Things I've learned from Dove dark chocolates

Chocolate is educational. Really. Inside the wrappers of Dove chocolates are "messages." I'm not sure how many messages there are in a bag, but I'll take an informal count at the end. You must know that I've been building on this post for a while... Really. I promise.

There's no excuse not to dream.
Count the stars.
Be mischievous. It feels good.
Do what feels right.
Flirting is mandatory.
Age is nothing but a number.
Decorate your life.
Sing along with the elevator music.

Stink

No, the title does not refer to the problem with the rodent.

I had almost finished a whole post when my computer, router, and modem combination freaked out. So I rebooted... The post was gone as I had not saved it yet. Nice!

I've messed with my blogger template. What do you think? Is it too wide for your browser? Do you see two columns under the header? How do you like the picture in the header? Yes I took it myself (see old post) and then cropped it.

The airplane picture reminds me of the trip to Washington State. I wonder when I can return.

Mount Rainier and Reflection Lake on a sunny day.

Las Vegas 2

I was thinking that the next time I go to Las Vegas I might just take pictures of the people. One of my favorite things to do is "people watch." Seriously, Las Vegas does NOT disappoint. So. Much. Craziness.

I love chocolate. I heard that there was a huge chocolate fountain in the Bellagio. Clearly I had to check it out. It turns out it's the "world's tallest and largest volume chocolate fountain." And it's BEHIND GLASS. Remember that old Mervyn's sale commercial with the woman standing at the glass door chanting, "Open! Open! Open! Open!"? I thought about doing that but thought better of it. But just barely.

The fountain...

The details of the fountain. Click on it if you feel the need to read it!

We decided to head down the strip to the M&M Store. Need I say more about this? I love M&M's, but managed not to buy anything but a couple of decks of playing cards. Who knew M&M's had a smell. They do, or the store did at least. Too much of a good thing, I think.

Who doesn't love a whole store based on candy?


This is about 1/3 the wall of M&Ms. Yum.

Las Vegas 1

The Bellagio.

Have you been to Las Vegas? I had never been, but was able to tag along with friends in February. By tag along I mean that I didn't have to plan any of the trip. My friend Bonnie had most things already planned for herself and her two granddaughters. When she heard I hadn't been, she said I should come along and she also invited her two daughters (my friends from growing up and mothers to the aforementioned granddaughters). Bonnie did most of the planning. She reserved another room at the Bellagio and added tickets to each of the shows. Because of Bonnie's hard work we had great seats to three shows: Blue Man Group, "O" (Cirque du Soliel), and Celine Dion.

Me and a Blue Man.
This might be my Christmas card this year - act surprised!

You should stay at the Bellagio once in your life. Get the lake view room, it's worth it to see the fountains. If I ever figure out how to do it, I'll post a video of the fountain/light show.

From the room.


From the street.

Nephews

My good friends have a new baby, just 6 weeks old. He is very sweet and cute and handsome. His mom and I have lunch sometimes, but usually he is out for the count (see below). Last week we had another of our friends in town and we all went to lunch . To be fair, there is a picture of the boy with each of us "aunts" holding him.**

Lunch out with the girls...

He woke up!

I had some good friends come for a visit this last weekend. They brought their precious daughter, her cousin and this little guy below. Frosty is a teacup maltese puppy and is already half grown at 1.5 pounds. He is very good natured and calm. I almost want one!

Frosty on his first trip to my house.

For your reference, I did write this last night but somehow I never posted it. Good one.

**Yes, I did ask permission to post pictures of him. He has his own blog, linked at the right.

Have you ever...? (Part 2)

Read Part 1.

Have you ever had an unwanted house guest? I have!
(This does NOT refer to all the friends who visit and whom I love to host!)

Truth be told, I had noticed some signs.

About three weeks ago a warning light came on in my Acura. I read the manual and determined the light was related to the fuel line/emissions. It suggested re-seating the gas cap. I had run into this before with my Honda and the gas cap trick always worked. Not this time! So I called Effrim, my handy dealer service guy. I took it in on a Friday afternoon and got a sweet loaner vehicle, a 2007 Acura MDX. The shop was busy, so it was Monday morning when I got the call about the cause of the light... The conversation started with Effrim asking if I had small animals. No. Do you park outside or live near open land or fields? No. Weeeeelllllllll, the problem is that the wiring harness for you knock sensor has been... well, chewed through. What?!?! There was a long story about how rodents (mice, rats) like to crawl into warm engines to sleep, especially in the winter. While in the warm engine compartment, the mouse apparently cannot just sleep. There must be gnawing... on wiring harnesses. It turns out that the casing for the wiring harness is made of soy. Nice, just give the mouse something good to eat. Smart. (Here, mousey, mousey, mousey! Please.) Anyway, that stinkin' mouse cost me $800. That's $100 for the wiring harness (old one shown below) and $700 in labor. The joy! Luckily the dealer didn't charge me for the loaner car, which technically became a rental as it wasn't a warranty issue.

I've since made my garage a less desirable place to live. I've put the bags of bird seed into a container with a lid. I've cleaned up the bag of mulch with the mouse hole in it. I've set traps and put out sticky mouse trays and mouse poison. I have not caught any mice. But I also haven't seen any evidence that the sorry rodent is still living rent free in the garage. I hope he's gone. But I'd rather have had evidence of his death! I know, call PETA, I'll turn myself in.

The dealer took this picture for me. I have the actually part in an envelope.