The Big DumpTruck

According to www.disneyworld.com, it’s only 100 days until my vacation. Yes, that’s right, we’re venturing south again this year. Once more, we’ll be a “magical gathering” group. I don’t know if I’m going to have t-shirts made up. I’ll have to talk to the rest of the crew to find out if they’re interested. We did get a lot of attention, though, which is always nice. That’s because our group is called the “Monorail Breakfast Club” and Disney cast members who saw the t-shirt always had a comment. Prince Charming was talking to us at the Princess dinner at the Grand Floridian and said that he knew most everything about his “kingdom” but did not know they served breakfast on the monorail. (They don’t. And you aren’t supposed to eat on it. We called ourselves that after our first planning session, when Mr. Dump said he wanted to stay at one of the monorail hotels (Contemporary) and my dad said he didn’t care where we stayed as long as they had breakfast. Even the people on the phones at Disney got a giggle out of our group name. I think they are tired of people going with “Smith Party” or whatever. If you can’t sprinkle your life with creative, fun stuff, why bother living, really.

This time we’re trying out the Animal Kingdom Lodge. My sister’s family stayed there before and had nothing but good things to say about it. I have been down there enough, and know I’ll be going again, that I really didn’t care where we stayed. My preference was probably the Contemporary, but only because I really adore the convenience of the monorail being right there. But it’s also more expensive, and we’re taking the step-kids this time around, so AKL was slightly more affordable. Sure, we could have stayed offsite or at a lower level hotel, but
a)I didn’t want to and
b)it’s harder to fit 5 in a room at lower level hotels.

So where was I going with this? Oh, right…100 days. That doesn’t seem like a very long time, does it?

Oh, and for the mundane crowd, today I have a pot roast in the crock pot. I’ll let you know how it turns out. (I am gathering crock pot recipes from friends and putting them in a document that I’ll make available on this site. If you have a recipe that you love, preferably one you have modified so that you can really claim it as your own, drop me an email. I’m actually thinking of including these recipes throughout the “book” that I’m putting together, so see, you can be published and that way you’ll buy even more copies of the book. [See Bill?])

If the guy calling WXLO is to be believed, Noah Wylie owns a house in Leominster. I will admit I’m not sure I believe this. Look, I like Leominster. I have lived here almost my whole life (aside from college, I’ve lived briefly in 2 other towns).

But I wouldn’t live here if I could afford to step up to something a little more upscale. So no, I don’t think Mr. Wylie would choose Leominster. Lunenburg even, I would believe. But Leominster?

You mean I haven’t posted anything since Thursday? Shame on me. Well, I can put part of the blame on me trying to be tidy at home. In an effort to make the house presentable so the family could come over to sing Happy Birthday to Junior, I put away my laptop and all it’s various appendages, and I still haven’t taken it back out of the bag. So actually, I had a lovely computer-free weekend, which is shockingly unusual for me. So sorry, I’ll try to never let it happen again.

Yes, Junior is now 8. I resisted the urge to pull out his birth video and force him to listen to my screaming. I did that once (well, we fast forwarded past the bad audio…that’s all there was until he popped out, and by popped I mean “took his sweet time seeing as he was shoulder breech (facing left) and 8 pounds 12 ounces and he didn’t really have a burning urge to exit”) and he was more than a little distraught. Heh.

His “party” this year was for 10 family members to go to the Hibachi grill at Chopsticks in Leominster. MMmmmmmmm. A great time was had by all. And to top it off, a crushing win by the Pats on Saturday night. No wonder I had no need to entertain myself with the computer.

I will be pulling it back out this week, so don’t you fret. I started noodling around again with a book idea. Not a big “On sale everywhere” thing but maybe something a small press would pick up. And each and every one of you who promises to buy a copy will be mentioned by name in the book, just so you’ll have to buy multiple copies so that you can give them to people and say “Look, here is my name in print! I am somebody!” I should be in marketing, don’t you think?

I am getting a new pen! Okay, this is a little less mundane than normal, because it is a hand-made pen and the friend who made it let me pick out the wood and sent me pictures of the whole process. Because that’s what geeks do for each other.

I have taken the pictures and created a little web page for you. If you like them, and want your own, he’s building a store on Etsy (eBay for crafters). I know he has one up there right now, but I’m guessing there will be many more. If he sells enough of them, he can buy his own lathe so that he doesn’t have to go to the woodworker’s shop to use/rent theirs.

I have another friend who is selling handmade jewelry on Etsy. I had no idea I had such talented friends.

Hey everyone, tomorrow night the brother of local Friend-of-the-Dump Sally Cragin is going to be on The Office! Don’t forget to set your Tivo/DVR/VCR/whathaveyou so you can watch for him! Details on his appearance are here: http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/entertainment/ci_3353703

Most interesting thing I learned from all the local press is that Steve Carell used to go to the Wallace Civic Center to play hockey games. How cool is that? I LERVE Steve Carell!