"She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing." — Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-27)
It's amazing the kind of silly stuff our brain retains after all these 20 plus years and then all of the important stuff happening right now that just keeps being lost!
I was trying to come up with a post and then a title and this popped into my head...then I had to go look it up so that I got it right...I had one word wrong...not too shabby after that long, huh. But what does it all mean? I mean what did it all mean. Why did my 11th grade english teacher require that not only should I be able to read it, but that I should memorize this? Why did he make me imprint this THIS on my brain for all these years???
I get that the soliloquie means that life is short and "what's it all for?"; but what I don't get is why I had to learn it. Any ideas?
Okay well that was a tangent post cuz I really came to tell you what has been going on here lately.
Tuesday we had a field trip up to the Pumpkin patch to get our annual pumpkins. Darly's newest friend wasn't going to be able to come on the trip due to transportation issues so I volunteered to take her with us...and since I didn't want to drive all the way to friend's house in the morning tacking on another 30 minutes of driving time to our trip, I offered to go pick her up on Monday and have her spend the night. Which except for the girlies staying up until 3AM went very well. Did anyone else know that Bill Nye comes on the Discovery Channel at 3am??? I didn't until he woke me up. LOL!
The farm was suposed to teach the kids about how all the food we eat comes from the farm...but the lady didn't do that. Probably a good thing as most of the kiddos have been there 3 years in a row and know the entire speach by heart by now...but anyway. LOL! It was a fun trip.
I would post pictures, but I don't have any...I got there and realized that I forgot to charge up my camera batteries. DOH!!! sorry folks.
The kids did get to see the 4 brand new baby goats on the farm and how some of the rabbits have dug their way out of the rabbit pen and now live free and ferral on the farm (they were soooooooooo cute!!!) And we got to meet Miles the bison who thinks he's a dog (but he doesn't like to be petted) and the Highlands Cows (there were two calfs! too cute!) And we got there after noon and all the other school groups had left so we had the farm to ourselves. YAY! I love getting to go places and not have to fight against all the school groups.
On our way home from the trip, friend asks if she can stay over another night. And I didn't care, so I said it would be okay if it was okay with her mom. So she calls up her mom and it's fine...we just need to have her home today before she has to be home for Church.
And now another friend would like for us to go to the park...so we'll see if that happens. LOL!
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Investiture
We did our Girl Scout Investiture/Rededication & Bridging ceremony on Friday.
I got off on the wrong foot by not leaving the house soon enough. I decided that a last minute stop at Wally world was necessary to purchase some flowers to decorate with. We were only about 6 minutes later than we said we would be, but one family beat me there.
As luck would have it the lady who comes in to change the eternal candle showed up just as I did and I didn't really need my key to the Church as she let us all in! Oh well, saved me from fiddling with the door.
I needed to get the chairs set up
the candle lighting area set
the programs out
the girl's law/promise fans
and cook my pot luck dish
The room (a former sanctuary) was perfect for the occasion. We set an old altar table up on the old chancel, covered it with a green table cloth and put the candles up on it with some of the flowers (Daisies of course!) It looked really good.
One of the moms agreed to help me make my Mac & Cheese since I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. (reminder: next time get my ducks in a row so I can delegate more of this stuff!!!) She and her hubby had set up the chairs for me. And then I just needed to get the programs & fans out.
Then we waited for the bridge to arrive. See our service unit has a bridge that we can borrow for ceremonies. Well it arrived...oh my was I disappointed! I was expecting to see something pretty...you know, for a GIRL SCOUT ceremony. Instead we got something that resembled a bicycle jumping ramp! The sad thing is that last time we had a bridging we did use a bicycle jumping ramp...but since we knew this we covered it with cardboard and decorated it up nicely. This time we didn't know until it got there what we had. Luckily I had bought extra flowers at Wally World and we were able to decorate it a bit. Darly did an awesome job at putting the flowers on it!
Next we set up the Brownie pond...a mirror with some fabric around it to simulate water. I set the mirror beside the bridge to try to make it seem as if the water flowed under the bridge.
In the end it all looked okay. I think next time I'll look for a better bridge. Of course when I bridged (as a kid) we used an overturned kitchen chair! So I shouldn't really be grumbling about the bike ramp, huh?
So now it was time to eat! There were tons of Yummy foods to choose from. The kids mostly ate Mac & Cheese! The adults had lots of stuff to choose from. Goulash, Sweedish Meatballs, Lumpia, Chicken Pot Pie, Ham & Egg bake, brownies and Candy Bar pie. Yummmmm!
The ceremony started off with the Bridging as we wanted to have the girl be rededicated at her new level. Unfortunately she was a bit nervous being up in front of everyone. But it was really low key. She just crossed over the bridge and put on her new vest.
Then I read the Brownie Story to them and had the Brownies do the "Twist me and turn me and show me the Elf; I looked in the water and saw _________" So they all looked in the "water" to see themselves.
Now it was time for the Investiture/Rededication part. We have a multi-age troop with Daisies, Brownies & Juniors. There are 3 Daisies and the Girl Scout Promise has 3 parts so I thought it would be cute for the Daisies to light the Promise candle (a 3 wicked blue candle)...well only two of the Daisies showed up... and then we didn't have enough of the older girls to do all of the other candles. So I had one Daisy and her sister (a Brownie) help me to light the Promise candle. Then the other girls all took turns lighting a candle for each part of the Girl Scout Law. That all went really well. I think that only one girl got hot wax on her...and I still don't know how that happened. But many girls blew out the Law candles when trying to blow out their lighter candle.
After all the candles were lit, I invited all the girls up to blow them out (like a huge birthday cake.) But then I got smart and remembered that the parents might want some pictures. So I had them wait for a bit and let the parents snap as many pictures as they wanted. Then when the flashing died down I told the girls to blow out the candles! They enjoyed that.
Next it was time for the girls' presentations. They could get up in front of everyone and do anything they wanted. We had silly songs, serious songs, a story and some scripture. It was all very nice and everyone seemed to get over their stage fright very well.
Now it was time to clean up. Everyone chipped in and it all went very well. I think that we were all cleaned up and out of there in 20 minutes. Which was awesome! I was worried that I would be there for an hour after I heard all the stuff I had to do from the building manager. And he even left the lid to the dumpster open for me so I didn't have to walk all the way around to open it...YAY.
Oh and while we were cleaning up Darly got invited for a sleep over, so DH & I went out to dinner on Saturday night to a place that Darly hates. hee hee!
In other news: We got our first snow fall of the year last night/this morning...I don't know for sure...just that we woke up to snow. At first it didn't seem like it would stick to the roads, but by the time we got ready to leave for Church we had to shovel and when we came back, you couldn't tell we had shoveled. *sigh*
The sad part is that our trees weren't expecting this and all the brances are hanging down with snow. DH just shook off my apple tree (the one that produced over 14 dozen apples this year) and he says it's broken. My cherry tree was bent all the way over and touching the ground. boo hoo Hopefully they get ready for winter fast. I may go rip the leaves off my cherry tree (I did that last year and it was fine.)
I got off on the wrong foot by not leaving the house soon enough. I decided that a last minute stop at Wally world was necessary to purchase some flowers to decorate with. We were only about 6 minutes later than we said we would be, but one family beat me there.
As luck would have it the lady who comes in to change the eternal candle showed up just as I did and I didn't really need my key to the Church as she let us all in! Oh well, saved me from fiddling with the door.
I needed to get the chairs set up
the candle lighting area set
the programs out
the girl's law/promise fans
and cook my pot luck dish
The room (a former sanctuary) was perfect for the occasion. We set an old altar table up on the old chancel, covered it with a green table cloth and put the candles up on it with some of the flowers (Daisies of course!) It looked really good.
One of the moms agreed to help me make my Mac & Cheese since I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. (reminder: next time get my ducks in a row so I can delegate more of this stuff!!!) She and her hubby had set up the chairs for me. And then I just needed to get the programs & fans out.
Then we waited for the bridge to arrive. See our service unit has a bridge that we can borrow for ceremonies. Well it arrived...oh my was I disappointed! I was expecting to see something pretty...you know, for a GIRL SCOUT ceremony. Instead we got something that resembled a bicycle jumping ramp! The sad thing is that last time we had a bridging we did use a bicycle jumping ramp...but since we knew this we covered it with cardboard and decorated it up nicely. This time we didn't know until it got there what we had. Luckily I had bought extra flowers at Wally World and we were able to decorate it a bit. Darly did an awesome job at putting the flowers on it!
Next we set up the Brownie pond...a mirror with some fabric around it to simulate water. I set the mirror beside the bridge to try to make it seem as if the water flowed under the bridge.
In the end it all looked okay. I think next time I'll look for a better bridge. Of course when I bridged (as a kid) we used an overturned kitchen chair! So I shouldn't really be grumbling about the bike ramp, huh?
So now it was time to eat! There were tons of Yummy foods to choose from. The kids mostly ate Mac & Cheese! The adults had lots of stuff to choose from. Goulash, Sweedish Meatballs, Lumpia, Chicken Pot Pie, Ham & Egg bake, brownies and Candy Bar pie. Yummmmm!
The ceremony started off with the Bridging as we wanted to have the girl be rededicated at her new level. Unfortunately she was a bit nervous being up in front of everyone. But it was really low key. She just crossed over the bridge and put on her new vest.
Then I read the Brownie Story to them and had the Brownies do the "Twist me and turn me and show me the Elf; I looked in the water and saw _________" So they all looked in the "water" to see themselves.
Now it was time for the Investiture/Rededication part. We have a multi-age troop with Daisies, Brownies & Juniors. There are 3 Daisies and the Girl Scout Promise has 3 parts so I thought it would be cute for the Daisies to light the Promise candle (a 3 wicked blue candle)...well only two of the Daisies showed up... and then we didn't have enough of the older girls to do all of the other candles. So I had one Daisy and her sister (a Brownie) help me to light the Promise candle. Then the other girls all took turns lighting a candle for each part of the Girl Scout Law. That all went really well. I think that only one girl got hot wax on her...and I still don't know how that happened. But many girls blew out the Law candles when trying to blow out their lighter candle.
After all the candles were lit, I invited all the girls up to blow them out (like a huge birthday cake.) But then I got smart and remembered that the parents might want some pictures. So I had them wait for a bit and let the parents snap as many pictures as they wanted. Then when the flashing died down I told the girls to blow out the candles! They enjoyed that.
Next it was time for the girls' presentations. They could get up in front of everyone and do anything they wanted. We had silly songs, serious songs, a story and some scripture. It was all very nice and everyone seemed to get over their stage fright very well.
Now it was time to clean up. Everyone chipped in and it all went very well. I think that we were all cleaned up and out of there in 20 minutes. Which was awesome! I was worried that I would be there for an hour after I heard all the stuff I had to do from the building manager. And he even left the lid to the dumpster open for me so I didn't have to walk all the way around to open it...YAY.
Oh and while we were cleaning up Darly got invited for a sleep over, so DH & I went out to dinner on Saturday night to a place that Darly hates. hee hee!
In other news: We got our first snow fall of the year last night/this morning...I don't know for sure...just that we woke up to snow. At first it didn't seem like it would stick to the roads, but by the time we got ready to leave for Church we had to shovel and when we came back, you couldn't tell we had shoveled. *sigh*
The sad part is that our trees weren't expecting this and all the brances are hanging down with snow. DH just shook off my apple tree (the one that produced over 14 dozen apples this year) and he says it's broken. My cherry tree was bent all the way over and touching the ground. boo hoo Hopefully they get ready for winter fast. I may go rip the leaves off my cherry tree (I did that last year and it was fine.)
Friday, October 19, 2007
progress
okay. Here's where I'll be posting my progress on getting my house cleaned.
Items to do:
Have Darly clean her room (saving this for the day she gets here)will need this again...but got a major portion of junk cleared out!
Guest room closet.
Guest bedroom...new sheets, towels, etc
weird closet
my closet not really necessary, but I was on a roll!
Bathroom (saving this for right before she gets here)
Clean dining room and put out table cloth
Family room - get Darly's stuff out of there and dust bunnies
Office
Kitchen <-got started on this!
laundry
downstairs bathroom DH did this one!
Mom's arrival has been pushed up to Friday, but I don't know if I'll see her until Monday...seeing as no one is answering their phones.
Items to do:
Kitchen <-got started on this!
Mom's arrival has been pushed up to Friday, but I don't know if I'll see her until Monday...seeing as no one is answering their phones.
In case you were wondering
nope, no more progress has been made on the cleaning of my house. However, I am happy to report that the areas that were cleaned are still cleaned. YAY!
I think that I'll make a drawing of the downstairs and a list of what all needs to happen in a post and then update it as it gets done and link to it in each aditional post.
The reason for no further progress in the house cleaning is...
Tuesday: Sign Language class, play with friends at said class, gymnastics, drive Darly to sleepover.
Wednesday: was supposed to have the day to myself, but Darly called...she wasn't feeling well. So I go to get her, give her a Pepto and by the time we are home she is all better. Dh was home and did some "Honey Do" items for me and I went to the grocery store. Oh and I had some copies made for Friday.
Thursday: We went to the National Center for Atmospheric Research center in Boulder, CO. A very cool place! Then we went in search of a new purse for me...see purse saga below...and more gymnastics.
Today: Lilly went to the Groomer. I stopped by Church to pick up a key and stayed to help with bulletins and now I'm blogging but will be putting the finishing touches on our Girl Scout Investiture Ceremony for this evening.
Tomorrow: My BIL is in town (DH's brother) so we will probably spend some quality time over at MIL's house...DH & BIL will be installing a roof/gutter snow melt system to help keep snow from backing up into MIL's house and leaking. I expect this procedure to take about 5 times as long as the box says it should. Why?
1) DH is a perfectionist and second guesses himself so it normally takes him 3 times as long to do anything.
2) DH & BIL will spend a lot of the time bickering about the correct way to do it.
So we'll be at MIL's house all day. I don't know if that will be all day Sat or Sun at this point.
Oh yeah, I need to run back to the Church on Sat morning to unload the dishwasher from our ceremony on Friday night.
But it looks like I can work on the house again on Monday. So maybe I can work on a bit each Monday or each week until D-Day.
I'm not sure when D-Day is yet. LOL! My brother called me last night to confirm that I was okay with Mom staying here for the entire time... (aprox Nov 19 through Jan 7). I laughed and said that yes it was okay. I told him that I made plans with my friends for hiding at their homes if I need to escape from "mother overload." LOL! It will be okay...it will be okay...
I think that I'll make a drawing of the downstairs and a list of what all needs to happen in a post and then update it as it gets done and link to it in each aditional post.
The reason for no further progress in the house cleaning is...
Tuesday: Sign Language class, play with friends at said class, gymnastics, drive Darly to sleepover.
Wednesday: was supposed to have the day to myself, but Darly called...she wasn't feeling well. So I go to get her, give her a Pepto and by the time we are home she is all better. Dh was home and did some "Honey Do" items for me and I went to the grocery store. Oh and I had some copies made for Friday.
Thursday: We went to the National Center for Atmospheric Research center in Boulder, CO. A very cool place! Then we went in search of a new purse for me...see purse saga below...and more gymnastics.
Today: Lilly went to the Groomer. I stopped by Church to pick up a key and stayed to help with bulletins and now I'm blogging but will be putting the finishing touches on our Girl Scout Investiture Ceremony for this evening.
Tomorrow: My BIL is in town (DH's brother) so we will probably spend some quality time over at MIL's house...DH & BIL will be installing a roof/gutter snow melt system to help keep snow from backing up into MIL's house and leaking. I expect this procedure to take about 5 times as long as the box says it should. Why?
1) DH is a perfectionist and second guesses himself so it normally takes him 3 times as long to do anything.
2) DH & BIL will spend a lot of the time bickering about the correct way to do it.
So we'll be at MIL's house all day. I don't know if that will be all day Sat or Sun at this point.
Oh yeah, I need to run back to the Church on Sat morning to unload the dishwasher from our ceremony on Friday night.
But it looks like I can work on the house again on Monday. So maybe I can work on a bit each Monday or each week until D-Day.
I'm not sure when D-Day is yet. LOL! My brother called me last night to confirm that I was okay with Mom staying here for the entire time... (aprox Nov 19 through Jan 7). I laughed and said that yes it was okay. I told him that I made plans with my friends for hiding at their homes if I need to escape from "mother overload." LOL! It will be okay...it will be okay...
Monday, October 15, 2007
so far...
I got the 3 closets marked with blue done this morning. I pulled out TONS of stuff to donate to charity and lots of trash too. (man we keep too much stuff!)
Crazy lady ramblings...
Yesterday I agreed that my mom could come and stay with us from around November 19th to after Christmas. Here's why...
My brother called her and found out that she is going to finally marry my "step-dad," after living with him for the past 14 years, for health insurance purposes. If they get married, he can add her to his policy through work...before her policy from her former employer runs out. So my brother suggests that she come here to get married (even though she just wanted to run to the court house and get it done quickly) and to sweeten things for her he offered that she could come and see the sonogram of her next grandchild (my SIL is expecting in April.)
Mom needs to find out if she can even tolerate breathing at our altitude. She is still on oxygen and gets winded quite easily. And even though there is less air here, we are hoping that perhaps our arid climate might help to dry out her lungs (she still has pneumonia from last March) and help her to breath easier. So she is thinking that she'll need to stay here at least a month to see if she can make it.
So that's my first worry...getting her here on the airplane (can she go that long w/o her oxygen tank?) getting her back on oxygen and getting her to my house.
Next we have the fun that my house is 2 stories (bedrooms all on second floor) and you have to climb up 4 stairs just to get inside. Mom can't do stairs very easily. She thinks that she'll be okay if she sits down and pushes herself up with her legs. She needs to sleep with her head elevated so she wants to sleep on the recliner. Ideally we would like for her to sleep upstairs in the guest bedroom...but if she can't do the stairs...she'll need to sleep on the main floor. Which means that Darly & I won't be able to stay up so late anymore. (that's probably a good thing.)
If she's staying here a month...where ever her "room" is, she's gonna need someplace to put her clothes. The guestroom has a desk, but no dresser. See that room has part of the bedroom set that DH's parents gave him when he moved out...his old bedroom set. The night stand is in our room on DH's side of the bed. The dresser is in Darly's room and the desk is in the guest room.
Idea #1. Finally get Darly a bedroom set and move the dresser that goes with that set into the guest bedroom.
Idea #2. Finally get US a bedroom set and move our dresser into the guest room.
Idea #3. the cheapest, rearrange my things and finally get rid of clothes that I don't really use anyway and take my sweater dresser out of my closet and put it in the guest room temporarily. Which if we find that she actually can't do the stairs and needs to sleep downstairs makes the most sense as that dresser will fit nicely downstairs.
Technically my office could be a bedroom...but that would mean moving some things around in here. The closet in here is also the foyer closet. If I clean the foyer closet there would be room for Mom to use it for her things. I would still have to move the dresser down here for her and take some of these boxes out of here. It could work. I don't know how that would affect my ability to use the internet...but less time on line might be okay for a month...right?
That leaves the bathroom issue though. Our downstairs bathroom is only a half-bath. The room is large enough to be an entire bathroom, but the first owner didn't have them install the tub/shower. We have the time before she gets here to put in a shower...if we can figure out where the pipes are...the should be acessable from the basement if they aren't already in the walls. The bummer is that I've always wanted to knock out that wall and put in a closet for our coats by the garage door...but a shower in there wouldn't be bad...I suppose it might increase the value of our home.
Okay, I think that I've thought out all the housing logistics of having her here.
Then there's the fun of having my mom here for not one but TWO holidays. With my "stepdad" here for at least one of them and he's on a restricted diet. I may just have to tell my mom to stay out of the kitchen and tell "dad" to take more of his high blood pressure meds for that.
But first I need to clean the house. Now would be an awesome time for me to go through everything and get rid of a bunch of stuff we aren't using anyway...like all the cardboard boxes that I've been hoarding. See I have moving issues. We haven't moved ourselves since I got married, but I like boxes. The rabbits like boxes (and I have no problems sharing with them!) But do I really need all these boxes here? Our crawl space is full of boxes for all my stuff. The computer boxes in there are a good thing. The sterio boxes too. But do I really need the box for my crockpots & my gravy warmer? I'm thinking...no! DH is a hoarder of boxes too. We have one large box that is full of little boxes for all my knick knacks...that the last time we moved, I packed all together in another box. *eyeroll* So time to purge them!
We also really need to purge Darly's toys. She has so many toys that she doesn't even know what to do with them all. She pulls out stuff to find other things and doesn't put the first stuff back. Our house is a really big mess.
I need one of those "Clean Sweep" interventions. I really think that if someone else came here and hauled all this stuff out of our house onto the lawn that I could truely go through and get rid of 75% of it easily. But I would need them for almost every room of my house.
Do those organization companies do that for you?
I wonder if any of my friends is an organization junky and would be willing to help me go through all of this?
As you might have guessed...last night was NOT a restful night of sleep. I got up with DH this AM thinking about all of this!
My brother called her and found out that she is going to finally marry my "step-dad," after living with him for the past 14 years, for health insurance purposes. If they get married, he can add her to his policy through work...before her policy from her former employer runs out. So my brother suggests that she come here to get married (even though she just wanted to run to the court house and get it done quickly) and to sweeten things for her he offered that she could come and see the sonogram of her next grandchild (my SIL is expecting in April.)
Mom needs to find out if she can even tolerate breathing at our altitude. She is still on oxygen and gets winded quite easily. And even though there is less air here, we are hoping that perhaps our arid climate might help to dry out her lungs (she still has pneumonia from last March) and help her to breath easier. So she is thinking that she'll need to stay here at least a month to see if she can make it.
So that's my first worry...getting her here on the airplane (can she go that long w/o her oxygen tank?) getting her back on oxygen and getting her to my house.
Next we have the fun that my house is 2 stories (bedrooms all on second floor) and you have to climb up 4 stairs just to get inside. Mom can't do stairs very easily. She thinks that she'll be okay if she sits down and pushes herself up with her legs. She needs to sleep with her head elevated so she wants to sleep on the recliner. Ideally we would like for her to sleep upstairs in the guest bedroom...but if she can't do the stairs...she'll need to sleep on the main floor. Which means that Darly & I won't be able to stay up so late anymore. (that's probably a good thing.)
If she's staying here a month...where ever her "room" is, she's gonna need someplace to put her clothes. The guestroom has a desk, but no dresser. See that room has part of the bedroom set that DH's parents gave him when he moved out...his old bedroom set. The night stand is in our room on DH's side of the bed. The dresser is in Darly's room and the desk is in the guest room.
Idea #1. Finally get Darly a bedroom set and move the dresser that goes with that set into the guest bedroom.
Idea #2. Finally get US a bedroom set and move our dresser into the guest room.
Idea #3. the cheapest, rearrange my things and finally get rid of clothes that I don't really use anyway and take my sweater dresser out of my closet and put it in the guest room temporarily. Which if we find that she actually can't do the stairs and needs to sleep downstairs makes the most sense as that dresser will fit nicely downstairs.
Technically my office could be a bedroom...but that would mean moving some things around in here. The closet in here is also the foyer closet. If I clean the foyer closet there would be room for Mom to use it for her things. I would still have to move the dresser down here for her and take some of these boxes out of here. It could work. I don't know how that would affect my ability to use the internet...but less time on line might be okay for a month...right?
That leaves the bathroom issue though. Our downstairs bathroom is only a half-bath. The room is large enough to be an entire bathroom, but the first owner didn't have them install the tub/shower. We have the time before she gets here to put in a shower...if we can figure out where the pipes are...the should be acessable from the basement if they aren't already in the walls. The bummer is that I've always wanted to knock out that wall and put in a closet for our coats by the garage door...but a shower in there wouldn't be bad...I suppose it might increase the value of our home.
Okay, I think that I've thought out all the housing logistics of having her here.
Then there's the fun of having my mom here for not one but TWO holidays. With my "stepdad" here for at least one of them and he's on a restricted diet. I may just have to tell my mom to stay out of the kitchen and tell "dad" to take more of his high blood pressure meds for that.
But first I need to clean the house. Now would be an awesome time for me to go through everything and get rid of a bunch of stuff we aren't using anyway...like all the cardboard boxes that I've been hoarding. See I have moving issues. We haven't moved ourselves since I got married, but I like boxes. The rabbits like boxes (and I have no problems sharing with them!) But do I really need all these boxes here? Our crawl space is full of boxes for all my stuff. The computer boxes in there are a good thing. The sterio boxes too. But do I really need the box for my crockpots & my gravy warmer? I'm thinking...no! DH is a hoarder of boxes too. We have one large box that is full of little boxes for all my knick knacks...that the last time we moved, I packed all together in another box. *eyeroll* So time to purge them!
We also really need to purge Darly's toys. She has so many toys that she doesn't even know what to do with them all. She pulls out stuff to find other things and doesn't put the first stuff back. Our house is a really big mess.
I need one of those "Clean Sweep" interventions. I really think that if someone else came here and hauled all this stuff out of our house onto the lawn that I could truely go through and get rid of 75% of it easily. But I would need them for almost every room of my house.
Do those organization companies do that for you?
I wonder if any of my friends is an organization junky and would be willing to help me go through all of this?
As you might have guessed...last night was NOT a restful night of sleep. I got up with DH this AM thinking about all of this!
Sunday, October 14, 2007
It's official!
...if you ever had any doubt whatso-ever about my sanity...today has made it perfectly clear to me at least that I am officially CRAZY!!!
Today my mother called and I agreed to allow her to live here from Nov 19th-ish to after Christmas!
Well at least I gave myself a month to clean my house up to her standards and she's bringing me a Dyson vacuume cleaner.
So to my local friends... if it seems as if I invite myself to your house and stay a lot longer than normal...you'll now know why.
I should probably start a fund to pay for my extra hair coloring sessions...hummm?
Ohhh I just had a thought, I could volunteer at my Church a lot more since she can watch Darly...oooh poor kiddo!
Today my mother called and I agreed to allow her to live here from Nov 19th-ish to after Christmas!
Well at least I gave myself a month to clean my house up to her standards and she's bringing me a Dyson vacuume cleaner.
So to my local friends... if it seems as if I invite myself to your house and stay a lot longer than normal...you'll now know why.
I should probably start a fund to pay for my extra hair coloring sessions...hummm?
Ohhh I just had a thought, I could volunteer at my Church a lot more since she can watch Darly...oooh poor kiddo!
Friday, October 12, 2007
BURRRRRR! & random thoughts
Well that cold front that the weather guy has been predicting for about 3 weeks has finally made it's apperance! I'm freezing my tuuckas off in my computer room here! Luckily Dh has switched the system over to the furnace...I wonder what that darned thermostat is set at???...okay it was at 73 and I left it alone and grabbed a fleece throw.
sometimes the thermostat resets itself at 68! Burr that's too cold for me! I know we'll pay for it when the gas bill comes, but that's the cost of living here. We need a house set at 73.
Course it would help if I went upstairs and put on a sweater...but I'm procrastinating on cleaning the rabbit cage and I don't want to add extra fur to my sweater...so I'm wearing a t-shirt that I plan to toss into the wash when I'm done down there.
The bunny mess isn't too bad, but when I sweep up the fur flies and sticks to everything. Course I'll totally tick off the bunnies when I do this. While they like a clean cage, they don't like for anyone to mess with their stuff...they're very territorial. Silly Rabbits!
I also need to start my candle holders for our Girl Scout investiture next Friday. I'm hoping that I can take some of my left-over fire wood and drill holes in it. So I guess I had better get started on that in case it doesn't work and I need a plan B. I just had a plan B that will work pretty well I think. If I find some styrofoam (we have lots in the basement) and press the holes in it...I can paint it with tempra paints to look like wood. That would be much lighter too. Hummmm? LOL!
sometimes the thermostat resets itself at 68! Burr that's too cold for me! I know we'll pay for it when the gas bill comes, but that's the cost of living here. We need a house set at 73.
Course it would help if I went upstairs and put on a sweater...but I'm procrastinating on cleaning the rabbit cage and I don't want to add extra fur to my sweater...so I'm wearing a t-shirt that I plan to toss into the wash when I'm done down there.
The bunny mess isn't too bad, but when I sweep up the fur flies and sticks to everything. Course I'll totally tick off the bunnies when I do this. While they like a clean cage, they don't like for anyone to mess with their stuff...they're very territorial. Silly Rabbits!
I also need to start my candle holders for our Girl Scout investiture next Friday. I'm hoping that I can take some of my left-over fire wood and drill holes in it. So I guess I had better get started on that in case it doesn't work and I need a plan B. I just had a plan B that will work pretty well I think. If I find some styrofoam (we have lots in the basement) and press the holes in it...I can paint it with tempra paints to look like wood. That would be much lighter too. Hummmm? LOL!
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Comment fest!
Well this post didn't pull as much traffic as my Sleeping Around post that I can't find now, but you sure had lots to say about it.
Lynn said...
I can't believe that you have moved so much. The longest I have ever lived in one place (so far) is during my 'wonderbread years' ages birth through twelve. I remember when I was in college, and was able to fit all of my belongings into my car. Now I couldn't even fit all of the junk in my closet into my car. sigh lol
When I got married everything I owned fit into two suitcases and a box. Now our 2500 sq ft house has a hard time holding all of it! We kept our belongings smaller in the beginning because we didn't want them lost or broken...but now that we're not moving so much we've kinda gone crazy!
Joan said...
That's an incredible timeline of moving...I can't imagine what it must have been like to be so mobile during your formative years. To have survived such turmoil and instability is a testament to your resourcefulness and strength.
I think that kids in general are pretty good at adapting to what's going on. I know that Darly was REALLY mad when the packers came to get her (ours too of course, but her's was the only stuff that mattered) stuff when we moved from Korea. But she's fine now. Of course if we decided to move now that we've been here for so long she would throw a really good fit. But she would get over it.
Jen said...
I'm seriously considering burning my house down and starting over. It was so nice being in the camper, because it was easy to keep clean and it wasn't cluttered up.
It does need a little more seating, though. I need a space with at least once seat (not counting beds) for everyone... Oh, and some craft supply storage.
LOL! Sometimes I would like to do that too. Coming back can be overwhelming. The sad thing is when I first went camping we had our little tent and a few things and were just fine...had a great time. Now I've got so much camping stuff that it seems like I'm moving the entire house and I wanna look into getting one of those trailers like Cheryl had for camping. LOL! Welcome home.
TC said...
the story goes that my aunt was all whiney about not having a daughter so my mom says you can have this one.
Seriously????????? No way. Wow.
I lived in my parents house from just over a year until I went to college. Then since then, I've moved over 20 times. I'm kind of sick of moving.
I found out later in life that my parents tried on a few occasions to get someone else in thier families to take of us. It seems that the longest they could get anyone to take us was about 6 months. And we weren't bad kids...honest!
Bone said...
I made some stupid decisions and got kicked out on my own.
Was that when you buzzed those Jehovah's witnesses into the building and they couldn't get them out?
I swear that guy said he was here to deliver a pizza to the party in 2B! How was I supposed to know he was lying???
followed idiot boyfriend
I wonder how many girls have thought that about me. LOL
I'm sure that none of them thought that Bone....*snicker*
I think the longest I've lived anywhere was in my first apartment when I moved out of my parents house. I live there for eight or nine years, I think.
Wow! On your own for that long in one place. That's kinda unusual. Although both of my BIL's had a place on their own for that long. I guess I'm just so used to my nomadic life that hearing things like that just seems unusual.
Kailani said...
I can't imagine having to move that many times. For me I think it's only been maybe 5 and even then it was such a hassle. You don't realize how much stuff you accumulate until you have to pack it all up!
Yeah, every time we had to move we always swore that we would get rid of the old junk...but you should see how many boxes of junk are in our basement...not even opened!
Barbara said...
I hope you get to put down deeper roots. Good luck staying where you are.
I don't think that we're going anywhere for a while. Dh was complaining about the gutter we had replaced a few weeks ago...it wasn't done the way he wanted it. So he was torn between calling the guy to come fix it or just leaving it and hoping we sell this place before it goes bad again.
Nicole said...
That's a lot of moving for one person. The max I have ever lived in one dwelling is 4 years. Hopefully, this year I will beat that by living in our current house for 5 years. Whoohoo. I love growing roots.
I like staying put and painting my walls too!
Heather said...
LOL I like to move too... I just like redecorating ;) BUT I am not ready to move in the next 5 years... I want to stay put... even if I have to buy this house ;)
do you REALLY want to buy that house? I mean it works but it's not really ideal for you & the fam. Course if you wanted to buy, you would want perfect...right?
Lynn said...
I can't believe that you have moved so much. The longest I have ever lived in one place (so far) is during my 'wonderbread years' ages birth through twelve. I remember when I was in college, and was able to fit all of my belongings into my car. Now I couldn't even fit all of the junk in my closet into my car. sigh lol
When I got married everything I owned fit into two suitcases and a box. Now our 2500 sq ft house has a hard time holding all of it! We kept our belongings smaller in the beginning because we didn't want them lost or broken...but now that we're not moving so much we've kinda gone crazy!
Joan said...
That's an incredible timeline of moving...I can't imagine what it must have been like to be so mobile during your formative years. To have survived such turmoil and instability is a testament to your resourcefulness and strength.
I think that kids in general are pretty good at adapting to what's going on. I know that Darly was REALLY mad when the packers came to get her (ours too of course, but her's was the only stuff that mattered) stuff when we moved from Korea. But she's fine now. Of course if we decided to move now that we've been here for so long she would throw a really good fit. But she would get over it.
Jen said...
I'm seriously considering burning my house down and starting over. It was so nice being in the camper, because it was easy to keep clean and it wasn't cluttered up.
It does need a little more seating, though. I need a space with at least once seat (not counting beds) for everyone... Oh, and some craft supply storage.
LOL! Sometimes I would like to do that too. Coming back can be overwhelming. The sad thing is when I first went camping we had our little tent and a few things and were just fine...had a great time. Now I've got so much camping stuff that it seems like I'm moving the entire house and I wanna look into getting one of those trailers like Cheryl had for camping. LOL! Welcome home.
TC said...
the story goes that my aunt was all whiney about not having a daughter so my mom says you can have this one.
Seriously????????? No way. Wow.
I lived in my parents house from just over a year until I went to college. Then since then, I've moved over 20 times. I'm kind of sick of moving.
I found out later in life that my parents tried on a few occasions to get someone else in thier families to take of us. It seems that the longest they could get anyone to take us was about 6 months. And we weren't bad kids...honest!
Bone said...
I made some stupid decisions and got kicked out on my own.
Was that when you buzzed those Jehovah's witnesses into the building and they couldn't get them out?
I swear that guy said he was here to deliver a pizza to the party in 2B! How was I supposed to know he was lying???
followed idiot boyfriend
I wonder how many girls have thought that about me. LOL
I'm sure that none of them thought that Bone....*snicker*
I think the longest I've lived anywhere was in my first apartment when I moved out of my parents house. I live there for eight or nine years, I think.
Wow! On your own for that long in one place. That's kinda unusual. Although both of my BIL's had a place on their own for that long. I guess I'm just so used to my nomadic life that hearing things like that just seems unusual.
Kailani said...
I can't imagine having to move that many times. For me I think it's only been maybe 5 and even then it was such a hassle. You don't realize how much stuff you accumulate until you have to pack it all up!
Yeah, every time we had to move we always swore that we would get rid of the old junk...but you should see how many boxes of junk are in our basement...not even opened!
Barbara said...
I hope you get to put down deeper roots. Good luck staying where you are.
I don't think that we're going anywhere for a while. Dh was complaining about the gutter we had replaced a few weeks ago...it wasn't done the way he wanted it. So he was torn between calling the guy to come fix it or just leaving it and hoping we sell this place before it goes bad again.
Nicole said...
That's a lot of moving for one person. The max I have ever lived in one dwelling is 4 years. Hopefully, this year I will beat that by living in our current house for 5 years. Whoohoo. I love growing roots.
I like staying put and painting my walls too!
Heather said...
LOL I like to move too... I just like redecorating ;) BUT I am not ready to move in the next 5 years... I want to stay put... even if I have to buy this house ;)
do you REALLY want to buy that house? I mean it works but it's not really ideal for you & the fam. Course if you wanted to buy, you would want perfect...right?
Sunday, October 07, 2007
the longest I ever lived somewhere
On my last post I was whining about a bad move. One of my commenters said she had lived in her house for 18 years and that got me to thinking about what was the longest I had ever lived somewhere. so I got out a handy dandy excel spreadsheet and tried to figure that out.
here are my results:
Barksdale appts - unknown to age 4 time:less than 4 years I've been told there were two apartments before this place, but I don't remember them
Mildred St - age 4 to age 7 time: 3 years
Aunt Diane's - summer to december time: about 6 months the story goes that my aunt was all whiney about not having a daughter so my mom says you can have this one.
Mildred St -Dec age 7 to age 11 time:4 years
Middlesex Dr -summer to December age 11 time:about 5 months this is when my parents first separated. My mom said she felt guilty that she never really got to spend any time with me so she decided to try to keep me. But she really couldn't afford me on her own so she sent me back to my father.
Mildred St -Dec age 11 to Summer age 14 time: a bit over 2 years
1st trailer -Summer age 14 to Sept age 14 time: maybe a month Mom had tried to get visitation but my father refused. So after she remarried, she came and got us to live with her. I never saw Mildred St again.
Passedena -Sept age 14 to March age 18 time: 3 & 1/2 years They knew the first trailer was too small for all of us and bought a bigger place. This was my first ever home with two bathrooms!
Shetland Ave -March age 18 to Jan age 19 time:not quite a year I made some stupid decisions and got kicked out on my own.
friend's appt -Jan age 19 to march age 19 time:about a month had to crash at a friend's place until I could get an appartment
townhome -March age 19 to July age 20 time:2 years and a few months rotated through roommates. What a nightmare
West Virginia -July age 20 to Sept age 22 time:2 years followed idiot boyfriend
Grandmother's house -Sept age 22 to Aug age 23 time: almost a year found my brain and left idiot boyfriend. Lived with my mother & grandmother.
another trailer -Aug age 23 to Aug age 25 time:2 years and a few months My mom bought a trailer because she was sick of living with her mother, and I went with her.
apartment -Aug age 25 to Sept age 25 time:1 month I had just gotten married!
Hotel -Sept age 25 to Oct age 25 time: 1 month we had to wait until our house was ready
Bright Ave -Oct age 25 to Dec age 29 time:4 years and a bit Our first military housing
Thomas Ave -Dec age 29 to June age 31 time:about a year & a half Air Force says it's time to move
Korea -June age 31 to March age 34 time:20 months Air Force says it's time to move
w/ MIL -March age 34 to Oct age 34 time:too long! stayed with MIL while looking for a new job & house
here! -Oct age 34 to now time:6 years on the 19th finally found a house
Okay going by that list I've lived in my current house the longest. but if you go back and look at all the times I lived in the house on Mildred St you get that I was there about 9 & 1/2 years. So I have to live here about 4 years to beat my record. LOL!
Sometimes DH seems like he would like to move outta here. He is very used to moving. If he sat and thought about how long we have lived here he would probably go nuts. So don't tell him I told ya.
here are my results:
Barksdale appts - unknown to age 4 time:less than 4 years I've been told there were two apartments before this place, but I don't remember them
Mildred St - age 4 to age 7 time: 3 years
Aunt Diane's - summer to december time: about 6 months the story goes that my aunt was all whiney about not having a daughter so my mom says you can have this one.
Mildred St -Dec age 7 to age 11 time:4 years
Middlesex Dr -summer to December age 11 time:about 5 months this is when my parents first separated. My mom said she felt guilty that she never really got to spend any time with me so she decided to try to keep me. But she really couldn't afford me on her own so she sent me back to my father.
Mildred St -Dec age 11 to Summer age 14 time: a bit over 2 years
1st trailer -Summer age 14 to Sept age 14 time: maybe a month Mom had tried to get visitation but my father refused. So after she remarried, she came and got us to live with her. I never saw Mildred St again.
Passedena -Sept age 14 to March age 18 time: 3 & 1/2 years They knew the first trailer was too small for all of us and bought a bigger place. This was my first ever home with two bathrooms!
Shetland Ave -March age 18 to Jan age 19 time:not quite a year I made some stupid decisions and got kicked out on my own.
friend's appt -Jan age 19 to march age 19 time:about a month had to crash at a friend's place until I could get an appartment
townhome -March age 19 to July age 20 time:2 years and a few months rotated through roommates. What a nightmare
West Virginia -July age 20 to Sept age 22 time:2 years followed idiot boyfriend
Grandmother's house -Sept age 22 to Aug age 23 time: almost a year found my brain and left idiot boyfriend. Lived with my mother & grandmother.
another trailer -Aug age 23 to Aug age 25 time:2 years and a few months My mom bought a trailer because she was sick of living with her mother, and I went with her.
apartment -Aug age 25 to Sept age 25 time:1 month I had just gotten married!
Hotel -Sept age 25 to Oct age 25 time: 1 month we had to wait until our house was ready
Bright Ave -Oct age 25 to Dec age 29 time:4 years and a bit Our first military housing
Thomas Ave -Dec age 29 to June age 31 time:about a year & a half Air Force says it's time to move
Korea -June age 31 to March age 34 time:20 months Air Force says it's time to move
w/ MIL -March age 34 to Oct age 34 time:too long! stayed with MIL while looking for a new job & house
here! -Oct age 34 to now time:6 years on the 19th finally found a house
Okay going by that list I've lived in my current house the longest. but if you go back and look at all the times I lived in the house on Mildred St you get that I was there about 9 & 1/2 years. So I have to live here about 4 years to beat my record. LOL!
Sometimes DH seems like he would like to move outta here. He is very used to moving. If he sat and thought about how long we have lived here he would probably go nuts. So don't tell him I told ya.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
weird story...but true
My friend Heather has been going through an interesting experience(s) while moving into her current house and it got me to thinking about one of my particularly weird moves.
The year 1985...around March or so. I was a senior in High School (yeah, I'm THAT old!) My mom and her second husband (they divorced about 4 years later) had finally bought a house. Up until that point we had been living in a very nice 14' X 70' trailer. And looking at Google Maps it appears that the trailer is still there! LOL! Anyway, they had been searching for quite some time and had found a house that they could afford.
The reason they could afford this house was that the seller had basically let it fall appart. See the seller was a single mom with 5 kids. The three older ones should have been out on their own, but weren't. The two oldest were stoners...and the next one was an unwed mother. Her two youngest kids were mentally handicapped and lived in the room upstairs near their mom. This was a long skinny room and they had decided to put up a wall in the center of the room to divide it into two rooms. This "wall" was just 2x4's and it might have been cardboard attached to it. The boys still wet the bed and they had put the mattresses directly on the floor, so the hardwood floor was warped.
There were many other lovely features to this home like the upstairs bathroom not being functional. The crank out windows (a feature I've only seen on houses in FL) was broken in a permanently open position. They wanted the banister to be silver so they spraypainted it while it was still attached...thus ruining the hardwood stairs.
But that isn't what made this moving story so interesting...
The interesting part is this... When they had the closing the seller asked if she could rent the house back from us for an extra 30 days to give her older kids time to move out. My parents agreed to this since we didn't have a buyer for the trailer yet.
So the day after they were supposed to have moved out we went over to clean and paint. But when we got there we were in for a HUGE suprise. The two older kids had not yet moved out! They seemed totally confused that they were even supposed to be out by that date. It seems that their mother had not told them anything (especially where she was moving to!) she had just left. I guess this was her way of finally getting rid of them.
Since the house was now ours the boys were rushing to collect their things and get out of the house. It was pretty comical. Another suprise was that the seller had not bothered to take many of her things. So we got the added expense of hiring a dumpster and hauling out all of her old furniture and stuff. It was a mess! I forget how many dumpsters it took to get rid of everything (AND NO, none of it was worth keeping.)
So after we got rid of the furniture and other things that we didn't want, we went to work taking down the wild animal print wall paper with silver highlights. My mom's second husband took out the toilets and poured muratic acid threw them to clean off the years of crud. The poor carpet cleaner service that we hired tried 3 or 4 times to get the dirt out of the carpets. We ended up just ripping them out. I forgot to mention the cat feces. And she left her cat too!
Oh and the two youngest boys had shaved this long haired cat to make a sweater for the new baby. Poor kitty. Our nextdoor neighbor took him in when he finally let her.
Eventually we got the house into something that people could live in. The walls were redone. The staircase was stripped and refinished and finally carpeted since we couldn't get all the stains off even after using paint stripper numerous times. For a very long time we only used the down stairs bathroom because the upstairs one had a leak we couldn't find...or maybe it needed to be entirely redone...I forget.
Once we got the front yard looking decent we noticed many For Sale signs going up. It seemed that the neighbors were waiting to sell their house until our eyesore was fixed up so they could get a good price for their house.
The very sad part of this story is that the house is in a very nice neighborhood. Our house is the one that is about 4 down with the L shaped pool* in the back yard. My grandmother's house was in the same subdivision and many of the rich kids from my school lived there. Of course our moving there did not increase my status in school to rich kid. And I didn't live there for too long. I moved out in January of the following year.
*The house did not come with the pool. A while after I moved out my grandmother & grandfather moved in and my grandmother paid to put in the pool for my grandfather. The pool has a special ramp on it so they could get him in and out.
The year 1985...around March or so. I was a senior in High School (yeah, I'm THAT old!) My mom and her second husband (they divorced about 4 years later) had finally bought a house. Up until that point we had been living in a very nice 14' X 70' trailer. And looking at Google Maps it appears that the trailer is still there! LOL! Anyway, they had been searching for quite some time and had found a house that they could afford.
The reason they could afford this house was that the seller had basically let it fall appart. See the seller was a single mom with 5 kids. The three older ones should have been out on their own, but weren't. The two oldest were stoners...and the next one was an unwed mother. Her two youngest kids were mentally handicapped and lived in the room upstairs near their mom. This was a long skinny room and they had decided to put up a wall in the center of the room to divide it into two rooms. This "wall" was just 2x4's and it might have been cardboard attached to it. The boys still wet the bed and they had put the mattresses directly on the floor, so the hardwood floor was warped.
There were many other lovely features to this home like the upstairs bathroom not being functional. The crank out windows (a feature I've only seen on houses in FL) was broken in a permanently open position. They wanted the banister to be silver so they spraypainted it while it was still attached...thus ruining the hardwood stairs.
But that isn't what made this moving story so interesting...
The interesting part is this... When they had the closing the seller asked if she could rent the house back from us for an extra 30 days to give her older kids time to move out. My parents agreed to this since we didn't have a buyer for the trailer yet.
So the day after they were supposed to have moved out we went over to clean and paint. But when we got there we were in for a HUGE suprise. The two older kids had not yet moved out! They seemed totally confused that they were even supposed to be out by that date. It seems that their mother had not told them anything (especially where she was moving to!) she had just left. I guess this was her way of finally getting rid of them.
Since the house was now ours the boys were rushing to collect their things and get out of the house. It was pretty comical. Another suprise was that the seller had not bothered to take many of her things. So we got the added expense of hiring a dumpster and hauling out all of her old furniture and stuff. It was a mess! I forget how many dumpsters it took to get rid of everything (AND NO, none of it was worth keeping.)
So after we got rid of the furniture and other things that we didn't want, we went to work taking down the wild animal print wall paper with silver highlights. My mom's second husband took out the toilets and poured muratic acid threw them to clean off the years of crud. The poor carpet cleaner service that we hired tried 3 or 4 times to get the dirt out of the carpets. We ended up just ripping them out. I forgot to mention the cat feces. And she left her cat too!
Oh and the two youngest boys had shaved this long haired cat to make a sweater for the new baby. Poor kitty. Our nextdoor neighbor took him in when he finally let her.
Eventually we got the house into something that people could live in. The walls were redone. The staircase was stripped and refinished and finally carpeted since we couldn't get all the stains off even after using paint stripper numerous times. For a very long time we only used the down stairs bathroom because the upstairs one had a leak we couldn't find...or maybe it needed to be entirely redone...I forget.
Once we got the front yard looking decent we noticed many For Sale signs going up. It seemed that the neighbors were waiting to sell their house until our eyesore was fixed up so they could get a good price for their house.
The very sad part of this story is that the house is in a very nice neighborhood. Our house is the one that is about 4 down with the L shaped pool* in the back yard. My grandmother's house was in the same subdivision and many of the rich kids from my school lived there. Of course our moving there did not increase my status in school to rich kid. And I didn't live there for too long. I moved out in January of the following year.
*The house did not come with the pool. A while after I moved out my grandmother & grandfather moved in and my grandmother paid to put in the pool for my grandfather. The pool has a special ramp on it so they could get him in and out.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
I was tagged by Island Girl to do this interview meme. It’s a little long so please bear with me . . or just skip to the end.
What kind of soap is in your bathtub right now? Well the bathroom with a tub is Darly’s so it has her Suave Kid’s shampoo and conditioner in there. And I just have her use shampoo to clean her body with…it’s all soap right? But in my shower there is my Infusium shampoo, Suave conditioner, Oil of Olay facial cleaner, and Oil of Olay knock-off store brand body wash. LOL!
Do you have any watermelon in your refrigerator? nope! But there are pumpkins on my kitchen floor and 14 dozen apples in my pantry that I need to sort out to give to my local friends.
What would you change about your living room? the walls! My living room is like a large hallway that goes from the front foyer to the dining room…blech! I wish it were bigger with some walls.
Are the dishes in your dishwasher clean or dirty? They’re dirty. I’ll set the timer to wash them tonight. We can go two days between washings here since there’s only 3 of us. I was just talking with a friend yesterday about some stuff (not the dishwasher) but she had to keep reminding herself that we’re a family of 3 so things last longer for us.
What is in your fridge? leftover chicken, mashed potatoes & veggies, rolls, milk, juice, water that I need to toss out, bread, sandwich stuff, oh and a steak for dinner.
White or wheat bread? wheat. I used to get just white, but then I realized my family will eat wheat and it doesn’t make a difference to me. I also have some multi-grain bread in there that they eat. They are both picky so if I can get anything healthy in them, I go for it!
What is on top of your refrigerator? empty candy boxes, empty box for the barbeque tools, a vase, a large popcorn tin with a rabbit on it, supplies for a craft that we haven’t finished and some large candy bars…oh and about 4 inches of dust. (okay maybe not that much, but there is a lot of dust up there! I can’t reach it.)
What color or design is on your shower curtain? clear glass door! Darly’s bathroom has a quilted star pattern on it.
How many plants are in your home? um let’s see, there are two in the living room, the one in the dining room died, then 3 on the plant stand and one on the counter and then there is Hagrid (Darly’s homemade “chia-pet” take panty hose and fill with grass seed & sawdust. Tie off in a head shape and make a nose with a rubberband. Water and when the grass seed sprouts you can then give your “pet” a hair cut.) So that’s 7 total.
Is your bed made right now? I don’t remember. It could be, but I may have just hopped out quickly too.
Comet or Soft Scrub? soft scrub downstairs mostly and comet upstairs (well actually the comet is the store brand version.)
Is your closet organized? define organized! Those piles of clothes sitting on the floor are organized by my system. But if you really think I should buy a shelf to sit them on I can.
Can you describe your flashlight? well I last saw it in my camping gear. I think it ran off with my lantern. It is yellow with a black gasket that holds the lens in. It’s one of those big square battery flashlights.
Do you drink out of glass or plastic most of the time at home? glass.
Do you have iced tea made in a pitcher right now? nope! I probably should have tea instead of Pepsi, but I don’t.
If you have a garage, is it cluttered? our garage is a two car with another single garage attached. So it has a big door and a single door as well. The portion of the garage that is the two car is where DH & I park our cars and that part IS organized because we need to get our cars in there…so any other things stored in that side are neatly packed around the sides of the garage. The single car garage however is where we store all of our stuff and that’s a HUGE mess! We need to go reorganize it so we can get the patio stuff in there for the winter.
Curtains or blinds? actually both! I like the outside to look uniform (so all the windows look the same) so I have the blinds…but then on the inside I want the rooms to reflect the décor, so I have curtains for the room. HOWEVER I haven’t finished decorating every room so not all of them have curtains yet…yeah, yeah, I know I’ve been here almost 6 years, I need to get off my duff and finish already.
How many pillows do you sleep with? just one, but there’s another one on the bed above my head.
Do you sleep with any lights on at night? yes and no. We have a nitelite in the hallway to find our way up the stairs and the light does creap into my room…but it’s not on for me. However when the bulb goes out it does seem weird.
How often do you vacuum? vacuume?
Standard toothbrush or electric? standard
What color is your toothbrush? not sure. It’s usually dark when I use it and I’m not all that awake.
Do you have a welcome mat on your front porch? there’s a mat, but it doesn’t say anything.
What is in your oven right now? pizza stone that needs to be cleaned…really bad!
Is there anything under your bed? the bags that the blankets on my bed were stored in.
Chore you hate doing the most? cleaning
What retro items are in your home? hate retro. You want retro…go visit my grandmother’s house. Blech!
Do you have a separate room that you use as an office? yup!
How many mirrors are in your home? 4 on the walls. Who knows how many that aren’t on the walls.
Do you have any hidden emergency money around your home? we have hidden money but it’s not for emergencies. It’s just that our paychecks are direct deposited so we have to go to the bank to have cash for our wallets. So we usually take out a large amount and store the rest in the house. If ya wanna come and steal the money it would be a waste of time though cuz it is only about 20 bucks or so.
What color are your walls? depends on the room. Living room dark denim with light denim blue ragged over it. Dining room is light denim with dark denim trim. Kitchen is Tea Rose cream. Family room is still white, but one day it will be sponge painted in two brown/tan shades. Foyer is and will be white. My bedroom is sponge painted in beige/tan shades. Darly’s room is pink with light pink ragged over it and the other 3 rooms are white. I don’t think we’ll ever paint the office as it has too much heavy furniture in there.
Do you keep any kind of protection weapons in your home? vicious attack rabbits!!!
What does your home smell like right now? house…hopefully not bad house.
Favorite candle scent? vanilla (although I have one Snickerdoodle flavored one that is yummy!)
What kind of pickles (if any) are in your refrigerator right now? I have dill spears, and baby dills along with some dill relish.
What color is your favorite Bible? My bible is burgundy. Darly’s is blue. DH’s is black. And we have a few more around here too.
Ever been on your roof? lots of times! Every year I go up there to hang my Christmas lights.
Do you own a stereo? a few
How many TVs do you have? two…no wait, 3. We don’t use the black & white because here in the foothills you need cable to get reception and the black & white is a portable tv.
How many house phones? 4
Do you have a housekeeper? nope. While I don’t wanna clean this mess, I don’t want anyone else in here messing with my stuff either.
What style do you decorate in? EXPLODED TOY BOX!
Do you like solid colors in furniture or prints? we have a mix, but most is prints.
Is there a smoke detector in your home? YA HUH! I think there are like 10 of them in this place…and the stupid batteries keep going out in the middle of the night!!!!
In case of fire, what are the items in your house which you’d grab if you only could make one quick trip? my pets!
I wasn't going to tag anyone...but I have since changed my mind. Anyone who is LURKING here (came here just to look and not comment) then this tag is for YOU! I'll figure out from Heather how to find out who you are so I can make sure you did this. I know who some of you are already.
What kind of soap is in your bathtub right now? Well the bathroom with a tub is Darly’s so it has her Suave Kid’s shampoo and conditioner in there. And I just have her use shampoo to clean her body with…it’s all soap right? But in my shower there is my Infusium shampoo, Suave conditioner, Oil of Olay facial cleaner, and Oil of Olay knock-off store brand body wash. LOL!
Do you have any watermelon in your refrigerator? nope! But there are pumpkins on my kitchen floor and 14 dozen apples in my pantry that I need to sort out to give to my local friends.
What would you change about your living room? the walls! My living room is like a large hallway that goes from the front foyer to the dining room…blech! I wish it were bigger with some walls.
Are the dishes in your dishwasher clean or dirty? They’re dirty. I’ll set the timer to wash them tonight. We can go two days between washings here since there’s only 3 of us. I was just talking with a friend yesterday about some stuff (not the dishwasher) but she had to keep reminding herself that we’re a family of 3 so things last longer for us.
What is in your fridge? leftover chicken, mashed potatoes & veggies, rolls, milk, juice, water that I need to toss out, bread, sandwich stuff, oh and a steak for dinner.
White or wheat bread? wheat. I used to get just white, but then I realized my family will eat wheat and it doesn’t make a difference to me. I also have some multi-grain bread in there that they eat. They are both picky so if I can get anything healthy in them, I go for it!
What is on top of your refrigerator? empty candy boxes, empty box for the barbeque tools, a vase, a large popcorn tin with a rabbit on it, supplies for a craft that we haven’t finished and some large candy bars…oh and about 4 inches of dust. (okay maybe not that much, but there is a lot of dust up there! I can’t reach it.)
What color or design is on your shower curtain? clear glass door! Darly’s bathroom has a quilted star pattern on it.
How many plants are in your home? um let’s see, there are two in the living room, the one in the dining room died, then 3 on the plant stand and one on the counter and then there is Hagrid (Darly’s homemade “chia-pet” take panty hose and fill with grass seed & sawdust. Tie off in a head shape and make a nose with a rubberband. Water and when the grass seed sprouts you can then give your “pet” a hair cut.) So that’s 7 total.
Is your bed made right now? I don’t remember. It could be, but I may have just hopped out quickly too.
Comet or Soft Scrub? soft scrub downstairs mostly and comet upstairs (well actually the comet is the store brand version.)
Is your closet organized? define organized! Those piles of clothes sitting on the floor are organized by my system. But if you really think I should buy a shelf to sit them on I can.
Can you describe your flashlight? well I last saw it in my camping gear. I think it ran off with my lantern. It is yellow with a black gasket that holds the lens in. It’s one of those big square battery flashlights.
Do you drink out of glass or plastic most of the time at home? glass.
Do you have iced tea made in a pitcher right now? nope! I probably should have tea instead of Pepsi, but I don’t.
If you have a garage, is it cluttered? our garage is a two car with another single garage attached. So it has a big door and a single door as well. The portion of the garage that is the two car is where DH & I park our cars and that part IS organized because we need to get our cars in there…so any other things stored in that side are neatly packed around the sides of the garage. The single car garage however is where we store all of our stuff and that’s a HUGE mess! We need to go reorganize it so we can get the patio stuff in there for the winter.
Curtains or blinds? actually both! I like the outside to look uniform (so all the windows look the same) so I have the blinds…but then on the inside I want the rooms to reflect the décor, so I have curtains for the room. HOWEVER I haven’t finished decorating every room so not all of them have curtains yet…yeah, yeah, I know I’ve been here almost 6 years, I need to get off my duff and finish already.
How many pillows do you sleep with? just one, but there’s another one on the bed above my head.
Do you sleep with any lights on at night? yes and no. We have a nitelite in the hallway to find our way up the stairs and the light does creap into my room…but it’s not on for me. However when the bulb goes out it does seem weird.
How often do you vacuum? vacuume?
Standard toothbrush or electric? standard
What color is your toothbrush? not sure. It’s usually dark when I use it and I’m not all that awake.
Do you have a welcome mat on your front porch? there’s a mat, but it doesn’t say anything.
What is in your oven right now? pizza stone that needs to be cleaned…really bad!
Is there anything under your bed? the bags that the blankets on my bed were stored in.
Chore you hate doing the most? cleaning
What retro items are in your home? hate retro. You want retro…go visit my grandmother’s house. Blech!
Do you have a separate room that you use as an office? yup!
How many mirrors are in your home? 4 on the walls. Who knows how many that aren’t on the walls.
Do you have any hidden emergency money around your home? we have hidden money but it’s not for emergencies. It’s just that our paychecks are direct deposited so we have to go to the bank to have cash for our wallets. So we usually take out a large amount and store the rest in the house. If ya wanna come and steal the money it would be a waste of time though cuz it is only about 20 bucks or so.
What color are your walls? depends on the room. Living room dark denim with light denim blue ragged over it. Dining room is light denim with dark denim trim. Kitchen is Tea Rose cream. Family room is still white, but one day it will be sponge painted in two brown/tan shades. Foyer is and will be white. My bedroom is sponge painted in beige/tan shades. Darly’s room is pink with light pink ragged over it and the other 3 rooms are white. I don’t think we’ll ever paint the office as it has too much heavy furniture in there.
Do you keep any kind of protection weapons in your home? vicious attack rabbits!!!
What does your home smell like right now? house…hopefully not bad house.
Favorite candle scent? vanilla (although I have one Snickerdoodle flavored one that is yummy!)
What kind of pickles (if any) are in your refrigerator right now? I have dill spears, and baby dills along with some dill relish.
What color is your favorite Bible? My bible is burgundy. Darly’s is blue. DH’s is black. And we have a few more around here too.
Ever been on your roof? lots of times! Every year I go up there to hang my Christmas lights.
Do you own a stereo? a few
How many TVs do you have? two…no wait, 3. We don’t use the black & white because here in the foothills you need cable to get reception and the black & white is a portable tv.
How many house phones? 4
Do you have a housekeeper? nope. While I don’t wanna clean this mess, I don’t want anyone else in here messing with my stuff either.
What style do you decorate in? EXPLODED TOY BOX!
Do you like solid colors in furniture or prints? we have a mix, but most is prints.
Is there a smoke detector in your home? YA HUH! I think there are like 10 of them in this place…and the stupid batteries keep going out in the middle of the night!!!!
In case of fire, what are the items in your house which you’d grab if you only could make one quick trip? my pets!
I wasn't going to tag anyone...but I have since changed my mind. Anyone who is LURKING here (came here just to look and not comment) then this tag is for YOU! I'll figure out from Heather how to find out who you are so I can make sure you did this. I know who some of you are already.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
She thinks I'm nice!
...guess I've got her fooled ;o) Just kidding.
I was using my handy dandy "Next" button from Google Reader and when I hit Ladybug Crossing I found out that she awarded me with this...
She says I make her smile. Awe Shucks! LOL!
Well now the fun of passing this little beauty on to my friends and nice bloggers...so let me see...who deserves this and who hasn't aready received it?
Well my first choice would have to be Goofy Girl! Not only is Goofy Girl a top rate commenter on my blog, she also helps me keep it running great. she saw my plea for help when I messed it up and fixed it for me. She's great and she's also almost a doctor. A very busy gal and a huge sweety!
My next choice is gonna be Heather. She's a new friend that God brought into my life but it's like we've known each other forever and even our kids get along great...in fact I've got her daughter going on day two here. It should be fun to try to separate these two tomorrow. hee hee
Third I've gotta give this to Jen since she's the whole reason I'm even blogging in the first place. Seems a while back Jen had a coop class for adults on setting up your own blog...but did I sign up for it??? NOPE! LOL! I'm such a slacker. Instead I just asked Jen how to do it later...probably on the phone or by email. And can you believe this? I didn't think that I would ever post anything...HA HA HA! Now you can't shut me up. LOL! Thanks so much Jen.
And for any of you who comment here that haven't already received this award, please know that I just didn't name you cuz I didn't know if you got it yet or not. i love ya all and you deserve this award too...so please go ahead and take one, I've got plenty. hee hee love virtual stuff huh?
see ya around.
I was using my handy dandy "Next" button from Google Reader and when I hit Ladybug Crossing I found out that she awarded me with this...
She says I make her smile. Awe Shucks! LOL!
Well now the fun of passing this little beauty on to my friends and nice bloggers...so let me see...who deserves this and who hasn't aready received it?
Well my first choice would have to be Goofy Girl! Not only is Goofy Girl a top rate commenter on my blog, she also helps me keep it running great. she saw my plea for help when I messed it up and fixed it for me. She's great and she's also almost a doctor. A very busy gal and a huge sweety!
My next choice is gonna be Heather. She's a new friend that God brought into my life but it's like we've known each other forever and even our kids get along great...in fact I've got her daughter going on day two here. It should be fun to try to separate these two tomorrow. hee hee
Third I've gotta give this to Jen since she's the whole reason I'm even blogging in the first place. Seems a while back Jen had a coop class for adults on setting up your own blog...but did I sign up for it??? NOPE! LOL! I'm such a slacker. Instead I just asked Jen how to do it later...probably on the phone or by email. And can you believe this? I didn't think that I would ever post anything...HA HA HA! Now you can't shut me up. LOL! Thanks so much Jen.
And for any of you who comment here that haven't already received this award, please know that I just didn't name you cuz I didn't know if you got it yet or not. i love ya all and you deserve this award too...so please go ahead and take one, I've got plenty. hee hee love virtual stuff huh?
see ya around.
Monday, October 01, 2007
comments to party post
The Meezers said...
my mommy likes doing that kind of stuff too.
Mommy says to tell you that the red-eye-fixer-thing doesn't always work on kitty eyes - in fact in that pikshur of Sammy it would only werk on his left eye. so the pikshur would haf been really weird.
Miles
Hey Miles! Sounds like your mommy & I could be good friends. Sorry the red eye fixer doesn't work so well on kitty eyes. It's a very good picture of Sammy...the red eyes just make him a bit scary. maybe that's the look now adays.
Sylvia said...
Funny, I just sent Peter to go clean his room this minute.
Kindred spirits...I think so.
Oh, and thanks for the Time Warp yesterday. I needed that.
Hey Sylvia, good to see you. LOL! If only I could get her to clean up the rest of her mess. Any you're totally welcome for the Time Warp...glad to be of service. I just wish I could have found one that wasn't so dark.
TC said...
I want to have a sleepover!
I'm totally thinking about having a grown up sleep-over when DH goes outta town sometime. I think it would be really cool. His next scheduled trip is ... well he hasn't told me yet. hee hee, but I'll keep you posted.
Lynn said...
Sounds like fun for Darly, and sounds like it would be tiring for you;~) BTW, did the LLL transition happen yet?
First YES the LLL transition has taken place. I just need to send her one deposit that didn't get saved to the jump drive and we're all set. I just got the paperwork from the bank today to finish the process for switching it over to the other gal (they mail you a copy to your old address to make sure someone isn't trying to steal your identity.)
And about this being tiring for me...I must be a really bad sleep-over mom host cuz I just go to bed and let the girls stay up as long as they want to. I trust my kid and the kids we have over here to not do anything too terrible and after I konk out they do have to be quiet (or I turn into the "screaming mom") but it's their problem if they stay up too late. So far we haven't had any problems. Oh and I have the girls sleep in the basement so regular talking noise doesn't carry to my bed. So far it has worked well for us. I supose if things change we'll have to lay down some rules about this...but so far, so good.
my mommy likes doing that kind of stuff too.
Mommy says to tell you that the red-eye-fixer-thing doesn't always work on kitty eyes - in fact in that pikshur of Sammy it would only werk on his left eye. so the pikshur would haf been really weird.
Miles
Hey Miles! Sounds like your mommy & I could be good friends. Sorry the red eye fixer doesn't work so well on kitty eyes. It's a very good picture of Sammy...the red eyes just make him a bit scary. maybe that's the look now adays.
Sylvia said...
Funny, I just sent Peter to go clean his room this minute.
Kindred spirits...I think so.
Oh, and thanks for the Time Warp yesterday. I needed that.
Hey Sylvia, good to see you. LOL! If only I could get her to clean up the rest of her mess. Any you're totally welcome for the Time Warp...glad to be of service. I just wish I could have found one that wasn't so dark.
TC said...
I want to have a sleepover!
I'm totally thinking about having a grown up sleep-over when DH goes outta town sometime. I think it would be really cool. His next scheduled trip is ... well he hasn't told me yet. hee hee, but I'll keep you posted.
Lynn said...
Sounds like fun for Darly, and sounds like it would be tiring for you;~) BTW, did the LLL transition happen yet?
First YES the LLL transition has taken place. I just need to send her one deposit that didn't get saved to the jump drive and we're all set. I just got the paperwork from the bank today to finish the process for switching it over to the other gal (they mail you a copy to your old address to make sure someone isn't trying to steal your identity.)
And about this being tiring for me...I must be a really bad sleep-over mom host cuz I just go to bed and let the girls stay up as long as they want to. I trust my kid and the kids we have over here to not do anything too terrible and after I konk out they do have to be quiet (or I turn into the "screaming mom") but it's their problem if they stay up too late. So far we haven't had any problems. Oh and I have the girls sleep in the basement so regular talking noise doesn't carry to my bed. So far it has worked well for us. I supose if things change we'll have to lay down some rules about this...but so far, so good.
Where ever we go, that's where the party's at!
I tried to find their real video but it's not at youtube yet, so this one will have to do. And now that I turn up the volume on my radio there's another Newsboys song on.
Anyway. The reason I'm bringing you the Newsboys today is because we are hosting yet another sleepover here.
Ya See, Thursday and Friday Darly's friend E was here sleeping over. Thursday was just because and Friday was because her mom was taking her brother to a field trip that E just couldn't stand to see. E can be extremely picky but will be more willing to do stuff if Darly is along. Darly didn't want to do the train model field trip so we did something more fun instead.
We went to a Living History field trip. You can see some cool pictures over on Liese's blog since I haven't uploaded my pictures yet and they're all of Darly & E...I gotta get permission to post E's pictures from her mom first. The girlies got to write with a feather quill (which I just realized I still have E's in my camera bag!) play with the animals do some wood drilling and dip candles. After we went to the music station and heard a hymn that we sing all the time at Church, I asked the girls if they might be ready to leave. At first Darly didn't want to but after a bit I think she realized that she was hungry and we left in search of food.
Well today we're having a different friend come over to spend the night so we can take her to another field trip. Oddly enough this field trip is in the exact same city as the first one. Weird. Darly hasn't seen this friend since August. She's the one who adopted Princess (and then had to find her another home.) But they should be just fine.
I need to go check the cleaning process in Darly's room so we can go get "I" for the sleeping over and massive playdate. LOL
Later folks!
Friday, September 28, 2007
'Splainin' my past...
I've already posted about my newly acquired addiction to Webkinz. Well part of my fascination with Webkinz is the game Goober's Lab. This game is very much like Bejeweled only instead of exploding gems you get dots (that look like they might be gum balls...only Goober calls them atoms) with a swirling spot on them and instead of the swirly gem on Bejeweled for connecting 5 gems you get a gum ball with a sparkle that swirls around it. When you connect a previous 4 connected gum ball it pops random gum balls through out the game and Goober exclaims "Oh it's the Time Warp Again!"
Well when Goober says "Time Warp Again!" my mind of course flashes back to my past and I start thinking "...it's just a jump to the left...and a step to the right..." and of course my daughter was confused as to what was making her mother act so weird.
Thank goodness for this technology called the internet and for the wonderful folks at YouTube! I could very easily provide my daughter with all the answers to why her mom is so crazy...without having to show her the entire Rocky Horror Picture Show and then have even more explaining to do! (I mean who wants to try to explain Tim Curry in a boostier???)
And now I present...
The TIME WARP AGAIN!
Well when Goober says "Time Warp Again!" my mind of course flashes back to my past and I start thinking "...it's just a jump to the left...and a step to the right..." and of course my daughter was confused as to what was making her mother act so weird.
Thank goodness for this technology called the internet and for the wonderful folks at YouTube! I could very easily provide my daughter with all the answers to why her mom is so crazy...without having to show her the entire Rocky Horror Picture Show and then have even more explaining to do! (I mean who wants to try to explain Tim Curry in a boostier???)
And now I present...
The TIME WARP AGAIN!
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
comments to finished post
I decided to put this in a separate post so all of you on readers would get it and know to come back...hee hee
Goofy Girl said...
Congrats on being a almost retired! :) Hope it's official soon!
I know that H was feeling overwhelmed yesterday when I showed her everything, and I know it isn't as complicated as it seemed when I was showing it to her. I'm sure that once she gets in the files and plays around with them she'll see that it's really pretty easy. She's a smart girl, I know she'll do fine.
LadyBugCrossing said...
Busy, busy, busy!! At least the LLL is almost totally behind you...
Happy retirement! LOL!!!
It's so much fun to go and delete myself from all the yahoogroups that I was on and then start deleteing emails that don't apply to me anymore...woo hoo!
TC said...
OK, my head kind of hurts after reading what all you had to go through to try and switch that stuff over!
Uff da!
Will you be having a retirement party when it's official? ;-)
LOL! H had a plaque with Uff Da! on it in her house. I'm not sure when I'll know for sure that it is official as she'll be contacting me throughout her first year when each thing comes up to be sure she does it right. I tried to let her know that it's her baby for her to do her own way. We'll see.
Goofy Girl said...
Congrats on being a almost retired! :) Hope it's official soon!
I know that H was feeling overwhelmed yesterday when I showed her everything, and I know it isn't as complicated as it seemed when I was showing it to her. I'm sure that once she gets in the files and plays around with them she'll see that it's really pretty easy. She's a smart girl, I know she'll do fine.
LadyBugCrossing said...
Busy, busy, busy!! At least the LLL is almost totally behind you...
Happy retirement! LOL!!!
It's so much fun to go and delete myself from all the yahoogroups that I was on and then start deleteing emails that don't apply to me anymore...woo hoo!
TC said...
OK, my head kind of hurts after reading what all you had to go through to try and switch that stuff over!
Uff da!
Will you be having a retirement party when it's official? ;-)
LOL! H had a plaque with Uff Da! on it in her house. I'm not sure when I'll know for sure that it is official as she'll be contacting me throughout her first year when each thing comes up to be sure she does it right. I tried to let her know that it's her baby for her to do her own way. We'll see.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
It is finished?
today I met with H to transfer the LLL stuff over to her. First we went to the bank to get her as a signer on our accounts. It took about 20 minutes before we could be seen because the lady at the desk where you tell them what you're there for was busy helping a lady in front of us order checks. By the time she was done and got to us she says, oh you need to see someone in Business Services and calls another girl who we saw doing not much of anything before. *eyeroll!!!*
So we process the getting H on the accounts and ask about how many signatures are required on each of the accounts. The bank lady highly suggests that we have just one signature required on all the accounts due to possible theft of the checks in the mail while mailing from the check writer to the check signer to the payee. So we're working on that. (I should mention that I am still a signer on all the accounts.)
Then we remembered that we wanted to take some of the old signers off the accounts. oops! that meant re-doing all the paperwork we had done before and all went well except for one of the accounts and we redid that one by hand cuz the computer didn't like us any more at that point. But we got it all done.
Next we went and filled out deposit tickets for the accounts and did a funds transfer so we could pay some folks who have been chomping at the bit to get paid.
Next back to my house...and when we get there the guys that DH hired to fix our gutter are there waiting for me. They had only been there a minute or so but tried to make me feel as if they had been there for longer. I told them they could get started but told them that I needed to head back out. I gave them my cell number so they could call me when the job was finished, I would drive back home and pay them. They said that would be fine.
I went to H's house and we ate lunch, then got started on all this transfer stuff. She took about 40 minutes to get the software on her computer cuz the computer kept insisting that it needed to be restarted. I hope her DH knows what's going on with it cuz I didn't understand what the problem was. Then I went over how to use the software, we did a funds transfer and entered the interest and checks for the accounts. I wrote the checks since I figured anyone could do that and I also addressed the envelopes. Since we learned that the main checking account didn't have a 2 signature requirement I signed the checks myself. Then we had fun trying to figure out how to save the files to her computer...it had it stuck in it's head that they should only be saved to the jump drive. luckily she can keep that.
I showed her some of the files saved on the jump drive and explained them. Then I went through the paper files with her. I showed her the IRS paperwork that we file and the state tax forms. She was overwhelmed by it all...so I suggested that she play around with the software and dig through the files for a week or so, then give me a call and we can go over things again and I'll go over there if I need to. It was a long interesting day.
Oh I forgot to mention that I never heard from the gutter guys. I had no way of calling them. So I called DH to see if they called him. I was worried that my piece of junk cell phone didn't send my call through. So I had Dh call me, it worked fine for him. Well when we got home they were long gone...no note no nothing, well we did have a new gutter. I guess they will be sending us a bill. hummm the guy told me that I had to pay him then since we didn't have a contract. I hope he calls soon. I'm sure we'll hear something tomorrow.
I then had to run Darly to the gym. Today she had yet another coach. Since she has switched to this class on Sept 4th she has had 4 different coaches. But Darly reports that this coach will be her coach from now on...and SHE LOVES HER! I'm excited too since this coach is a former Olympic hopeful. She competed for the Olympic team but missed by just a bit. This coach works with the younger competetive girls and well she's just great. I really like what I have seen out of her. Darly said that she has already shown them two new things.
So a pretty good day. I need to finish filling out my retirement paperwork and then I'll be officially retired. But as of today, I'm unofficially retired. "all dried up." LOL
So we process the getting H on the accounts and ask about how many signatures are required on each of the accounts. The bank lady highly suggests that we have just one signature required on all the accounts due to possible theft of the checks in the mail while mailing from the check writer to the check signer to the payee. So we're working on that. (I should mention that I am still a signer on all the accounts.)
Then we remembered that we wanted to take some of the old signers off the accounts. oops! that meant re-doing all the paperwork we had done before and all went well except for one of the accounts and we redid that one by hand cuz the computer didn't like us any more at that point. But we got it all done.
Next we went and filled out deposit tickets for the accounts and did a funds transfer so we could pay some folks who have been chomping at the bit to get paid.
Next back to my house...and when we get there the guys that DH hired to fix our gutter are there waiting for me. They had only been there a minute or so but tried to make me feel as if they had been there for longer. I told them they could get started but told them that I needed to head back out. I gave them my cell number so they could call me when the job was finished, I would drive back home and pay them. They said that would be fine.
I went to H's house and we ate lunch, then got started on all this transfer stuff. She took about 40 minutes to get the software on her computer cuz the computer kept insisting that it needed to be restarted. I hope her DH knows what's going on with it cuz I didn't understand what the problem was. Then I went over how to use the software, we did a funds transfer and entered the interest and checks for the accounts. I wrote the checks since I figured anyone could do that and I also addressed the envelopes. Since we learned that the main checking account didn't have a 2 signature requirement I signed the checks myself. Then we had fun trying to figure out how to save the files to her computer...it had it stuck in it's head that they should only be saved to the jump drive. luckily she can keep that.
I showed her some of the files saved on the jump drive and explained them. Then I went through the paper files with her. I showed her the IRS paperwork that we file and the state tax forms. She was overwhelmed by it all...so I suggested that she play around with the software and dig through the files for a week or so, then give me a call and we can go over things again and I'll go over there if I need to. It was a long interesting day.
Oh I forgot to mention that I never heard from the gutter guys. I had no way of calling them. So I called DH to see if they called him. I was worried that my piece of junk cell phone didn't send my call through. So I had Dh call me, it worked fine for him. Well when we got home they were long gone...no note no nothing, well we did have a new gutter. I guess they will be sending us a bill. hummm the guy told me that I had to pay him then since we didn't have a contract. I hope he calls soon. I'm sure we'll hear something tomorrow.
I then had to run Darly to the gym. Today she had yet another coach. Since she has switched to this class on Sept 4th she has had 4 different coaches. But Darly reports that this coach will be her coach from now on...and SHE LOVES HER! I'm excited too since this coach is a former Olympic hopeful. She competed for the Olympic team but missed by just a bit. This coach works with the younger competetive girls and well she's just great. I really like what I have seen out of her. Darly said that she has already shown them two new things.
So a pretty good day. I need to finish filling out my retirement paperwork and then I'll be officially retired. But as of today, I'm unofficially retired. "all dried up." LOL
Monday, September 24, 2007
My Head Hurts!
I don't know what the deal is today. I got up played on the computer a bit and finally got off my duff and started the laundry...then called up the mechanic about getting the "check oil" light turned off in my car.
I'm driving to the mechanic and get about a mile from my house and WHAM! It feels like someone knocked me up the right side of my head...(your right, my left...WHATEVER!) I'm thinking "oh great!"
It's not a stress headache...no stressing today...just hanging out while they find and destroy my car.
It's not a migraine...those are sneakier...although I did feel kinda sick last night, but I attributed that to the gorging on Chinese food last night.
I don't think it's due to dehydration...I've been drinking plenty...so I guess that means it's safe to go down some ibuprophen...
Hey! Did you know that if you take ibuprophen for a dehydration headache it makes it worse because ibuprophen works by drawing off fluids?
Anyway...my head hurts.
Oh wait...I think I figured out my headache. My jaw hurts too. Must be a TMJ headache. Great! Time for more biofeedback exercises. *eyeroll* at least I'm not on muscle relaxers again...although I have some...maybe if I take a little bit.
oooh DH will love that. I take the muscle relaxers and he has to come and get my car from the mechanic cuz I can't drive from being loopy. ha ha ha ha!
oooh! Did I tell ya'll about my new Discover Card? If I did, I'm sorry. Forgive me, I have a headache. If I didn't here it is.
We got a letter from Discover Card saying that they have all these new designer cards that we can (sorry TOBY MAC on, had to go dance!) Okay, where was I?
Oh yeah, we can change out our plain old boring credit cards for a pretty one. I tried to link you to the designer cards but Discover won't let you do that without logging and if you think I'm giving you access to my account, YOU MUST BE CRAZY. Anyway so I go log in and look at the designs. DH wants his card changed to be Beach scene. I click on the beach card and it says "We're sorry, but we're out of that card right now...please choose another card." So he picks the Eagle..."We're sorry, but we're out of that card right now...please choose another card." So then he picks the Mountains..."We're sorry, but we're out of that card right now...please choose another card." DH is Furious but I'm seeing a pattern here.
So I grab the phone and call up 1800Discover. I get a really nice lady and tell her what's up. She asks all my security info first and then asks which card DH wants, I tell her he wants the Beach. She says that they have plenty and he can have it. I say go for it! So she begins processing that for him and I have to hurry to pick my card! So I'm flipping through the cards and come across the Flags from around the world set... I tell the Discover lady that DH HATES that they have a French flag. She laughs and says that no one has ordered a French flag card from her.
Finally I find the card I would like. It's called Flowers...it appears online to be tulips, but if you click on the thumbnail you see it's actually poppies. There are two purple poppies, one red and a few poppy seed pods.
We finally got our new cards, just took about a week. I'm thrilled! But wouldn't ya know it, I haven't had much places to use it yet. So far I've used it twice for fast food and the silly kids working the counter don't even care to look at my card. *sigh* I need to go to a craft store so the lady actually looks at my card and says how pretty it is. LOL! What a great reason to shop, huh? maybe the mechanic will notice it when I pay for my car? Doubt it.
Comments to this post:
Lynn said...
I tend to pass on the designer cards. I don't want to get so in love with how it looks that I would be tempted to use it more often. lol. Sorry about your headache, and your car. Hope that both are better soon, and that your mechanic doesn't give you a "here's a gigantic bill" headache:~)
Well, I did spend $750 today with my fancy new card...but that was all in one place on my stupid car! I needed a new radiator and brakes. I'm wondering if the old radiator was broken when DH hit that deer? hummm Oh well. I never did take anything for my headache...I got busy making a bunch of phone calls and totally forgot about the headache & the pills...and it went away. They did a bunch of stuff on my car (at least it's on my receipt) that they charged me $0 for...so that's a good thing, right? LOL! Actually I really like this garage, mostly because they tell me how long they expect to keep my car and when they try to get me to spend more they aren't that pushy about it. They're more like "well your user manual says you need this, but you could wait..." LOL
TC said...
I don't think it's due to dehydration...I've been drinking plenty...
Renee! ;-)
(I couldn't resist: it made me laugh.)
I keep my boring 'ol black and silver card. No designs for me.
I haven't had that kind of drink in a long time. We're pretty much "tea-totalers" (is that how you spell it?) here. I'm a really cheap date and a control freak, so anything that messes with my head is so scrutinized that I usually don't mess with it. We've had our plain cards forever and they've been offering us designer cards for a long time, it was just finally this year that we liked the designs.
Barbara said...
Your much too overjoyed with a credit card, are you sure those are ibuprofen that you are taking?
LOL you're funny. I never did take anything for my headache. I just found the story of what it took to get the cards amusing. Maybe I was a bit loopy. LOL
I'm driving to the mechanic and get about a mile from my house and WHAM! It feels like someone knocked me up the right side of my head...(your right, my left...WHATEVER!) I'm thinking "oh great!"
It's not a stress headache...no stressing today...just hanging out while they find and destroy my car.
It's not a migraine...those are sneakier...although I did feel kinda sick last night, but I attributed that to the gorging on Chinese food last night.
I don't think it's due to dehydration...I've been drinking plenty...so I guess that means it's safe to go down some ibuprophen...
Hey! Did you know that if you take ibuprophen for a dehydration headache it makes it worse because ibuprophen works by drawing off fluids?
Anyway...my head hurts.
Oh wait...I think I figured out my headache. My jaw hurts too. Must be a TMJ headache. Great! Time for more biofeedback exercises. *eyeroll* at least I'm not on muscle relaxers again...although I have some...maybe if I take a little bit.
oooh DH will love that. I take the muscle relaxers and he has to come and get my car from the mechanic cuz I can't drive from being loopy. ha ha ha ha!
oooh! Did I tell ya'll about my new Discover Card? If I did, I'm sorry. Forgive me, I have a headache. If I didn't here it is.
We got a letter from Discover Card saying that they have all these new designer cards that we can (sorry TOBY MAC on, had to go dance!) Okay, where was I?
Oh yeah, we can change out our plain old boring credit cards for a pretty one. I tried to link you to the designer cards but Discover won't let you do that without logging and if you think I'm giving you access to my account, YOU MUST BE CRAZY. Anyway so I go log in and look at the designs. DH wants his card changed to be Beach scene. I click on the beach card and it says "We're sorry, but we're out of that card right now...please choose another card." So he picks the Eagle..."We're sorry, but we're out of that card right now...please choose another card." So then he picks the Mountains..."We're sorry, but we're out of that card right now...please choose another card." DH is Furious but I'm seeing a pattern here.
So I grab the phone and call up 1800Discover. I get a really nice lady and tell her what's up. She asks all my security info first and then asks which card DH wants, I tell her he wants the Beach. She says that they have plenty and he can have it. I say go for it! So she begins processing that for him and I have to hurry to pick my card! So I'm flipping through the cards and come across the Flags from around the world set... I tell the Discover lady that DH HATES that they have a French flag. She laughs and says that no one has ordered a French flag card from her.
Finally I find the card I would like. It's called Flowers...it appears online to be tulips, but if you click on the thumbnail you see it's actually poppies. There are two purple poppies, one red and a few poppy seed pods.
We finally got our new cards, just took about a week. I'm thrilled! But wouldn't ya know it, I haven't had much places to use it yet. So far I've used it twice for fast food and the silly kids working the counter don't even care to look at my card. *sigh* I need to go to a craft store so the lady actually looks at my card and says how pretty it is. LOL! What a great reason to shop, huh? maybe the mechanic will notice it when I pay for my car? Doubt it.
Comments to this post:
Lynn said...
I tend to pass on the designer cards. I don't want to get so in love with how it looks that I would be tempted to use it more often. lol. Sorry about your headache, and your car. Hope that both are better soon, and that your mechanic doesn't give you a "here's a gigantic bill" headache:~)
Well, I did spend $750 today with my fancy new card...but that was all in one place on my stupid car! I needed a new radiator and brakes. I'm wondering if the old radiator was broken when DH hit that deer? hummm Oh well. I never did take anything for my headache...I got busy making a bunch of phone calls and totally forgot about the headache & the pills...and it went away. They did a bunch of stuff on my car (at least it's on my receipt) that they charged me $0 for...so that's a good thing, right? LOL! Actually I really like this garage, mostly because they tell me how long they expect to keep my car and when they try to get me to spend more they aren't that pushy about it. They're more like "well your user manual says you need this, but you could wait..." LOL
TC said...
I don't think it's due to dehydration...I've been drinking plenty...
Renee! ;-)
(I couldn't resist: it made me laugh.)
I keep my boring 'ol black and silver card. No designs for me.
I haven't had that kind of drink in a long time. We're pretty much "tea-totalers" (is that how you spell it?) here. I'm a really cheap date and a control freak, so anything that messes with my head is so scrutinized that I usually don't mess with it. We've had our plain cards forever and they've been offering us designer cards for a long time, it was just finally this year that we liked the designs.
Barbara said...
Your much too overjoyed with a credit card, are you sure those are ibuprofen that you are taking?
LOL you're funny. I never did take anything for my headache. I just found the story of what it took to get the cards amusing. Maybe I was a bit loopy. LOL
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Communion
this blessed day
as our daughter
Darly
receives her
1st Holy Communion
Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 10:30am
Renee & DH
Wow! Can you believe it? My "sweet" little girl is growing up so fast. It seems like just yesterday she was a baby.
Today was Darly's 1st Communion retreat. This was a class for the kids to learn what Communion is all about, decorate their chalice, and learn how to take Communion. So in two short weeks my baby will have her 1st Communion.
She and the rest of the 22 kids in her class have already started on the journey that will end with their Confirmation in 2012. (25 kids showed up for this retreat!) I'm teaching them and have taught most of them for the past 5 years. Next year I'll have a break, possibly as two other ladies have taught the 6th graders for year (one is thinking about teaching her baby girl's class next year instead.)
For me it is a bit of a learning experience as well since I was never Confirmed...instead I had a Affirmation. I grew up going to a different kind of Church.
I was a bit surprised that she didn't learn anything that I didn't know today. I felt for sure there was something I didn't know about Communion, and I'm sure there still is but they just didn't teach it to my child. Oh well. And there was one thing they didn't go over at all that I told Darly about...
The actual taking of Communion. I told Darly about how some Churches the Pastor places the wafer on your tongue, and how some Churches use bread instead of the wafers we use (and gave her examples like MIL's Church.) In our Church we have two methods...the early service receive the wafer and a cup of wine...the late service are handed a wafer that they dip into the wine.
I decided to make this super easy on me by having us go out for lunch afterward. Darly picked The Black Eyed Pea. And can you believe it? We got a coupon in the mail today for 25% off the bill. YIPPEE! We can take MIL & Darly's God Parents out and get a huge discount...or maybe cover the tip if they're good. LOL!
she's growing up so fast.
Friday, September 21, 2007
I'm not gonna be your friend if you're friends with her!
Wow! Can you believe those words came out of my sweet little Darly? I'm a bit shocked that she's trying to be such a b!tc#. I don't know where she got the idea that this kind of behavior was acceptable.
Well it looks like a good long discussion is in order for us and I'm sure the eye rolling will ensue.
I think that the first thing I'm going to do is suspend her email privileges...that's where those horrible words were first spewed. This isn't the first time she's used her email account to be a nasty. So until she can be trusted again, all email goes through me.
Any ideas?
Comments:
Heather said...
ARGH! I just lost my whole comment... I HATE when that happens...Yeah, hate it big time.
The jest of my comment was... I think I would turn the tables on my child and roll play a little to show the "do unto others" scenario and how it might make her feel to have things turned around. well I pretty much did that. I asked her how she might feel if the girl she said this to said "I won't be your friend if you're friends with BESTFRIEND." Well apparently something like that had never occured to her.
Its such a hard subject... part of growing up but sooo hard. It is. And I guess for me the big thing was that I had thought I taught her to be better than that. So it was shocking to find out she did this.
*HUGS* Thanks!
Bone said...
Hey, at least she's still a kid. I've seen people in their 30's and 40's act that way. True. But she's gonna learn now to not be that 30 or 40 y/o. I've seen what happens as an adult. Perhaps I could share that with Darly, it wasn't pretty.
TC said...
I used to hear that a lot as a kid. I know that doesn't really help or make it right, but I think it's probably a phase that most little girls go through. It could be a phase or something she picked up from a TV show that she watches (great educational programing that she watches!). I don't care where she learned it, she now knows that the girl she emailed those hurtful words to never saw them. And she's okay with me approving her outgoing messages. We need to talk about her mis-directed anger at the people who "get her into trouble" when she should be looking at her own behavior.
Barbara said...
You're on your own, I can't help you. I'm gonna cut and run. What? Boys don't do this kind of thing? LOL! hee hee I think I've covered her punishment pretty well. I made her realize that what she did was wrong and hurtful. Hopefully she'll think twice before trying something so mean again.
Well it looks like a good long discussion is in order for us and I'm sure the eye rolling will ensue.
I think that the first thing I'm going to do is suspend her email privileges...that's where those horrible words were first spewed. This isn't the first time she's used her email account to be a nasty. So until she can be trusted again, all email goes through me.
Any ideas?
Comments:
Heather said...
ARGH! I just lost my whole comment... I HATE when that happens...Yeah, hate it big time.
The jest of my comment was... I think I would turn the tables on my child and roll play a little to show the "do unto others" scenario and how it might make her feel to have things turned around. well I pretty much did that. I asked her how she might feel if the girl she said this to said "I won't be your friend if you're friends with BESTFRIEND." Well apparently something like that had never occured to her.
Its such a hard subject... part of growing up but sooo hard. It is. And I guess for me the big thing was that I had thought I taught her to be better than that. So it was shocking to find out she did this.
*HUGS* Thanks!
Bone said...
Hey, at least she's still a kid. I've seen people in their 30's and 40's act that way. True. But she's gonna learn now to not be that 30 or 40 y/o. I've seen what happens as an adult. Perhaps I could share that with Darly, it wasn't pretty.
TC said...
I used to hear that a lot as a kid. I know that doesn't really help or make it right, but I think it's probably a phase that most little girls go through. It could be a phase or something she picked up from a TV show that she watches (great educational programing that she watches!). I don't care where she learned it, she now knows that the girl she emailed those hurtful words to never saw them. And she's okay with me approving her outgoing messages. We need to talk about her mis-directed anger at the people who "get her into trouble" when she should be looking at her own behavior.
Barbara said...
You're on your own, I can't help you. I'm gonna cut and run. What? Boys don't do this kind of thing? LOL! hee hee I think I've covered her punishment pretty well. I made her realize that what she did was wrong and hurtful. Hopefully she'll think twice before trying something so mean again.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
HELP!
I deleted my ticker that was driving so many of you nuts and now everyting is centered. I guess I deleted too much, but it was just one line of code. :(
Please help me.
Please help me.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Conversion post-poned
WELL, I thought I was transfering this job over today!
I don't know the entire story yet, but when I called her just now she was on a city bus that she had taken to her chiropractor's appointment and she didn't expect to be home for about an hour.
I'm assuming that she had car trouble and couldn't make our appointment. She's not too good at calling about such things. Hummm & sigh
Well I'm not gonna worry about her doing the job, I'm just worried about how much longer I need to do it. See I have a bunch of really large bills to pay and need to transfer some money to do that. All of our accounts are two signature accts. Normally I would write the checks and mail them to another person to cosign...but I figured that since I was just about to see her, I would wait, get her on the account and have us both sign the transfer right at the bank so that it could be immediate. Then we could come back to my place and cosign the checks and mail them all at once.
I have to wait until after Darly's gymnastics class to call her back and find out when we can do this. Lovely.
I don't know the entire story yet, but when I called her just now she was on a city bus that she had taken to her chiropractor's appointment and she didn't expect to be home for about an hour.
I'm assuming that she had car trouble and couldn't make our appointment. She's not too good at calling about such things. Hummm & sigh
Well I'm not gonna worry about her doing the job, I'm just worried about how much longer I need to do it. See I have a bunch of really large bills to pay and need to transfer some money to do that. All of our accounts are two signature accts. Normally I would write the checks and mail them to another person to cosign...but I figured that since I was just about to see her, I would wait, get her on the account and have us both sign the transfer right at the bank so that it could be immediate. Then we could come back to my place and cosign the checks and mail them all at once.
I have to wait until after Darly's gymnastics class to call her back and find out when we can do this. Lovely.
Monday, September 17, 2007
The Conversion
Today was the beginning of the end. The end of my being a LLL Leader.
I first became a Leader in October of 2000. We were stationed in S. Korea and there was no LLL group there. So I knew if I wanted to keep my LLL I would need to become a Leader. So I would drive to Seoul once a month for meetings and then every two weeks for my work with the Leader there (who was from Germany but she was accredited in Japan!) to become a Leader. I think my entire process took about 13 months and most of that was the hold up of getting stuff shipped to me overseas and my contact was in Oregon.
I didn't actually lead my first meeting until about June of 2001 because right after I became a Leader we moved back to the US and it took a while for us to find a place to live and such.
In my career as a Leader I've led with two Groups, for a bit both at the same time. I've been a Leader all by myself, I've been a Leader with as many as 3 other Leaders at a meeting. I've helped 4 women become Leaders (3 of them have already retired). I don't know how many women I've actually helped with breastfeeding...I could count my logs but there were many calls that I didn't log as they were simple "when is the meeting?" calls and then there were all the calls from people who had no idea who LLL is or what we do. I've had at least 2 prank calls...one I wasn't home for, thank goodness because he was the one we had to turn in to the police. And I've been the treasurer for our area for the past 3 years.
It seemed a bit odd Leading my last meeting this morning. I am really going to miss those moms and their babies. There's one mom that was there today who I've known since she had her baby and now her baby is 3 and weaned. She made sure I would still answer her other questions. LOL! She's very sweet and I'll be happy to talk to her about anything. But it was also a huge relief to know that was my last one.
I can really see that my heart just isn't in this anymore and it is time for me to move on. And of course there are already plenty of things in my life to "fill the void" for that.
Now I just have to meet with the new treasurer, hopefully tomorrow and pass that torch as well. The new gal is going to be awesome. She has the same kind of "money sense" that I have. I feel good about passing this over to her and soon will be totally done.
I first became a Leader in October of 2000. We were stationed in S. Korea and there was no LLL group there. So I knew if I wanted to keep my LLL I would need to become a Leader. So I would drive to Seoul once a month for meetings and then every two weeks for my work with the Leader there (who was from Germany but she was accredited in Japan!) to become a Leader. I think my entire process took about 13 months and most of that was the hold up of getting stuff shipped to me overseas and my contact was in Oregon.
I didn't actually lead my first meeting until about June of 2001 because right after I became a Leader we moved back to the US and it took a while for us to find a place to live and such.
In my career as a Leader I've led with two Groups, for a bit both at the same time. I've been a Leader all by myself, I've been a Leader with as many as 3 other Leaders at a meeting. I've helped 4 women become Leaders (3 of them have already retired). I don't know how many women I've actually helped with breastfeeding...I could count my logs but there were many calls that I didn't log as they were simple "when is the meeting?" calls and then there were all the calls from people who had no idea who LLL is or what we do. I've had at least 2 prank calls...one I wasn't home for, thank goodness because he was the one we had to turn in to the police. And I've been the treasurer for our area for the past 3 years.
It seemed a bit odd Leading my last meeting this morning. I am really going to miss those moms and their babies. There's one mom that was there today who I've known since she had her baby and now her baby is 3 and weaned. She made sure I would still answer her other questions. LOL! She's very sweet and I'll be happy to talk to her about anything. But it was also a huge relief to know that was my last one.
I can really see that my heart just isn't in this anymore and it is time for me to move on. And of course there are already plenty of things in my life to "fill the void" for that.
Now I just have to meet with the new treasurer, hopefully tomorrow and pass that torch as well. The new gal is going to be awesome. She has the same kind of "money sense" that I have. I feel good about passing this over to her and soon will be totally done.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Confession
Hello... My name is Renee and I'm an adict
I'm adicted to....
WEBKINS WORLD!
In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, Webkinz are stuffed animals that come with a code that allows you entrance into the Webkinz World...an online community of virtual stuffed animals. These are so popular that folks are stealing the codes off the animals in the stores (one store had used those security sensors to staple the code to the animal's paw!) And I saw online where you can buy the animals with no code really cheap...but who wants that? I sure don't. I don't even want the stuffed animal...just gimme the code!
LOL!
So my addiction began when Heather gave Darly one innocent looking Webkinz that resembled the infamous Princess in appreciation for us caring for the beast.
We entered the Webkinz World and began exploring. Your Webkinz comes with a room and one special item. We quickly learned that in order to take proper care of this puppy we needed to earn KinzCash (you get a little starter KinzCash to begin with). You earn KinzCash by playing arcade games, playing in tournaments and by checking the daily activties. This was getting very cool. I just liked the games. See there's this game called Goober's Lab and it is exactly like Bejeweled! And there is a tile game like Mahjong and there are a lot of other really cool games. The higher your score the more KinzCash.
Well as of yesterday I had played enough to earn this pampered pooch a gameroom, a yard & a kitchen with all the accessories including a pool for the yard! We were stylin! (oh yeah, she has lots of clothes too!) And today I did something truely unthinkable...
I bought Darly two more Webkinz! She picked out the Yellow & White cat and the Grey & White cat. She had originally wanted the Black & White cat but once she saw it compaired to the Grey & white she didn't like it as much. Some of the Kinz don't look as cute in person as they do online.
When we first got the cats we assumed that the new animals would have their own "houses" where we would have to go buy the rest of the rooms. But we were shocked to learn that their rooms connected to our puppy's room. And we learned the hard way. It was funny!
First Darly put in the yellow cat and when we tried to walk it out of it's room through the door to see what was out there...it couldn't get through! What was going on??? We look at the map and see that the room is connected to the puppy's room! So we go to the puppy's room and find that the cat can't get in there because the puppy's bed is in the way! Oops! So Darly moved the puppy's bed to another wall. Then she entered the Grey cat and we learn that it's door connects to the puppy's room again...and you guessed it, right where the bed was moved to!
So Darly spent this afternoon moving the puppy's furniture to make room for the cats. They all get along very well and share everything very nicely. I'm not sure why but Darly bought the cats their own kitchen, maybe it was because the one cat came with a refrigerator. I wonder if she can sell it? The puppy already had a refrigerator and it's cuter.
Now I have 3 kinz to earn KinzCash for. And it's fun.
Oh I should mention that Webkinz World closes at 10pm for us so there's no chance of Darly staying up too late to play it...or me either for that matter. LOL!
I should also mention that it's pretty obivious that there are lots of adults out there playing the games because I can't beat them.
but before you get all worried about the kids safety...it's totally safe. While the kids can "chat" with each other they can only use pre-written phrases (never typing for themselves!) So they can't give another player their name or any personal info...it just won't let you.
So if you don't see me blogging, I'm probably in Webkinz World.
I'm adicted to....
WEBKINS WORLD!
In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, Webkinz are stuffed animals that come with a code that allows you entrance into the Webkinz World...an online community of virtual stuffed animals. These are so popular that folks are stealing the codes off the animals in the stores (one store had used those security sensors to staple the code to the animal's paw!) And I saw online where you can buy the animals with no code really cheap...but who wants that? I sure don't. I don't even want the stuffed animal...just gimme the code!
LOL!
So my addiction began when Heather gave Darly one innocent looking Webkinz that resembled the infamous Princess in appreciation for us caring for the beast.
We entered the Webkinz World and began exploring. Your Webkinz comes with a room and one special item. We quickly learned that in order to take proper care of this puppy we needed to earn KinzCash (you get a little starter KinzCash to begin with). You earn KinzCash by playing arcade games, playing in tournaments and by checking the daily activties. This was getting very cool. I just liked the games. See there's this game called Goober's Lab and it is exactly like Bejeweled! And there is a tile game like Mahjong and there are a lot of other really cool games. The higher your score the more KinzCash.
Well as of yesterday I had played enough to earn this pampered pooch a gameroom, a yard & a kitchen with all the accessories including a pool for the yard! We were stylin! (oh yeah, she has lots of clothes too!) And today I did something truely unthinkable...
I bought Darly two more Webkinz! She picked out the Yellow & White cat and the Grey & White cat. She had originally wanted the Black & White cat but once she saw it compaired to the Grey & white she didn't like it as much. Some of the Kinz don't look as cute in person as they do online.
When we first got the cats we assumed that the new animals would have their own "houses" where we would have to go buy the rest of the rooms. But we were shocked to learn that their rooms connected to our puppy's room. And we learned the hard way. It was funny!
First Darly put in the yellow cat and when we tried to walk it out of it's room through the door to see what was out there...it couldn't get through! What was going on??? We look at the map and see that the room is connected to the puppy's room! So we go to the puppy's room and find that the cat can't get in there because the puppy's bed is in the way! Oops! So Darly moved the puppy's bed to another wall. Then she entered the Grey cat and we learn that it's door connects to the puppy's room again...and you guessed it, right where the bed was moved to!
So Darly spent this afternoon moving the puppy's furniture to make room for the cats. They all get along very well and share everything very nicely. I'm not sure why but Darly bought the cats their own kitchen, maybe it was because the one cat came with a refrigerator. I wonder if she can sell it? The puppy already had a refrigerator and it's cuter.
Now I have 3 kinz to earn KinzCash for. And it's fun.
Oh I should mention that Webkinz World closes at 10pm for us so there's no chance of Darly staying up too late to play it...or me either for that matter. LOL!
I should also mention that it's pretty obivious that there are lots of adults out there playing the games because I can't beat them.
but before you get all worried about the kids safety...it's totally safe. While the kids can "chat" with each other they can only use pre-written phrases (never typing for themselves!) So they can't give another player their name or any personal info...it just won't let you.
So if you don't see me blogging, I'm probably in Webkinz World.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
The Wiggles - I'm Too Sexy
For all the Moms out there who suffered through years (or even just minutes) of the Wiggles...here's a laugh for you!
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
comment answering post
These are selected comments from my camping trip post and my answers to them...
The Meezers said...
you camping trips sounds like lots of fun Miss Renee. Glad that you took your litterbox wif you and that it was helpful!! - Miles
NO! Thank you Miles for all your camping tips. You're such a smart cat.
Heather said...
Sounds like you had a good time! And I had to mention that I think its comical DH didnt go... Jake wouldn't go either. He says, "That is why Got created Electricity and In door plumbing so we didnt have to go camping!" LOL Sounds like they will get along peachy ;)
Well since Dh's "in the field job" is setting up "tent cities" he's a bit spoiled by all the amenities that his employer provides. When we were packing once he asked "where is the A/C? where is the communications tent? where are the showers?" He thinks that he's so funny. I don't know if we'll ever drag him out for real camping...which is why I haven't bothered to buy him a cot or air mattress yet. Yeah, our guys should get along just fine.
Jen said...
I'm gonna have to tell people to come read about the camping trip here, because I just haven't gotten around to blogging it (or much of anything!) yet.
I'm all over that ferber thing, loved it and did it with all the kids. But if that's what they were doing, they were doing it WRONG! Jeez, it's not that hard of a concept, is it? No one's kid should be crying that long before bed, or ever.
LOL! yeah, it's totally okay to send your commenters over here for a peak at your camping trip. Glad I didn't got to Bear Creak with you. That sounded very harsh even though they have flushies!
And I really hope that the baby was just being ferberized wrong cuz if the baby was cold like I suspected that was just plain MEAN to let it cry like that. The second night really sounded as if it were in pain to me.
Barbara said...
Nice to have you back in the blogosphere.
Thanks Barbara, and thanks for your Google Next button tip. All I have to figure out now is how to get my printer driver on here...I think that I might have the right one from the website...just have to do all the disconnect the usb cord and connect the cord...and roll my eyes. hee hee
Kailani said...
I give you credit for going through all of that. I know I wouldn't bother since I'm just not a camping kind of girl. The main thing is that Darly enjoyed herself!
Yeah, she had a great time. I'm not sure why I'm so attracted to camping...maybe cuz I feel as if I was born at the wrong time. When Frontier House came out on PBS I was totally thinking "I Can Do That!"
Goofy Girl said...
Sounds like quite the adventure!!
It was a lot of fun.(except for the screaming baby and horrible latrines!) Monday morning I was kind of torn about leaving. In a way I would have liked to stay up there longer, but we needed to get back to town for Darly's gymnastic's class.
I was wishing that we had done some real hiking and exploring or other campy things.
Lynn said...
After reading your post I want to go camping again. I absolutely love tent camping. (Don't like the bugs though). Sounds like you had a fantastic camping trip...minus the crying baby and the cold, but oh what great memories you are creating.
That is the one wonderful thing about camping in Colorado...no bugs! I think we saw maybe two mosquitoes. The flies kept trying to get in our screened room, but that's it.
Bone said...
Sounds fun. I'm very impressed by the variety of food that you cooked while camping. I usually just have hot dogs.
Who takes a screaming baby camping? Isn't that what people go camping to get away from? :)
I purposly try to have food OTHER than just hot dogs when we go camping. Mostly to prove to Darly that you can eat other foods and cooking them is not that hard.
Here's how I cooked our food: Night #1 I put some water in frying pan with the ham and the corn and just heated that. The mashed potatoes were instant. Night #2 (when I did my "fancy cooking!") I cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and covered that in a mixture of barbque sauce & water (cuz the heat makes the sauce dry out quickly and then you just get pasty chicken...blech!) I heated that in a covered pan and then cooked the instant rice and peas separately. Night #3 Darly sliced the hot dogs and I got the macaroni cooking. About 4 minutes or so before the noodles were done we added the hot dogs. Drained the noodles/dog mixture and made the Mac & Cheese according to the Kraft directions. Peas were cooked in water in a separate pan. I CAN cook more elaborate camping meals...but remember I'm also catering to a very picky kid. On previous trips I've cooked foil pouch dinners, which I LOVE but Darly isn't a fan. I can also do a dutch oven stew, but I'm waiting for someone's palate to mature for that.
And I don't know why those people had a baby cuz they certainly did there best to ignore it. At one point they had the kid in the pop up crying while the mother was outside doing nothing that looked important telling the baby "I'm right here."
m said...
Sounds like you had a great trip! Have you warmed up yet? :)
RYC: If you're going to be driving a lot on 470, you'll probably want a transponder. Having one makes it so much easier!
It was fun, can't wait to go again! And yes I've warmed up. Now that I know the secret of a warm night's sleep I'll never go cold again!
And I should go get a transpoder. I'll ask DH about it, maybe if I tell him that I'll keep it in the glove box except for when I actually need it and only use it when it's really necessary he'll let me get one.
The Meezers said...
you camping trips sounds like lots of fun Miss Renee. Glad that you took your litterbox wif you and that it was helpful!! - Miles
NO! Thank you Miles for all your camping tips. You're such a smart cat.
Heather said...
Sounds like you had a good time! And I had to mention that I think its comical DH didnt go... Jake wouldn't go either. He says, "That is why Got created Electricity and In door plumbing so we didnt have to go camping!" LOL Sounds like they will get along peachy ;)
Well since Dh's "in the field job" is setting up "tent cities" he's a bit spoiled by all the amenities that his employer provides. When we were packing once he asked "where is the A/C? where is the communications tent? where are the showers?" He thinks that he's so funny. I don't know if we'll ever drag him out for real camping...which is why I haven't bothered to buy him a cot or air mattress yet. Yeah, our guys should get along just fine.
Jen said...
I'm gonna have to tell people to come read about the camping trip here, because I just haven't gotten around to blogging it (or much of anything!) yet.
I'm all over that ferber thing, loved it and did it with all the kids. But if that's what they were doing, they were doing it WRONG! Jeez, it's not that hard of a concept, is it? No one's kid should be crying that long before bed, or ever.
LOL! yeah, it's totally okay to send your commenters over here for a peak at your camping trip. Glad I didn't got to Bear Creak with you. That sounded very harsh even though they have flushies!
And I really hope that the baby was just being ferberized wrong cuz if the baby was cold like I suspected that was just plain MEAN to let it cry like that. The second night really sounded as if it were in pain to me.
Barbara said...
Nice to have you back in the blogosphere.
Thanks Barbara, and thanks for your Google Next button tip. All I have to figure out now is how to get my printer driver on here...I think that I might have the right one from the website...just have to do all the disconnect the usb cord and connect the cord...and roll my eyes. hee hee
Kailani said...
I give you credit for going through all of that. I know I wouldn't bother since I'm just not a camping kind of girl. The main thing is that Darly enjoyed herself!
Yeah, she had a great time. I'm not sure why I'm so attracted to camping...maybe cuz I feel as if I was born at the wrong time. When Frontier House came out on PBS I was totally thinking "I Can Do That!"
Goofy Girl said...
Sounds like quite the adventure!!
It was a lot of fun.(except for the screaming baby and horrible latrines!) Monday morning I was kind of torn about leaving. In a way I would have liked to stay up there longer, but we needed to get back to town for Darly's gymnastic's class.
I was wishing that we had done some real hiking and exploring or other campy things.
Lynn said...
After reading your post I want to go camping again. I absolutely love tent camping. (Don't like the bugs though). Sounds like you had a fantastic camping trip...minus the crying baby and the cold, but oh what great memories you are creating.
That is the one wonderful thing about camping in Colorado...no bugs! I think we saw maybe two mosquitoes. The flies kept trying to get in our screened room, but that's it.
Bone said...
Sounds fun. I'm very impressed by the variety of food that you cooked while camping. I usually just have hot dogs.
Who takes a screaming baby camping? Isn't that what people go camping to get away from? :)
I purposly try to have food OTHER than just hot dogs when we go camping. Mostly to prove to Darly that you can eat other foods and cooking them is not that hard.
Here's how I cooked our food: Night #1 I put some water in frying pan with the ham and the corn and just heated that. The mashed potatoes were instant. Night #2 (when I did my "fancy cooking!") I cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and covered that in a mixture of barbque sauce & water (cuz the heat makes the sauce dry out quickly and then you just get pasty chicken...blech!) I heated that in a covered pan and then cooked the instant rice and peas separately. Night #3 Darly sliced the hot dogs and I got the macaroni cooking. About 4 minutes or so before the noodles were done we added the hot dogs. Drained the noodles/dog mixture and made the Mac & Cheese according to the Kraft directions. Peas were cooked in water in a separate pan. I CAN cook more elaborate camping meals...but remember I'm also catering to a very picky kid. On previous trips I've cooked foil pouch dinners, which I LOVE but Darly isn't a fan. I can also do a dutch oven stew, but I'm waiting for someone's palate to mature for that.
And I don't know why those people had a baby cuz they certainly did there best to ignore it. At one point they had the kid in the pop up crying while the mother was outside doing nothing that looked important telling the baby "I'm right here."
m said...
Sounds like you had a great trip! Have you warmed up yet? :)
RYC: If you're going to be driving a lot on 470, you'll probably want a transponder. Having one makes it so much easier!
It was fun, can't wait to go again! And yes I've warmed up. Now that I know the secret of a warm night's sleep I'll never go cold again!
And I should go get a transpoder. I'll ask DH about it, maybe if I tell him that I'll keep it in the glove box except for when I actually need it and only use it when it's really necessary he'll let me get one.
Monday, September 03, 2007
How the camping went
I just realized that after all the excitement about my new computer and the terrible miserable days I had without internet that I totally forgot to tell you all about our camping trip.
I'm gonna follow the good old journalism techinque of using the famous W questions.
Who (all went)?: My real life buddy Jen and her entire Hoard, Darly, Lilly & myself.
What?: We went camping. Jen's gang in a pop-up and my gang in a tent.
Where?: Columbine Campground, just a bit up the road from Central City (apparently kinda North West, but I can't be sure). I'm not sure what you'll see when you click on that link...but look for the two loops. that's the campground...we were in the loop that is more to your left.
When?: Aug 24th threw the 27th. We were home by 11:30...that's when I learned that we had no more internet. :(
Why?: cuz I like to camp!
Here's what happened:
On Friday the 24th I loaded up the Explorer with all our camping gear and we headed up toward the mountains. For us it is about an hour & half or so. The new Central City parkway takes a lot of the time off...but you still have to drive through Central City to get there...'cuz they made the road to go to the town on purpose so folks would come there to gamble and leave all their money behind.
So Darly & I arrive there about 3:30 or so. I don't remember exactally. It was nice and quiet because most folks weren't planning on getting there until Saturday. Our campsite (and all of the sites there) was really intended to be for a RV. So figuring out where to put our tent at first took a bit of looking around. Right behind the "driveway" of sorts was a clear area, but it was on a sloap and it had a lot of tree roots in it. And even though we have "cots" I didn't want to try to set up there. Luckily behind the picnic table there was a relatively flat area without too many bumps.
So we got to work removing all the rocks, sticks and mushrooms! Let me say right now that grabbing a mushroom when you aren't expecting one is a very creapy feeling! There were partially buried mushrooms all over this place. And no, I don't know what kinds there were. Although, I did learn that the red ones with white spots were poisonous. Luckily I don't think any of us wanted to try to figure out which of the other ones were edible.
I grabbed our whisk broom and began sweeping our tent area to be sure we got all the little pokey things out of the way. I really don't want to poke a hole in my newish tent. We got that all done and set up the tent. I did a good job at making sure we had room for our screened room out the front without running into the picnic table and keep us on fairly level ground.
Next came the fun of setting up our beds. I let Darly work on that while I worked on getting our "kitchen" set up. I assumed that Darly would be setting up my bed as well...she did not. So I had to go blow up my air mattress (with the pump) and get my cot all set.
After that we began getting our fire started and working on dinner. I think that Jen arrived around that time. She wasn't very happy that her campsite was not a pull through like the website said. She discussed this with the camp host. The camp host said that this description stuff is written by folks in New York who have never even been here. Jen says that is why you should contact them and let them know what the site really has. I was expecting a pull through. Camp host says that no campgrounds have pull throughs. Luckily Jen had her hubby along who could help her get her popup in the parking spot. But unfortunately they were unable to use the awning because it would have hit the tree next to it.
Darly & I had Ham, mashed potatoes & peas for dinner. I learned that night that for the next two nights I wanted to have dinner finished earlier so I wasn't washing dishes in the dark. But we had a nice evening and went to bed around 9ish.
Silly me, I did not set up the camp potty that I had brought because on first inspection of the campground facilities they were not all that bad for a vault toilet. There were a lot of flies in there, but they stayed mostly at the top of the latrine and didn't bother us. Well for some odd reason I needed to go to the latrine about 4 or 5 times that night...I'm guessing that altitude squeezes the bladder or something. So I had to get up in the cold and take Lilly with me because she would wake up Darly if I left her behind. This is not fun once, after the 4th time I was Seriously NOT happy. Oh and it was cold in the sleeping bag too. I had one fleece blanket inside the bag with me and an old quilt on top of my bag...still cold!
I think I woke up about 6:30 for good and started my camp stove to make my coffee and some hot water for oatmeal. After I had my breakfast I woke up Darly so she could have a hot meal too. She was freezing and after eating she went back into her sleeping bag.
We spent Saturday exploring our campsites, chatting with Jen's hoard and going to the Cemetaries down the road from the campground to go check them out. Lilly did very well with the cemetaries...I didn't know that she could climb over stiles that well. I wonder if it hurt her feet any as they were the open grid stairs. She didn't complain at all.
Saturday night we had Chicken cooked in barbque sauce, rice and peas. I also made "apple cobbler" for dessert. The cobbler never got cripsy, but it tasted good. I shared our leftovers with Jen & the hoard. They seemed to like it too.
Saturday night I had the camp toilet in the tent. That made the night go much better, but one of the new camp families that had arrived also had a bunch of kids and the baby cried about an hour from about 10pm or so. To me it seemed as if the baby was cold...but I could be wrong. I know that we were cold. I had brought those Therma Care packs and Darly & I each had one in bed with us.
Sunday morning I let Darly sleep in...figuring that she would be warmer in her sleeping bag and that went well. I had my coffee and read some Harry Potter (again!).
After Breakfast Jen drives up to let me know that they are heading into town for more supplies...do I need anything? I ask her for more Therma Care packets. And thank goodness the store actually had them! Oh I was doing such a happy dance. I'll never go camping without them again!
It was sometime after lunch that Darly's bestest buddy and her family came up for a visit. Darly was beside herself with excitement. You would hardly know that BB & Darly had just seen each other on Friday morning. Those girls are so silly. So the girls played in our tent and the guys (BB's dad, brother, Jen's son & Mr Jen) went for a hike, while us "women folk" sat around the camp fire "swappin womanly stories" (sorry I coudn't resist...we watched Shrek here last night.)
All too soon it was time for BB's family to head back to town. The girls pealed themselves away from eachother and said their goodbyes, without any tears. And as soon as they pulled away, Darly says that she misses BB. *eyeroll!*
Sunday night dinner was hotdogs cut up in Mac & Cheese with corn. Smores for dessert. Sometime after dessert while we are watching the fire it starts to thunder and sprinkle. So I start scrambling to get everything that shouldn't get wet put away and things that might blow away tied down. We had left the lantern in the tent so I was using just my flashlight and at one point I ran into the picnic table's bench because I didn't see it. OUCH! We got everything put away and went into the tent. Darly was upset because we hadn't put out the fire. I figured the rain would take care of it...but we watched from our tent the fire still glowing. It didn't rain much.
Darly & I weren't that tired so we sat on the tent floor next to the lantern reading our books. I went to bed before Darly...that was odd. At some point after I dozed off I woke to the baby next tent site screaming. It was screaming as if it were in pain. My tent doesn't have any window flaps on that side so I couldn't tell if the parents were doing anything for the child or not. I could hear other noises from over there, but it didn't seem that they were doing anything for the child.
I later told Jen that I couldn't tell if the child was screaming because it was in pain (like the ear infections that seemed to be going around) or if the parents were trying to ferberize the kid and it wasn't going very well. I think the kid quit screaming at about 2 hours or I fell asleep at that point. Who knows?
Sunday I had decided to put our extra blankets inside our sleeping bags and oh how much better we slept. I was nice and toasty...especially since I had my Therma Care too. Ah! Oh did I mention that instead of having my Therma care on my tummy that I had it on my butt? That was the coldest part of me, so that's where I put it.
Monday morning we had all had enough of camping. Since a lot of my stuff had been put in the Explorer the night before for the rain I was able to get the rest of the stuff outside the tent packed away quickly...well except for what we needed for breakfast. Again I let Darly sleep in and she was a happy girl.
Right after breakfast we packed up and were on the road before 10am. We got home at 11:30 and I got the RUDE note that there was no internet. BOO! How dare DH mess with my computer. LOL!
Oh well. Now I have internet and a new computer. Now I just need to find a driver for my printer that will run on my Vista operating system.
I'm gonna follow the good old journalism techinque of using the famous W questions.
Who (all went)?: My real life buddy Jen and her entire Hoard, Darly, Lilly & myself.
What?: We went camping. Jen's gang in a pop-up and my gang in a tent.
Where?: Columbine Campground, just a bit up the road from Central City (apparently kinda North West, but I can't be sure). I'm not sure what you'll see when you click on that link...but look for the two loops. that's the campground...we were in the loop that is more to your left.
When?: Aug 24th threw the 27th. We were home by 11:30...that's when I learned that we had no more internet. :(
Why?: cuz I like to camp!
Here's what happened:
On Friday the 24th I loaded up the Explorer with all our camping gear and we headed up toward the mountains. For us it is about an hour & half or so. The new Central City parkway takes a lot of the time off...but you still have to drive through Central City to get there...'cuz they made the road to go to the town on purpose so folks would come there to gamble and leave all their money behind.
So Darly & I arrive there about 3:30 or so. I don't remember exactally. It was nice and quiet because most folks weren't planning on getting there until Saturday. Our campsite (and all of the sites there) was really intended to be for a RV. So figuring out where to put our tent at first took a bit of looking around. Right behind the "driveway" of sorts was a clear area, but it was on a sloap and it had a lot of tree roots in it. And even though we have "cots" I didn't want to try to set up there. Luckily behind the picnic table there was a relatively flat area without too many bumps.
So we got to work removing all the rocks, sticks and mushrooms! Let me say right now that grabbing a mushroom when you aren't expecting one is a very creapy feeling! There were partially buried mushrooms all over this place. And no, I don't know what kinds there were. Although, I did learn that the red ones with white spots were poisonous. Luckily I don't think any of us wanted to try to figure out which of the other ones were edible.
I grabbed our whisk broom and began sweeping our tent area to be sure we got all the little pokey things out of the way. I really don't want to poke a hole in my newish tent. We got that all done and set up the tent. I did a good job at making sure we had room for our screened room out the front without running into the picnic table and keep us on fairly level ground.
Next came the fun of setting up our beds. I let Darly work on that while I worked on getting our "kitchen" set up. I assumed that Darly would be setting up my bed as well...she did not. So I had to go blow up my air mattress (with the pump) and get my cot all set.
After that we began getting our fire started and working on dinner. I think that Jen arrived around that time. She wasn't very happy that her campsite was not a pull through like the website said. She discussed this with the camp host. The camp host said that this description stuff is written by folks in New York who have never even been here. Jen says that is why you should contact them and let them know what the site really has. I was expecting a pull through. Camp host says that no campgrounds have pull throughs. Luckily Jen had her hubby along who could help her get her popup in the parking spot. But unfortunately they were unable to use the awning because it would have hit the tree next to it.
Darly & I had Ham, mashed potatoes & peas for dinner. I learned that night that for the next two nights I wanted to have dinner finished earlier so I wasn't washing dishes in the dark. But we had a nice evening and went to bed around 9ish.
Silly me, I did not set up the camp potty that I had brought because on first inspection of the campground facilities they were not all that bad for a vault toilet. There were a lot of flies in there, but they stayed mostly at the top of the latrine and didn't bother us. Well for some odd reason I needed to go to the latrine about 4 or 5 times that night...I'm guessing that altitude squeezes the bladder or something. So I had to get up in the cold and take Lilly with me because she would wake up Darly if I left her behind. This is not fun once, after the 4th time I was Seriously NOT happy. Oh and it was cold in the sleeping bag too. I had one fleece blanket inside the bag with me and an old quilt on top of my bag...still cold!
I think I woke up about 6:30 for good and started my camp stove to make my coffee and some hot water for oatmeal. After I had my breakfast I woke up Darly so she could have a hot meal too. She was freezing and after eating she went back into her sleeping bag.
We spent Saturday exploring our campsites, chatting with Jen's hoard and going to the Cemetaries down the road from the campground to go check them out. Lilly did very well with the cemetaries...I didn't know that she could climb over stiles that well. I wonder if it hurt her feet any as they were the open grid stairs. She didn't complain at all.
Saturday night we had Chicken cooked in barbque sauce, rice and peas. I also made "apple cobbler" for dessert. The cobbler never got cripsy, but it tasted good. I shared our leftovers with Jen & the hoard. They seemed to like it too.
Saturday night I had the camp toilet in the tent. That made the night go much better, but one of the new camp families that had arrived also had a bunch of kids and the baby cried about an hour from about 10pm or so. To me it seemed as if the baby was cold...but I could be wrong. I know that we were cold. I had brought those Therma Care packs and Darly & I each had one in bed with us.
Sunday morning I let Darly sleep in...figuring that she would be warmer in her sleeping bag and that went well. I had my coffee and read some Harry Potter (again!).
After Breakfast Jen drives up to let me know that they are heading into town for more supplies...do I need anything? I ask her for more Therma Care packets. And thank goodness the store actually had them! Oh I was doing such a happy dance. I'll never go camping without them again!
It was sometime after lunch that Darly's bestest buddy and her family came up for a visit. Darly was beside herself with excitement. You would hardly know that BB & Darly had just seen each other on Friday morning. Those girls are so silly. So the girls played in our tent and the guys (BB's dad, brother, Jen's son & Mr Jen) went for a hike, while us "women folk" sat around the camp fire "swappin womanly stories" (sorry I coudn't resist...we watched Shrek here last night.)
All too soon it was time for BB's family to head back to town. The girls pealed themselves away from eachother and said their goodbyes, without any tears. And as soon as they pulled away, Darly says that she misses BB. *eyeroll!*
Sunday night dinner was hotdogs cut up in Mac & Cheese with corn. Smores for dessert. Sometime after dessert while we are watching the fire it starts to thunder and sprinkle. So I start scrambling to get everything that shouldn't get wet put away and things that might blow away tied down. We had left the lantern in the tent so I was using just my flashlight and at one point I ran into the picnic table's bench because I didn't see it. OUCH! We got everything put away and went into the tent. Darly was upset because we hadn't put out the fire. I figured the rain would take care of it...but we watched from our tent the fire still glowing. It didn't rain much.
Darly & I weren't that tired so we sat on the tent floor next to the lantern reading our books. I went to bed before Darly...that was odd. At some point after I dozed off I woke to the baby next tent site screaming. It was screaming as if it were in pain. My tent doesn't have any window flaps on that side so I couldn't tell if the parents were doing anything for the child or not. I could hear other noises from over there, but it didn't seem that they were doing anything for the child.
I later told Jen that I couldn't tell if the child was screaming because it was in pain (like the ear infections that seemed to be going around) or if the parents were trying to ferberize the kid and it wasn't going very well. I think the kid quit screaming at about 2 hours or I fell asleep at that point. Who knows?
Sunday I had decided to put our extra blankets inside our sleeping bags and oh how much better we slept. I was nice and toasty...especially since I had my Therma Care too. Ah! Oh did I mention that instead of having my Therma care on my tummy that I had it on my butt? That was the coldest part of me, so that's where I put it.
Monday morning we had all had enough of camping. Since a lot of my stuff had been put in the Explorer the night before for the rain I was able to get the rest of the stuff outside the tent packed away quickly...well except for what we needed for breakfast. Again I let Darly sleep in and she was a happy girl.
Right after breakfast we packed up and were on the road before 10am. We got home at 11:30 and I got the RUDE note that there was no internet. BOO! How dare DH mess with my computer. LOL!
Oh well. Now I have internet and a new computer. Now I just need to find a driver for my printer that will run on my Vista operating system.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
The $50,000 Question Meme
Wouldn’t I just love to have this happen!
A philanthropist awards you $50,000 with the stipulation that you may use half of it for yourself and the other half you must use for the benefit of others. By “benefit of others” it can mean anything really, buying a gift for a family member or donating to a charity.
Thanks to An Island Life, I get to dream big for just a little while.
First I wanna whine because the stipulation is that only $25,000 can be spent on me and then $25,000 has to be spent for someone else. but then there are these questions that really mix it all up. Let's see how I do.
1)How do you spend the money on yourself? see #2
2)How do you use the money for others? Please be detailed, so if you say “give X dollars to charity, let us know what charity and why you select that one. My mom really wants to move here to be near my brother & me. So I would spend the entire $50,000 on helping her get a house and move here.
3)If you were to spend part of your money to have a performer do a show for you, who would it be and why? well I don't think that $25,000 will cover the cost of having a performer do a show for me. but perhaps if I asked The Newsboys nicely, they might come do a benefit concert here and we could donate all the procedes to their favorite charity. (choosing their charity would make them more likely to come preform.)
4)If you were to use it on a new vehicle for yourself, what kind? To get anything decent it's gonna take the entire $25K and then some...but I would love a new Explorer.
5)If you spent part of it to go to a “fantasy” camp, what type would you choose? I'm not sure I understand the concept of a fantasy camp. but I would be happy with a trip up to the YMCA camp at Estes Park. They've got tons of fun stuff to do up there...course if they had a spa too that would be great. So there's the fantasy of it, take the place that already exhists and add to it. ha ha!
6)If you were to use it to buy season tickets for a sports team, what team would it be? I’m not all that into sports. I personally prefer watching high school & college sports, but if I had to choose a local team I would probably go for the Rockies. We had a blast at their game...course it helps that they WON! when we went to see them.
7)If you were to use it to go on a cruise (assuming you like cruises) where would you cruise to? Humm...at first I thought this would be easy cuz the first answer that popped into my head was a Disney Cruise, then I remembered that I wanted to do an Alaskan cruise and then I remembered that I would like to do a Hawaiian cruise. decisions, decisions!
8)If you were to use it to go to NYC to see a show (or shows) what would you see? Gosh, I'm not sure. I've never wanted to go to NYC...ever. That just doesn't appeal to me (not a big city gal!) But to see a show, hummm I would have to do some research on what shows there were. Now to go see a show here, I wanna see The Blue Man Group! but since DH has already seen them in Vegas he doesn't wanna go again. whah!
Now it’s back to reality. *sigh*
A philanthropist awards you $50,000 with the stipulation that you may use half of it for yourself and the other half you must use for the benefit of others. By “benefit of others” it can mean anything really, buying a gift for a family member or donating to a charity.
Thanks to An Island Life, I get to dream big for just a little while.
First I wanna whine because the stipulation is that only $25,000 can be spent on me and then $25,000 has to be spent for someone else. but then there are these questions that really mix it all up. Let's see how I do.
1)How do you spend the money on yourself? see #2
2)How do you use the money for others? Please be detailed, so if you say “give X dollars to charity, let us know what charity and why you select that one. My mom really wants to move here to be near my brother & me. So I would spend the entire $50,000 on helping her get a house and move here.
3)If you were to spend part of your money to have a performer do a show for you, who would it be and why? well I don't think that $25,000 will cover the cost of having a performer do a show for me. but perhaps if I asked The Newsboys nicely, they might come do a benefit concert here and we could donate all the procedes to their favorite charity. (choosing their charity would make them more likely to come preform.)
4)If you were to use it on a new vehicle for yourself, what kind? To get anything decent it's gonna take the entire $25K and then some...but I would love a new Explorer.
5)If you spent part of it to go to a “fantasy” camp, what type would you choose? I'm not sure I understand the concept of a fantasy camp. but I would be happy with a trip up to the YMCA camp at Estes Park. They've got tons of fun stuff to do up there...course if they had a spa too that would be great. So there's the fantasy of it, take the place that already exhists and add to it. ha ha!
6)If you were to use it to buy season tickets for a sports team, what team would it be? I’m not all that into sports. I personally prefer watching high school & college sports, but if I had to choose a local team I would probably go for the Rockies. We had a blast at their game...course it helps that they WON! when we went to see them.
7)If you were to use it to go on a cruise (assuming you like cruises) where would you cruise to? Humm...at first I thought this would be easy cuz the first answer that popped into my head was a Disney Cruise, then I remembered that I wanted to do an Alaskan cruise and then I remembered that I would like to do a Hawaiian cruise. decisions, decisions!
8)If you were to use it to go to NYC to see a show (or shows) what would you see? Gosh, I'm not sure. I've never wanted to go to NYC...ever. That just doesn't appeal to me (not a big city gal!) But to see a show, hummm I would have to do some research on what shows there were. Now to go see a show here, I wanna see The Blue Man Group! but since DH has already seen them in Vegas he doesn't wanna go again. whah!
Now it’s back to reality. *sigh*
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