I'm Thankful For...

With Thanksgiving this week, I thought is only appropriate to compile a list of the things I'm thankful for. In no particular order...

1. Sunday morning walks with the dogs (or, actually, it's usually just Foggy because Yana is too lazy to go).


2. Ice Cream - especially Food Lion's Strawberry Cheesecake, yummy!!!
   
3. DVR. How in the heck did I live without this invention for so many years??
   
4. Big bear hugs from my dad.
   
5. That my husband doesn't mind that I'm not a prissy girl.
   
6. My job
   
7. My bed. I looove getting under the covers at night. Ah, it feels so good!!
   
8. Yana. What can I say...she is a nutcase!


9. My electric skillet. Why oh why did I not buy one of these earlier in life??
   
10. Discovering Fantasy baseball and football.
    
11. That my sister Susan is a good sport when Mike mercilessly trash talks her Fantasy team.


12. Jack Reacher. Only the most bad ass character in literature today!
    
13. Short drives to work.
    
14. That my husband is my best friend.
    
15. XM radio
    
16. That Mike hasn't killed me while trying to type an email on that God-for-saken blackberry while driving.
    
17. Sports
    
18. The McRib
    
19. My patience. Just checking to make sure you're paying attention :)


20. Heated bathroom tile. Forget welfare, heated bathroom tile should be a government subsidy.

21. The E-Trade baby

Of course, I'm thankful for all my friends and family. It was good to see my little nieces on Thursday. They are funny, funny kids.

This Is How I Roll

Pay back's a ....well, you get the point. It was time for some revenge on my co-worker, Ron. I don't know if you remember, but last Christmas we pulled a prank on Ron. We had all decorated our door for Christmas. We took his door off of the hinges and hid it. It was classic!!!

Well, Ron isn't one to roll over and just take it. In April, Ron (well, I believe he made his co-workers do it) filled my entire office with PE balls. There were exercise balls, soccer balls, footballs, beach balls, etc. I couldn't get the door to my office open. I have to admit, it was a good one.

I just waited until it was time. I had to get Ron back when his guard was down. Also, Christmas is just around the corner so I needed to remind him that you don't mess with Finance!! John (my co-worker) and I tried to stay late one night. We went to dinner and got back at about 6:15 and Ron was still at work. We had to abort the mission. Then, a few weeks later, I stayed until about 5:30 and we was still there again. Does the man never go home??? So, that was it. I decided to just come in one weekend and make it happen.

This is what Ron found on the outside of his door last Monday morning:

This is what he found once he opened the door to his office:

Pretty impressive huh?? I'll tell you, a 200 yard roll of plastic wrap will go a long way. Just to top it off, there was final piece to the prank. We have a meeting every Monday morning. Everyone sits in the same chair. So, I plastic wrapped that chair too. I left him a pair of scissors sitting on the table in front of his chair. It was great. Everyone, including Ron, was impressed.

Now, I know that my time will be coming. I just don't know when or where. I do know that it will be an all out war during this year's Christmas door decorating contest. I'll be accepting suggestions for my next prank because I need all the help I can get.

Keeneland

Last weekend, Mike and I left work early on Friday and we were off to Kentucky. Let me just say that I love Kentucky. It really is a beautiful state. I love all the horses and the horse farms. People love to tell you that some Shak has a house and horses there. Someone told us that Queen Elizabeth has a house there and that she keeps her brood mare there as well. We went to pick up a motorcycle (surprise, surprise). We got it Friday night so we were able to ride it around a bit on Saturday morning. We just explored some back roads around the Frankfurt area. It was a bit chilly but the scenery was worth it.

It just so happened that it was the last weekend of horse racing at Keeneland. We'd never been to a horse race before. We do love some dog racing, so we figured we'd like the horse racing too. It goes without saying that horse racing is a much more refined sport than the dog racing. The race track at Keeneland puts the dog track in the parking lot of the Daytona Speedway to shame. We didn't know what to expect. There were a lot of people there. Some were dressed like us (in jeans) and then others were dressed up fancy.

This is the outside of the track.


This is the inside of the track. We paid a little extra to get a reserved seat. You could stand down by the rails but you really couldn't see too good. We had a good view of the entire track, the finish line and the tote board (so we could watch the money roll in). Just like the dogs, you can place $2 bets. We started off strong (beginners luck).

Notice how you can see the horse farms in the background.

These are the race horses being led to the starting gate.

And they're off....

We had fun watching the races. Our only complaint is that it took too long between races. There was about 30 minutes between races. So, you'd have about 2 minutes of racing and then 30 minutes of down time. During that down time, we'd walk down to see the horses that were about to race.


They'd walk them around these old oak trees. You could look at the horses and pick out the winner before you place your bet. If you were someone of importance, you could be inside that area and be up close and personal with the horses.

Then the jockeys would mount the horse and walk past the crowd, under the seats, and out onto the track.

We left before the last races but it was definitely worth doing.