worth more than a dollar.  I would really love to know how much money they rack up on those machines because I was not seeing a whole lot of people walking around with any big prizes, or little ones for that matter.  Oh well it is the shore and that is one of the things that keep people like me going year after year.  This year though I decided since the claws were not being very nice, that I would concentrate on the games that give you the tickets that you cash in for prizes. Those of us who played these machines, ended up getting plenty of tickets for the kids to get some small cheap prizes.  I really miss the days when the machines used to cost you a quarter and you would walk away with lots of stuffed animals.  Now the machines cost at least $1 and you are extremely lucky to walk away with any money in your pocket, let alone prizes.

One thing I did walk away with and I would not change that for all the world, and that is good memories with great people in my life.  For all the ups and downs I must say that the time spent with family and friends is priceless.  This was not only at the shore but at my sister’s house as well.  I did get to see friends that I have not seen in many years.  As with any vacation the time just goes by so fast.  So dear friends and family, know that I miss and love all of you.  My vacation is now at a close, my pocket feel poorer but I feel richer for the memories I will keep dear in my heart.

Saturday for dinner my sister Mary decided she wanted to try something new. After exploring her computer, she decided that we should make homemade pizza and cook it on the grill. Now I don’t know if any of you have tried this adventure before, but it is not as easy as it sounds. My sister researched many sites and of course many of them are conflicting as to how this process is handled. One thing all agreed on is you need a very high temperature. I have tried doing homemade pizza myself but in my oven and making my own homemade dough. I used the Caputo 00 flour and bought a good old fashion pizza peel, I had my trusty pizza stone that was nicely seasoned. I had all the confidence in the world, I was going to make pizza.

My first attempt I made the dough exactly as directed it was light and airy, and a bitch to try and make a round pizza. Oh yeah I can picture myself trying to spin this dough like a pro, not. I ended up forming my circle with my hands. I also made sure to bring the temperature up slowly on my stone. I got my oven to the 500 degrees that was recommended. I then added my sauce to the dough and then the cheese. Well first problem, I made the pizza on my granite countertop never thinking about how I was gonna transfer the dough to the peel. Lets just say by time I got it on the peel it was no longer round and my pizza looked like a big ole gloppy mess. Next sliding the dough off the peel, well that didn’t go so well either. By the time I got the dough on the stone the sauce had soaked the dough and as soon as it hit the stone, the stone busted in two. Now I was left with this oozing dough and sauce all over my oven. First pizza a total failure. Did I give up, hell no after all I was determined I could master this.

Second attempt at homemade pizza. I bought myself a nice stone that fit my whole oven and was guaranteed to withstand the 500 degree oven. This time I make the same dough and of course it was no easier to work with then the first time. Again I had to form my circle with my hands but this time I floured the peel and did it on top the peel. Once again as I try to slide my pizza off the peel I end up with a pizza that looks nothing at all like a pizza. I finally get it on the stone and by time it is cooked it looks like something from a horror movie. Second attempt a total failure. Did I stop there, no because now I am pissed off and more determined then ever.

Third attempt at making homemade pizza. Ok now I know my dough is gonna be the thing I need to work on so this time I make it so it is not so loose and airy. This time I am able to spin my dough like you see in a pizzeria, at least in my dream it looked good. I was actually able to spin the dough a little but by no means like I pictured it in my head. This time though, I decided not to add the sauce till I cooked the dough enough to hold the sauce without making a soupy mess. I cook the dough just enough, maybe three minutes, I take the peel and pull out my first round dough and I add the sauce ever so carefully. Then comes the cheese and back in the oven it goes and I mean it did, the dough stuck to the peel so the sauce and cheese hit the stone first followed by the dough that is no longer round and of course by this time I had some very choice words for my pizza. Third attempt at homemade pizza another flop. Did I give up, hell yes after all I am not that crazy. Now when I make pizza I make it sicilian style out of homemade focaccia bread and all my friends rave about how good it is.

Now back to the pizza and the grill. My sister and I go to the store and buy, yes I said buy pizza dough made fresh by the store. We get the sauce and all the different toppings that each person requires. We get all this stuff home and are ready to tackle the task of making pizza on the grill. Now you know my luck by now so once we get home it starts pouring rain. After having everyone’s mouth watering for grilled pizza we think we will have to put it off for a day. No way, the family is not buying this at all, they want to grill pizza and no rain is going to stop them. See I am not the only stubborn crazy person in my family. Well good news the rain does stop so we get the dough out and we let the kids do the first set of pizza’s on the grill. They work at trying to get round personal pan size pizza’s. Ok so they are not quite round and beautiful but the kids made them themselves so hey. Next daddy puts them on the grill to cook, so far, so good. The pizza’s swell up like little balloons because they could not get the dough quite thin enough. When the pizza’s came out the bottoms were a little on the black side. The kids ate a little bit and did not complain but you could tell they were not overly thrilled either. Next comes the adult attempts at making a pizza. I know I try to get my dough as thin as possible but I don’t think we let the dough get to room temperature enough so I settle for having it semi thin. I then add the sauce and cheese and I chose peppers, onions and mushrooms for my topping. My niece chose to do a cheesesteak pizza, my sister and her husband chose a margarita pizza. Now we go to put my pizza on the stone in the 600+ degree grill. Ughhhhh I had mine made on a plate but guess who forgot to flour the plate? By time we get my pizza on the stone it brings back the nightmares of my attempts at home. My nieces was not as bad to get on as she did flour a cutting board so hers slides nicely onto the stone. Now both our pizza’s are cooking and both have swollen up like little balloons. By the time they are done the bottoms are pretty well blackened but aside from that they tasted ok. Now my sister and her husband made a full size pizza on parchment paper and they put it on the stone but the parchment paper caught on fire, we worked fast to get it off the paper and finally their pizza was cooking. The stone that was next to their stone broke in two, so much for there nicely seasoned pizza stone. My sisters pizza also came out with a blackened bottom but they still ate it as it was not all that bad. Now my sister is the one who is determined to master the art of grilled pizza and has told me she plans on doing so by the end of summer. I myself wish her all the luck in the world, as for me I plan on buying mine from the pizzeria if I want a thin crust pizza, otherwise I will stick to my one that I do best.

This blog is for the pet lovers of the world.  Pets today are no longer the chain them up in the backyard or kick them out at night thing.  Most everyone I know with pets treat them like they are a part of the family and they should.  I myself know that my pets are just like anyone else’s kids.  I even call them my kids and I take care of them as I would a child.  My “kids” bring me joy, laughter and most importantly, unconditional love.  Yes unconditional love, a pet does not discriminate except when mistreated.

My sister Mary owns a Brussels Griffon named Chica.  For those who have never seen a Brussels, they are in the toy dog category, they have the most human looking eyes.  Brussels are alert, curious and loyal.  They do not shed and most people are not allergic to this breed.  They are so damn cute.

Chica knows me well.  When my sister got hers 11 years ago, she was flown in from a breeder in the mid-west.  There were five of us picking the puppy up.  We always have a running joke of how many blondes does it take o pick up a Brussels Griffon.  Needless to say we were all blondes.  When we got to the airpor we were directed to pickup area were we found Chica.  She was the size of an adult hand in this humongous crate.  She must have been petrified of the flight as she had wet herself.  We took her into the bathroom and washed her in the sink and dried her with the hand dryer.  When we got to the car we all took turns holding this tiny ball of joy.  I remember her just licking away at my ear.  It was love at first sight.

When I come to New Jersey to visit family every year, Chica always gets so excited to see me.  She knows me and the love I get from her is fantastic.  While I am here, she sleeps with me every night.  I have knee problems so getting up and down stairs is a huge deal for me.  Chica always runs up a few steps and waits for me then goes up a few more and again waits for me till we finally get to the top.  She does the same thing as we go down the stairs.  Chica is my constant shadow while I am at my sisters.  You see unconditional love.

My neighbor in California has a Golden Labrador named Ziva.  This is another very loving dog.  She comes over and the first thing she does is give you kisses.  Ziva loves to go swimming in our pool and even our cats do not have a problem with the dog.  We even have a toy box for Ziva at our house.  Again unconditional love.

I have two cats, Socks and Misty.  Socks is 17 years old and Misty is 15.  We had Socks from the time she was a little kitten.  Misty came to us when she was about 6 months old, we had to guestimate her age.  She was found by my sisters friend and was going to go to a shelter if no one took her, needless to say I was not going to have that.  Our cats have been a major source of amusement for us, and in fact I am writing a children’s ook about them when I am finished my novel.  Yet again unconditional love.

My birds, Simba, an African Grey, and Spirit, a Cockatiel are our other kids.  Simba is a huge talker with such a high vocabulary list that I have lost count on how many words she can say.  When I am home we chat with each ther all day.  Simba is also extremely smart.  She can say full sentences and knows exactly what she is saying.  She especially loves sports, if we are watching football she will watch and say defense, touch down and whoop and holler just like any human would do.  She even knows the Eagle’s fight song (can you guess her favorite team?).  Simba calls me mommy and Denise mommy DeeDee.  She is the one who made these names for us.  Simba also loves to laugh, sometime’s you can be out of the room and hear her tell herself something and start laughing.  You would be amazedat just how smart this bird is.  Simba gives us unconditional love.

Spirit came to me.  I mean literally came to me.  It was about one year after my Cockatiel Squeekers passed away.  I was over my neighbor’s house enjoying some cocktails when we seen a bird flying overhead.  The bird was making noises that no ordinary outdoor bird makes.  After a while we decided to go to my house and let my neighbors dogs run in my backyard.  When we got there the bird flew into my palm tree.  As I walked to the tree, I called out, “come here pretty bird” and on my arm flew this ockatiel.  I had just sold my cage that I had my other bird in, so I had to put this little bird in the cat carrier.  I checked the ads in the paper for a week to see if anyone reported a missing bird.  With no one claiming her and the fact that it was almost a year to the day that my other Cockatiel passed away, I ended up naming her Spirit.  This bird loves me and when she is out of her cage she climbs all over me and believe it or not she loves playing on my iPad.  I have a piano app on it and she will walk up and down it to make music.  My birds are just so entertaining and once again they give us unconditional love.

Why are our pets able to give us so much and ask so little in return?  All our pets really want besides fod, is to be loved.  How can anyone mistreat something that is so willing to give them unconditional love?  I read to many horror stories about people doing cruel things to their pets and it makes me want to just cry.  Why have a pet if you are not going to spend the time loving it?  Take a look at how much these beautiful creatures are willing to give you.  Don’t buy a pet just because you think its cute, to many of these end up in shelters.  Make sure you have the time and money to take care of a pet the way it should be taken care of.  Do some research before you ever purchase any kind of pet, make sure you fully understand what is involved in keeping this pet happy and healthy.  Nothing would bring me greater joy then to see animal shelters empty.

I hope if nothing else that I opened up a few people’s eyes and hearts on what a joy a pet is but, I also hope I brought out the responsibility involved because all pets deserve unconditional love.