Always broke on Halloween

What are the odds that I'm always broke around Halloween? Seriously, I'm always broke before Halloween, and with giant bags of candy running about 10 bucks a pack, I hope the trick or treaters don't mind the I.O.U's I'm going to be stuffing in their bags...(or little baggies of the left-over chuck roast I made last night)...Seriously, I make great crockpot chuck roast!!! At least their mom's would have something to eat while the little demons make their rounds.

This is an actual tree in our neighborhood, pretty cool, hey? Obviously, I took this picture a couple of Halloween's ago when it was mild during October...


But a scary tree photo is a cool picture in my book. And the tree is still there, except with no leaves...nope, all the leaves were blown by (what's left of Hurricane Sandy) into my front yard where I'm going to have to rake them, sometime this weekend...unless I luck out, and they blow into my neighbor's yard. If that happens, I'm going to rush out and buy a Powerball ticket--because that will be my lucky day! (Right up there with seeing Bigfoot, and losing 10 pounds...ain't gonna happen but it would be great if it did!)

But at least a couple of my grandkids still trick or treat and Halloween is soooo close I can almost taste the trick or treat candy...that I intend to steal from my kids bags when they're not looking!

(PS...My Crockpot Chuck...The chuck roast can come from anywhere although I buy mine from the Hyvee in Iowa when I'm there visiting my mom...but I use Rupena's seasoning, which is from an old meat market in West Allis, Wisconsin, AWESOME steak seasoning...OR...simply, salt, pepper, and Mrs. Grass soup seasoning...Mrs. Grass rocks and you can find her anywhere except Aldi's...I use ORGANIC carrots or I refuse to use carrots...WHY you ask? Long story, how long to you have? I'll shorten it to say I started using organic carrots after my dad's second cancer, and I found out that carrots are used to grab the impurities from the soul and blah, blah, blah...if you want the longer version give me a call...otherwise, the potatoes, they can come from anywhere...)

UPDATE: Dancing All the way to the Unemployment Office

Thirty years ago I won a disco dance contest, which totally screwed up my life, because I mistakenly thought...I could dance.

At the time, I really thought I was awesome...but what my mind has chosen to forget over the years, is that it was college, the judges were probably very drunk, and I was only one of two people who entered and I was the female...jiggle, jiggle, jiggle, if you get my drift...and oh(!) it was an awesome prize all right! It was a Journey ALBUM...the one with Wheel in the Sky on it...

I don't need to tell you that winning a disco contest can really screw with your mind at dances, especially wedding dances, because over the years I would be the only one out on the dance floor who was sober! Why? Because I'm a serious dancer darn it!!! See above, I won a Journey album!

Six years ago when I was working at an adult contemporary radio station (What's an adult contemporary?...Think music by Michael Buble, Green Day, a couple of Christina Aguilera tunes and maybe a Carrie Underwood tune--at least one tune anyway--this was long before Katy Perry) I was asked by a cancer charity to dance in one of their "Dancing with the Stars" charity dance contest, and as you might imagine I was flattered and all over that...for about 45 minutes...that was the amount of time my first free lesson with my volunteer dance instructor lasted...(My (poor) professional dance instructor--who for whatever past life karma reasons had been saddled with Milwaukee's equivalent of a Jerry Springer...remember his performance on Dancing with the Stars...Jerry's final dance was compared to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre...and not in a good way. Jerry was a terrible dancer, but was kept in the competition by his legion of (what I can only imagine was sadistic) fans, until he BEGGED them to quit voting for him! My dance instructor spent a huge amount of my lessons telling me he had a bad back and would appreciate it if I just concentrated on a move called "the triple step.") I had a lot of problems with this very basic East Coast Swing move, until my daughter later pointed out to me that "triple," really means "three."

On the night of our big charity dance competition I won the trophy for 6th place, which would've seemed awesome if there had been 7 people in the dance contest...I even got beat by the owner of Klements Sausages who was over 70 years old at the time, and who danced around in a circle with an umbrella! So, as you can imagine, it just destroyed about any credibility I thought I might've had on the dance floor...all those years of wedding dances...all those wedding guests who over the years would tell me "you were really shaking it out there on the dance floor..." Those weren't compliments!!!

So this past summer I was asked by a charity (MargaretAnn's--provides hope and healing to grieving children here in Southwest Wisconsin. They provide free grief support to kids who have suffered the tramatic death of a loved one) to be in their Dancing with "our" Stars Gala at a local Casino. And I decided to do that for two reasons, first, I wanted to help grieving children, and second, because darn-it(!), I had something to prove.

This time I was so serious about dancing that I even went out and bought a DVD of Flashdance and Shall We Dance, (you know, the movie with Jennifer Lopez and Richard Gere...geez it sucked...)

But, I got a great deal--2 for 12 bucks from Amazon and a tub of popcorn, and that is what I did for an entire weekend...I sat in front of the tube watching Jennifer Beals taking it off for the umpteenth time while enjoying a tub of popcorn...I drew one very big conclusion from Jennifer's movie...in no way would stripping anything off, help me win this dance contest.

My new dance instructor was at least 20 years younger then my first dance teacher, and this would've been great except I was now 6 years older then the last time I danced, and at least 30 pounds heavier, so this proved to be a potential liability (think HEADLINE...Out of shape classic country music jock suffers heart attack while practicing the East coast swing..) That's right, the EAST COAST SWING! Why? Because I'm a pack rat. I never throw anything out. And I still had the very expensive East Coast Swing dancing shoes from the last charity dance I did 6 years previous. (Each dance has it's own specific pair of shoes--and you thought you weren't going to learn anything from this blog!) So it didn't matter if I sucked at the East Coast Swing. I have the shoes. They're paid for. I'm doing that dance!

And then a couple of weeks before the charity dance, a lightning bolt out of the blue...I was laid-off...the corporation that owned my radio station decided to flip my station from classic country to electronic dance...(It's a format called "Energy." What is Energy? It's the same damn tune played over and over again by different artists...or at least it sounds like that to me).

I could've quit right there, probably should of...but I'm no quitter! I had a charity to support, I just had 5 previous weeks of dance lessons, AND, I owned East Coast Swing DANCING SHOES! Plus, I figured if something happened, there would be a headline; UNEMPLOYED classic radio jock suffers heart attack during charity dance contest...(notice, they replaced out of shape jock with unemployed!) See? I'm no dummy!

So I did the dance. And you know what? I did much better then six years ago...I got FIFTH PLACE! Seriously. And I raised money for a charity that means a whole lot to me, and really, that was the most important thing anyway. So this Monday, if you're at the unemployment office in Milwaukee, and you're looking around wondering what I look like, well, I'm the one wearing the gold dancing shoes, carrying a 5th place trophy...

I'm sorry, what did you just ask...how many dancers were in this one? Shut-up! ; )

Why Thursday is the BEST day of the week...

You know why Thursday is the BEST day of the week?

With Thursday's, you still have the promise of a weekend, it's kind of like the day before Christmas eve; On Christmas eve, you have the "oh crap, I still haven't done all my shopping and the store is closing, and I'm so screwed..."

Christmas Day it's over, done, nothing more to look forward too...and half the stations stop playing the Christmas music by 6pm...

But on the day BEFORE Christmas eve, you're still enjoying the Christmas tunes, you still have one more day to go so it's not crunch time yet...that's what Thursday's are to me.

Love, Loss, One Turtle, and Pajama Jeans 2012

I can tell you exactly what the weather was like two years ago today...it was a perfect 70 degree fall day...couldn't have been any prettier with the leaves changing and a warm breeze...

My friend died two years ago today of complications from leukemia...and she'd kick my butt if I sat here and wrote a sad tribute to her here...and besides that, there is no way I could top what her family wrote about her;

Susan (Spring) Cotch, 49, of Aurora, died October 5, 2010 at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Ill., of complications from leukemia. It was during her childhood, when her Grandma Rose gave her her first cooking lesson, that she developed her lifelong love affair with food and its preparation. For Sue, life was to be savored and enjoyed. She found fun in everything and was part of a large group of friends and family that felt the same. Cooking was her passion and she was legendary for her entertaining skills, from the special dishes she created to the one-of-a-kind extras that made each dinner an event, and not just a meal. She also loved camping, traveling and exploring the world. For Sue, there was no finer reading material than a new cookbook. Her life-long love of French cooking and Paris fueled her own misguided fantasy that she herself was, indeed, French.

Seriously, is that the most awesome tribute ever? When I die, I want Sue's family to write my obituary...because if they don't, it may look something like this;

Cindy Huber passed away on ----, although it was hard to tell as she still continued to show up to work each day...although she was a little later then usual...Cindy loved HGTV, in particular House Hunters and, on occasion, House Hunter International, particularly in the winter when there was little else to do, and she especially hated walking the dogs in the cold air as she had to bundle them up in their little doggie outfits and they would skirm and fight her and it just sucked really. It got even worse for her once she gave up smoking, as then there really was nothing to look forward to when she walked the dogs, as she was now truly, just the person holding the poop bag, behind the dogs. Cindy also hated it when they moved the television show Survivor to Wednesday as it really screwed up the week for her and she kept forgetting it was on. Cindy really loved her DVR as she could finally tape Survivor, although she would often forget to watch it. Cindy had very few regrets but if pressed would admit that she wished she would've checked to see how long box turtles lived before she agreed to let her son have one, as she spent nearly half her life cleaning out the turtle cage. She also wished she had bought a pair of "pajama jeans" as it sounded like a really cool idea and she loved wearing pajamas, especially flannel ones that had pictures of polar bears. To Cindy, there was no diet plan that she wouldn't try, at least once, and amazingly not one of those diets ever included the words "eat less, excercise more," but more then likely included a Snickers bar and a Diet Coke. Cindy loved Jesus, her husband, her children, her grandkids, her parents, her brothers, her brother's wives and her nieces and nephews...she cherished her friends, enjoyed weather shows about tornadoes, and 3 pm naps on the couch. She joins her grandparents, her treasured friends, and quite a few dogs and cats, and hamsters. The box turtle outlived her.