Cleatus The Robot

With my summer gardening projects almost complete and the 50 degree temperatures that blanketed metro Detroit last night, it's safe to say that fall is almost upon us. I'm not quite ready to give up the warm temperatures, but I'm definable ready to watch some football!

As I countdown to the NFL Kickoff, I think it's fitting to offer my own commentary about the robot mascot for The NFL On FOX. I recently discovered that this Robot has a name, Cleatus, as chosen by a viewer. Cleatus action figures are now also for sale from each NFL team in their online stores, as I also recently discovered. Thank gosh for the internet!

Anyway, My father and I spent countless hours making fun of this robot and his movements throughout the game breaks. A robot dressed in football pads showing off terrible dance moves was not our idea of a great football mascot, but alas we are not only stuck with this robot but the Lions as well. We watched as Cleatus went from awful dance moves to swinging baseball bats during the world series, playing guitar and even breaking a wishbone with the Burger King Macsot on Thanksgiving (seriously). Cleatus did however get beaten by The Terminator once. My dad and I always wondered what Cleatus would do next.

I wish this were more to this fascinating story, but really my dad and I simply enjoyed making fun of this robot almost as much as we enjoyed yelling at the Lions' ridiculous play calling.

Even though my dad is no longer watching the games with me, whenever I see Cleatus do something stupid, I know that I would be able to tell him and he would laugh.

So here's to football season! LET'S GO LIONS! Ok that was going a bit too far...

Tornado!

Last Thursday at about 7:30pm in Macomb County, Michigan 2 tornados touched down. I just happened to be right in them middle of one.

I was at a local restaurant finishing dinner with my best friend. Outside the sun was shining, but we heard a couple rumbles of thunder and decided to leave and get home before the rain. Little did we know, we drove right into a Tornado!

By the time I got in my car and drove to the restaurant driveway, it was pouring rain and my car was shaking back and forth. I slowly turned out onto the roadway, barley able to see the vehicle in front of me. Within a few seconds I was at a complete stop as hail battered my car, and all I could see was pure white. I was terrified, waiting for some news on the radio as to what was going on, but no warnings were forth coming. As the hail lessened and I could move forward, cars were moving out of the way due to a tree in the middle of the now flooded street. And just as soon as it hit, it stopped. I drove slowly the 2 miles home with shaking hands, dodging stray shopping carts, signs and other debris. As I walked in my front door, the sirens went off. A little late for that.

Upon arriving home, the local weather man informed me that in fact it was a Tornado that I drove though. Crazy!

Gardening Adventures

Lou Erickson once said "Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration."

As a recent graduate from the school of gardening, this quote couldn't be more true. Until recently, I never realized how challenging and time consuming maintaining our outdoor space was. And, as it turns out, I have discovered that I have quite the green thumb. In my "Gardening Adventures" posts, follow my journey as I transform my yard into a much more beautiful space.

My gardening lessons began out of necessity this year. I've had to take on the challenging role of "the family gardener," and it has been quite the job. Having the mastered keeping the grass cut and fertilized last summer, my first challenge was presented after we removed out pool: Growing New Grass. Last summer when a storm blew through, we simply bought some sod to replace a large area of grass. This summer sod was not in the budget, so grass seed it was. I assumed this would be a piece of cake: buy some grass seed, put it down, watch it grow. Wrong. After putting the grass seed down, the birds quickly ate at most of it and weeds quickly filled my newly laid topsoil. I had to spend 2 weekends weeding the area and laying Patchmaster. I learned that this had to be watered twice a day for about 2 months now for beautiful grass to fill in. (I'm also still weeding it weekly.)

Our vegetable garden was my next backyard challenge, which resulted in a 50% success. I began by planting tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers and green beans. My tomato plants and green pepper plants flourished - there have been many stir-frys and tomato salads for dinner! However my cucumber plants and green beans didn't fare as well. The cucumbers fell victim to garden rabbits who promptly dug them up after I had planted them. My green bean plants were producing tons of green beans, enough for several dinners, until my dog Snickers ate the beans from the plant. in the process she had chewed the plant down so badly, it died. Lesson learned: place all plants in cages to protect from backyard pests!

Stay tuned for more of my Gardening Adventures!

Daily French Living

While vacationing in France, I purchased a ton of perfume from The Fragonard Perfumery, and every time I wear it I think of my wonderful adventures. The perfumes just smell like France to me, and the scent lasts all day. Each time I wear it I get compliments and it can truly pick me up on a slow day like today. It's my way of adding a touch of France to my daily life.

Quarter Collecting

My late father and I didn't do that much together, but we had worked diligently on one project from 1999 until his passing in 2009: collecting a full 50 State Quarter Collection, with one P & D Mint coin for each state. We have one of all the P Mint coins, but I'm still missing about 8 D Mint coins to complete our collection.

My father and I truly enjoyed collecting these quarters. On random days he would come home and say "guess what I got?" and then say something like "a D-Iowa" or the name of a quarter we had been missing. He found most of the collection, working in HVAC and being on the road all day stopping at different shops and restaurants, also because I was a minor for many of the collecting years. When I found one to add to the collection, I was very excited to have contributed. The holder we have for the quarters came with a book where you can fill in where you found each quarter. I was able to record the location for some of the quarters, but not all of them as we got the book after we started collecting.

We even bought 100 California Quarters on the US Mint website, 2 for our collection and the rest were to be sold on eBay after the coins were no longer available. My dad frequently referred to California residents as "people living in la la land" and assumed they would pay top dollar for their state's coin. Maybe I will sell the extra eventually.

Today at work a co-worker, who is known for his trickery, brought in the newly redesigned 2010 Penny. No one believed him that it was real until we looked it up on the US Mint's website. While browsing the website, I was reminded that a new quarter collection featuring 56 quarters representing our National Parks began this year. As of right now 3 of the new quarters have been released and I have not seen a single one. I plan on collecting them for my quarter collection I began with my dad, but it is really difficult without his help (and I don't usually pay cash, therefore limiting my chances of receiving change with the lucky quarters). I'm debating on whether or not to purchase them from the website or just hunt for them the old fashioned way. Either way, I have to complete this collection as well as the previous collection for us. After all, a promise is a promise.