Just My Rambling

Last week I was talking about Halloween candies being out already and guess what I saw at Costco yesterday? Christmas stuff!!!! Hello!!!! It’s only early September and all the Christmas decorations and gifts are out already. Previously they used to display them after Halloween which means early November but this year, they are selling them together with Halloween stuff. I am sure that in a couple of years, they might just start selling in the summer!! Yikes!

Why oh why are the Halloween candies out so early????? There’s 2 more months till Halloween! While at the shop yesterday, I noticed that all the Halloween stuff are already out for sale. Do you realize that there are always so many new varieties of candies during the different occasions? Oh, so tempting!!!!

I have been glued to the TV tonight watching the development of Hurricane Gustav. It is expected to hit New Orleans early Monday. According to CNN, 1.9 million people have evacuated the Louisiana coastal towns. I just can’t imagine how the people of New Orleans are feeling now. Most of them have just barely started recovering from Hurricane Katrina and now another hurricane is about to strike, possibly destroying all their rebuilding efforts.
Looking at the out-of-gas signs at the gas stations, empty ATMs, empty aisles at the grocery stores, shuttering up the houses on TV brought back a lot of memories of the time when we were caught in Hurricane Frances & Jeanne in 2004. They were Category 3s and that’s what Gustav is expected to be when it hits land. It was definitely not a good experience and pretty scary. I really hope that Gustav will lose wind before landfall.

I am typing this on a porch of a gorgeous huge house in the mountain in Oregon. The kids are all asleep peacefully after an exhausting 3 hour walk around this mountain retreat. Ahh… peace…. Well, at least for an hour or two before they wake up!
It is so nice here to be out in the nature after a long drive here yesterday. Yesterday, we arrived in 4 cars with 9 adults, 4 kids and 2 babies. All of us had our car packed to the brim!!. It’s amazing how much stuff you have to bring when you have a child. Next time, I think we will have to get a truck rental to fit everything we need.
We’ll be going to Crater Lake tomorrow. I am so looking forward to that. Hopefully the weather will be nice so that I can take some nice photos of Crater Lake.

I’ll be going off to Oregon in a couple of hours. This will be the last vacation for the summer before school starts again in 2 weeks. We rented a house with some old college friends. I can’t believe it’s been almost 20 years when I first met them. I am really feeling old!!! :(  (Aww.. my little girl just read the last sentence and said Mommy you’re not old, you’re young!! Thanks babe!! U made my day! There’s supposed to be internet access at the rental place so hopefully I will be able to get online.

Have you been watching the Olympics? Well, I have spending my nights glued to the television. My favorite events are swimming and gymnastics. What are yours? Now that everyone is having the Olympic fever, it is a good time to give your friends the Olympic Visa Gift Card from GiftCardLab. I am sure that your friends will appreciate them especially the Michael Phelps Gift Card. I would not mind getting some for myself as a souvenir.

Last week, we had a super hot week. It was in the 90s the whole week and since we have no air-conditioning in our house, we spend a lot of time at the mall. Most of the houses here do not have central air-conditioning because usually we don’t need it. We only hit 90s probably one or 2 weeks every year. Some people buy portable a/c but so far, I haven’t succumb to the temptation yet since I know that I won’t use it much.

True enough, the heat didn’t last very long. The temperature has plunged down to the low 60s and even 50s this week! I really feel that the weather here is just like a yo-yo. You’ll never know what the weather’s going to be like tomorrow. I hope it will be good next week because we are off to Oregon for a vacation!!

I was trying to clear up all my assignments before the weekend when I realized that I have 4 posts dated 080808. Then a thought came to me, why don’t I write 8 posts on 080808 just for fun!! But then I started yawning and I am getting sleepy, so I guess that’s not going to happen. Oh well!! I wonder if anyone did it? Can you tell I am rambling?? Too much photo processing will do that to a person. I am in the middle of sorting out my 800 photos from my Alaskan cruise!

Help!!! I can’t seem to open my food blog. I keep getting the message “Internet Explorer cannot open the internet site. Operation aborted” Anyone else getting that message? Thousand apologies if you are trying to access my food blog. I am still trying to figure out the problem. :(  Anyone have a solution?

Yesterday morning, I woke up to discover that there was no power in my house. I think this is the first power outage we’ve had since we moved in 1 1/2 years ago. It feels kinda strange having no power. Do you ever realized how crippled we are without power? No TV, no computer, no microwave, no oven, no hot water, no heater, no telephone (the cordless ones) and even my garage door doesn’t work!! I had to figure out how to open the garage door manually so that I can get my car out!! Luckily the power came back a few hours later.