Life

Photographic Memories

2008-09-19T15:56:00.007-05:00

Wow! Looking at all of the pictures on the computer I realized there were a lot of missed opportunities for me to share over the past few months. Here they are, in few words:

Her hair was just long enough for these cute braids; then she got it cut!

A pic from the zoo trip in July...there was a water fountain behind us and we were getting sprinkled as we waited...and waited...and waited for Cait to get a good picture!

Cat-In-The-Box

A little bit of Cait's comedic side...

A couple of softball pics...Cait as catcher and cheering on her team from behind the fence.

Peggy's wedding...5/31/08

Lori, Vicki, Sarah, Lisa...Mudder's Day Ride May 2008

Me & Brandy

And I'll leave you with this beautiful butterfly...a lovely picture taken by yours truly. :-)

Other Happenings

2008-09-18T16:01:00.003-05:00

The below posts were the "big" events of the summer of 2008. Cait spent most of the summer at home and at tennis and summer band. She also enjoyed a lot of time with her friends at the pool or the mall. She "worked" most of the last 2 weeks of summer babysitting for our good friends. They have 3 kids, but Cait only had the two older ones, ages 5 and 6. She also played softball into the summer. Her team did well and ended up in 3rd place in the division, but lost in the 1st game of the season ending tournament. Our road was (and still is) under construction for weeks and weeks. Seems like years and years. What a pain! We're getting close though...maybe a couple more weeks? And now it's fall. Cait's pretty much back into the swing of things with school and activities and friends. She's playing volleyball as her 1st quarter sport. She seems to enjoy it--their first match is on Monday afternoon so that will be exciting. Dad and Sandy were home for the past 2 weeks. We had a short visit with them last weekend and they stopped by yesterday on their way back "home" to Louisiana. They had some minor storm damage from Gustav (while they were in WI), but were spared when Ike rolled through. That pretty much sums it up! I have some miscellaneous pictures to post, but have to run now to pick Cait up from practice.

Two Years Gone By

2008-09-18T15:50:00.006-05:00

Jason and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary on Aug. 19th. We spent the weekend prior to in Minneapolis (Sat.-Sun.) We got a super good deal on a really nice downtown hotel and we had MN Twins tickets that one of my friends gave to us. She got them from her employer and they were great seats! We also did a little downtown shopping, which was fun. We strolled along Nicolett Mall and Hennepin Avenue. I'd never been downtown Mpls. for any amount of time. In the past it was just to drive through to get from point A to point B. We're going to try to make the little trip an anniversary tradition. We really enjoyed the time together, just hanging out and going with the flow.

Our Family "Vacation"

2008-09-16T13:02:00.007-05:00

The last weekend in July the three of us took a little trip to the Minneapolis area. We left Saturday morning and came home late Monday night. Saturday we checked into our hotel in Burnsville, MN and then went to Jason's sister's 40th birthday party about 30 min. away. After that we went back to our hotel (but only after stopping at White Castle so Jason could get his fix of "sliders"--PUKE!). Sunday morning we went to breakfast at IHOP and then to the MN Zoo. I really like zoos, except it was super hot and super muggy, and rainy at times. Most of the animals were feeling it too as they lazed around doing nothing. So, unfortunately, there wasn't much to see in the way of big animals. They do have a "tropical" area, so we got to see a lot of birds and other creatures. The butterfly garden was all of our favorite. We got some great pictures! After the zoo we went to dinner then back to the hotel. Oh, I think we might have gone to Best Buy that night too. And to a grocery store to get goods for Monday morning's breakfast. Monday we checked out of the hotel and had some time to waste until the MN Twins game that evening. We found a shopping mall so Cait and I did a little shopping (we had our first experience with Steve & Barry's--we liked it!) and Jason went to see The Dark Knight by himself. :o) Then we hung out at a local park before making our way to the Dome for the game. We met Jason's sister's family there at the game and afterwards headed home. It was a fun time--it's nice to get away once in a while and spend some quality time together.

Here's one of the pretty butterflies (and flower!)

And the three of us at the zoo. The sea otters are my favorite!Here's me & Cait on the monorail and the Komodo dragon--he's cool!

And some pics from the Twins game. If I remember correctly, they did win! YAY! Jason with his nephew and sister, Cait being silly, and a shot of the field from our seats...

Stay tuned...I'll return another day with more summertime updates. Back to you, Bob!

Cait's Birthday Party

2008-09-16T12:54:00.006-05:00

Sometime at the end of July we had a birthday party for Cait at The Plaza hotel here in town. I think in total there were 12 or 13 girls there. At first I doubted my decision to have all those girls. I envisioned them running all over the hotel and complaining of being bored, etc., but it turned out really well. Everyone was very well behaved and they had a lot of fun. That was probably the last "big" party that she'll have...at least until she's 16. :-) Here's a picture of Cait with her best frend Lydia.

Yaaaaawwwwwnnnnnn....

2008-09-15T05:15:00.003-05:00

Good morning! Today is day 1 of my week long vacation. I'm up WAY too early, too. :-) I was pretty restless last night. Guess I'm just a little excited to have the whole week to do whatever I choose. I made my to do list last night and unfortunately this won't really be a "vacation" at all. It's okay though--I'm not at work! Thursday starts off with "Update Blog", so I'll be back to get ya'll caught up on what we've been up to all summer. I've been lagging in the area of blogging since my July 24 post...

Oh No I Didn't!

2008-07-24T18:42:00.003-05:00

One of my biggest pet peeves is the improper use of a possessive 's'. As I scanned my previous post that sucker jumped out at me like a frog off a log. How embarassing. Karen, did you see that? I had "Kwik Trip's", and I was NOT talking about anything that Kwik Trip owns! :o) Ay yi yi.

So Long, Weekend!

2008-07-13T19:40:00.004-05:00

Another weekend come and gone. How sad. On Saturday a.m. I did a little shopping with Sarah and her mom. After that I came home and Jase and I went out to get ourselves set up for the evening. We went to Blockbuster to rent a video game. We thought it'd be fun to actually play a game together. Well, we picked what we thought was a 2-player game, but got home and found that it was only 2-player if you have Xbox Live, which we don't. That was a bummer. I let him play, since I never really know what I'm doing. I just push buttons and see what happens. There's no rhyme or reason for me, I just do whatever. While we were out, though, we picked up a Little Caesar's pizza and crazy bread. L.C. just opened last week. Then we stopped at Kwik Trip so Jase could get his fix of Ben & Jerry's...I got a Whatchamacalit. :-) The Kwik Trip that we went to was having a grand opening celebration (how many Kwik Trips does one city need anyways?) and we found out that Monday and Tuesday they'll have free coffee and cappuccino all day. Nice! I may swing in on my way to work tomorrow. So while Jason played the Xbox I did some odds and ends. Picked up a little, did some laundry, watched him play. I got tired, so I went to bed and watched House Hunters International. A family was looking for a vacation home in Costa Rica. I've come to realize through my HGTV viewing that homes in Central America aren't terribly expensive--not that I'll ever own one. It's very possible I'll never even go there, but I just thought I'd point that out in case anyone cares. This morning I got up pretty early and started my cleaning routine (the same one I was supposed to do last weekend). I did 5 or 6 or what felt like 30 loads of laundry. I finished my cleaning around 2 but continued to work on the laundry. Jase went to the store for me and we had brats on the grill for supper. After that I took a bath and now I'm just waiting until 8 when Miss Universe comes on. :-) Cait and I like to see the very beginning when they introduce all of the contestants and we try to pick which one will take the cake. Speaking of Cait, she spent Thurs.-Sun. at Jeremy's, so she wasn't around this weekend. It was nice to see her smiling face when she got home around 2. She's a little tired today. Yesterday they went boating/tubing, out to dinner, and bowling, so she was wiped. Should sleep good tonight--me too! Back to the grind tomorrow...

Sarah C.

2008-07-12T20:06:00.006-05:00

She was always "Sarah C." I'm not sure why, as I don't remember there being that many Sarahs around, but Sarah C. it was. :o)

She's now married so she's not Sarah C. anymore, she's Sarah W., married to Terry W., with a little boy Bennett W. and Baby W. on the way sometime late August.

Sarah has been one of my best friends since we were 12 years old. TWELVE. That's 17 almost 18 years. Crazy! She's just a peach. We went to elementary school together too, but we were never in the same class. That, for whatever reason, prevents kids from getting close. If you're not in my class you must not be cool. :o) Anyways, I remember very clearly the day we became friends. We were in 6th grade, and after lunch she handed me a note. I read the note. It went something like this: "Your dad is dating one of my mom's best friends." And some other stuff, of course. It was shortly after my dad met Sandy (my now step-mom), and Sandy worked with Sarah's mom, Kaye, at the Hayward Hospital. They were really good friends. And so, we started hanging out more and more. There were a couple of years, our 7th and 8th grade years, that we were pretty much inseparable. We've had many, many, many good times, some bad times, but every one of them memorable. I could go on and on, and it would take all night.

Sarah came down today to do some shopping, mostly for the baby who's going to make it's arrival soon. Her mom came along too. We went to Target, then to Texas Roadhouse for lunch (Kaye's treat--nice!), then to Mill End Textiles (believe me, I didn't purchase a single thing there!), and then they dropped me back off at home. It was so nice to see her. I wish we saw each other more often. Thankfully we're able to e-mail almost daily...while we're hard at work, of course.

That's all. Just a little shout out to Sarah! She used to read my blog, not sure if she does anymore or not, but it doesn't matter. I still love her just the same. :o)

(The picture is from May, during the annual "Mudder's" Day 4-wheeler ride. Nevermind the dirt on my face!)

Tired

2008-07-07T19:40:00.001-05:00

I'm tired. I didn't sleep well last night, at all. Yesterday was kind of a strange day for me emotionally. It was kind of bizarre. I woke up fine; not as early as I'd hoped, but around 8:00 or so. I planned on getting up early to "super clean". Super cleaning consists of pulling out couches and sweeping/mopping underneath, dusting everything, cleaning every room from top to bottom and all floors, washing rugs...you get the drift. I generally need to allow myself 3+ hours for that. We had a movie date planned with the Wiegels, so by time I got up and got going I knew I wouldn't have time to get my cleaning in, shower, and get to the theater in time for the 1:00 p.m. show. So, I did a little laundry and puttered around. We went to the movie (Hancock--it was okay) and then came home. After we got home I felt pretty down-in-the-dumps and just kind of sat around. I watched a little TV in the evening (HGTV) and talked to my dad. I called him to ask some advice about our bathroom ceiling, so nothing earth shattering. After we hung up I felt 100% better. I was chipper and felt fine. Kind of strange...maybe it was just talking to him, even if only about home improvements, that cheered me up. Around 10 or so I climbed into bed. Jason was already sleeping with ESPN on the tube. I watched the end of the Yankees/Red Sox game; it was kind of exciting although the outcome didn't really matter to me. Close games are always fun to watch. Then I tried to get to sleep. Couldn't sleep. Turned on my lamp and read a little bit. Thought I was tired so put the book down and closed my eyes. Couldn't sleep. By now I had an annoying anxious feeling, but I don't know why. I don't know what time I finally fell asleep; I know it was after midnight though. And then I woke up a couple of times, once around 3, and then again around 5 a.m. Then my alarm went off at 6:30 because I wanted to try to be to work by 8. I decided to sleep a little longer and go to work a little later, but once I was awake I lay thinking about all the things I needed to get done at work today so that ruined my efforts to get back to sleep. I got up and got ready for work (very hastily because I remembered in all of my thinking that someone was coming in right away this a.m. and I had to get some paperwork ready) and off to work I went. I felt pretty good all day, just a little tired. Not sure what the deal is.

This Goofball is 12!

2008-07-06T11:09:00.003-05:00

Cait turned 12 on 7/3. Hard to believe...almost a teenager! This picture was taken a few weeks ago at her ballclub's Fever Fest. The rally caps worked--they ended up coming from behind to win the game (but the girls looked pretty silly out there on the field with upside down visors).

Her birthday was a nice day. After her tennis lesson that a.m. I picked her up and took her back to the office with me for a little while. Then we went to lunch at Noodles & Company. She had mac & cheese and I had buttered noodles. What else are you supposed to get at Noodles & Company? After that we went to finish her birthday present shopping--I didn't have time to squeeze it in beforehand so we finished together. We went to Scheel's to get another pair of athletic shorts (red). Then we went to Borders to get a book or 2. I forget the name of the book that she found, but it's excerpts from several children's diaries during the Holocaust. For the last couple of years she's taken some interest in the subject, and she thought this book would be especially neat because the writings are of children ages 10-18. She has already read Anne Frank's diary and really enjoyed that. Anyways, after Borders we picked up her friend Lydia and they came back to the house for a little while until I was done with work. Then I took them to the pool until 8 and we came home and had tacos (at Cait's request) and DQ cake for dessert.

It was a good day. :o)

Happy Father's Day!

2008-06-15T14:02:00.003-05:00

I called my dad this a.m. to wish him a Happy Father's Day...I love him dearly and miss him a LOT! Sometimes I wish he didn't live so far away, but I know he's very happy in good ol' Louisiana. Hopefully soon we'll be able to go visit them!

And Father's Day wishes go out to all the other dads that I know--Jason, for one, who's been a great step-dad to Cait; my Gramps in Waupaca; my brother, who is an awesome dad to my niece and nephew; all of my uncles who at many times treated me like one of their own; and everyone else out there who has taken on the role of dad in one way or another.

An Anniversary

2008-06-08T15:23:00.005-05:00

A year ago this last Friday we closed on our house! Time flies...hard to believe it's been a year already. It's been a pretty good year overall--nothing major happening with the house. A few minor repairs (leaky toilet, backed-up sewer drain, brokedown dishwasher and furnace) and few renovations (paint, new carpet). My next project is the bathroom...stripping wallpaper and replacing it with paint. I've started and am about halfway done stripping. Just need to find the time to get back in there! This spring/summer I've also been testing out my green thumb. Our perennials from last year (hostas and lillies) came up beautifully even though they didn't get planted until late summer. I visited a flower farm and picked up a few more things to plant.

Some perennials that I hope will flower later this summer, and some annuals that I've planted and hope to keep alive through the summer. I'll experiment a little more each year, I'm sure. Anyways, we're happy with our little house and look forward a at least a couple more years here. :)

Ready, Set, GO!!

2008-05-02T20:32:00.003-05:00

I think our shoes will be moving a little faster than this! Here's what we've got cooking over the next few weeks...

May 3: Wedding in Tilden/Bloomer
May 4: Flower/shower shopping
May 6: Cait softball game
May 9: Cait softball game
May 10: "Mudder's" Day ride
May 11: Mother's Day
May 12: Cait softball game
May 13: Cait softball game
May 17: Work concession stand/bridal shower/bachelorette party
May 20: Cait softball game
May 22: Cait softball game
May 23-26: Memorial Day weekend/Thrift Sale
May 30: Peggy's rehearsal/dinner
May 31: Peggy's wedding

And THAT is just the month of May! In June there will be more softball, a short trip to Milwaukee/Chicago (Twins v. Brewers in Milwaukee and Six Flags in Gurnee) and the Stine family reunion in Waupaca. I don't remember being this busy...ever. :o) Somewhere I'll also find the time to do the day-to-day stuff...cleaning, laundry, yardwork, etc., etc.

I guess I better get some rest tonight! Have a fantastic weekend...

Ack!

2008-04-19T15:09:00.003-05:00

I thought we were having a lovely weekend. Cait had a couple of girls over Friday night who went home Saturday morning. We were out in the yard picking up sticks and planning some projects. The sun disappeared behind clouds and it got a little chilly so we cleaned up and came inside. I threw in some laundry and just kind of pattered around. Came down to switch the clothes and OH SHOOT!!!!!!!! The floor drain backed up in the basement. :o( The same thing happened the day after we moved in...oh great! It was Reddi-Rooter to the rescue that time. This time I called Roto-Rooter. I heard he doesn't cost as much. What a bummer. $165.00 later I found myself scrubbing the basement floor with bleach water. By time I was done I had a monster headache so I took a bath and called off making dinner. I made myself a PB&J, Cait had waffles, and Jason had some ground beef mixture. I watched "Dan in Real Life", pretty cute movie, then went to bed. Today I'm working on the aftermath of the drain explosion...putting things back in the laundry room, finishing the laundry I meant to do yesterday. I've also got cleaning the litter box on the slate today. Sounds like a fine day, doesn't it?

April Showers...

2008-04-12T18:48:00.002-05:00

Bring snow. ICK. We didn't get the worst of it, but as far as I'm concerned any snow in mid-April is too much!

Yesterday I had the day off from work and my friend Donna and I went shopping in Maplewood, MN. Funny thing is, all of our purchases were made at stores we could have went to here in Eau Claire (Kohl's, JC Penney, Old Navy). Oh well. It was still a fun trip...nice to get out of town and roam a foreign mall.

Today I've just been putzing around the house. Went through a few closets and came up with a couple of bags of goodies for Goodwill. I (along with 15 million other people) went to Wal-Mart and did a little grocery shopping. As much as I don't mind it when Cait or Jason go with me, I enjoy going grocery shopping by myself. That way I can just buzz around and get what I need and not have to discuss or make sure that the husband or child are in tow.

Cait is at a birthday party/sleepover this evening until tomorrow morning. I think Jason and I are going to watch a movie..."Gone Baby Gone". Jason rented it a while back and we haven't gotten around to watching it. We better get to it before we end up owning it! :o)

Tomorrow I'll pick Cait up at 10:30 a.m. then we'll head to church from there. After that it will be home to clean the rest of the house. YAY!

Ta ta for now!

Good golly.

2008-04-03T17:34:00.005-05:00

Life's been good. Nothing terribly exciting to report, but we've been pretty busy.

Cait's softball has started, so we're getting back into the swing of it. (Ha!)

I think spring is finally here! One little teaser on Monday/Tuesday with a "snowstorm", snowday (no school) on Tuesday. We got about 3 inches of snow in total (why school was cancelled I'm not quite sure). Today though we reached 50...the weatherman says it hasn't been 50 degrees since November 13. Heat wave! Speaking of waves...

Last weekend Cait and I went to the Kalahari in Wisconsin Dells for a little getaway. It was tons of fun, but tiring! In total we had 27 people (11 moms and 16 kids). The Kalahari was a BLAST. Highly recommended to those looking for a nice place for a mini-vacation. Here's a picture of the group:

I've been working a lot-- 'tis the season! Job security, I guess.

I have some miscellaneous pictures to post, but I'm at work so I don't have my camera with me.

Better run...off to cook dinner and relax. Maybe we'll take a walk this lovely evening. :o)

I am Thankful

2008-03-15T09:10:00.003-05:00

Yesterday afternoon I had a closing with a couple that didn't really have anything good to say. I don't know their story--their background or life situation, but I do know:

I am thankful that we have 2 cars to get to work and wherever else we need to go, even though gas prices are astronomical.

I am thankful that we live in a city with 2 beautiful rivers running through it, tree-lined streets, good schools, and (somewhat) clean air, even though Beijing, China is extremely polluted.

I am thankful that we have a garage for storage, even though the roof is flat and it leaks.

I am thankful that my family is healthy, even though we catch the common cold or even that nasty flu bug once in a while, even though we might actually have to pay someone to treat our ailments.

Lastly, I am thankful for the "Smiths" who complained about all of these things (and a whole lot more) for the duration of their closing because when I woke up this morning I lay in bed thinking about all of the things I'm thankful for.

Oh, and I'm thankful for my cat that woke me up this morning and that I could throw her out of the room and close the door so she quit bothering me so that I could lay in bed peacefully and think.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words!

2008-02-26T19:29:00.003-06:00

Yep. In 4 short weeks this will be me. Ha! I wish. A while back one of the gals at work asked the rest of us if we wanted to take a belly dancing class. My first response was NO WAY! No way no way no WAY. Then, the more I thought about it the more I thought it would be fun; especially knowing that I would know most everyone there. You see, Mel called to sign up for a class and the instructor told her it was full but if she could find more students the woman would run another class. And so it was. I think in all there are about 12 people, and more than half of them are ladies I work with or friends of ladies I work with. It is actually quite fun... I never thought I'd do something like this. Now line dancing-maybe-belly dancing-never! I really enjoy it though. It's nice to get out with the girls and have some fun every now and then. I am not the least coordinated woman on earth, either. Go figure! :o)

Catdog...

2008-02-17T09:36:00.003-06:00

Remember this cartoon? I think it was on Nickelodeon. Anyways, this is what we have on our hands. We had a dog, for a short time, but he didn't work out so we had to get rid of him. Toby demanded way too much attention, and he had psychological problems. So, a few months later we got our cat. We LOVE her...she is so much fun! She's so funny because she really has dog traits. When we get home and she hears rustling at the door she runs to the door and waits for us to come in. She is much more loyal than cats usually are. Her other prominent dog trait is that she wakes up early in the a.m. and doesn't STOP until she is fed. She jumps around on the bed, nudges at our (my) hands and face and meows until I get up and feed her. After that she's fine. So much for our easy-to-care-for kitty! Oh well, I think we'll keep her. :o)

Go (light) Blue!

2008-02-16T18:54:00.004-06:00

Today was the last game of the regular season for the Liberty. All in all the season was pretty good. We finish with a record of 7-3. Today we played the undefeated team, and lost. Obviously. We lost to them twice and another team once. Not bad if I do say so myself! We ended up tied for 2nd place in the league and we're not sure yet how the seeding will be for next weekend's tournament, but regardless it will be a good ending to a great season. In all honestly, as much as I enjoy watching Cait play and Jason coach, I'll be glad when it's over. We've had either practice or a game 3 times a week (with only a few exceptions for holidays, etc.) since the middle of November. On to softball we go!!

2008 Polar Plunge

2008-02-10T18:12:00.000-06:00

Shortly before Christmas Cait brought home some information regarding the Polar Plunge--its a fundraiser for WI Special Olympics. She thought it sounded fun...so she went for it. She raised a few dollars in pledges as part of a team from Northstar Middle School. I think group together raised $4200.00. Well today was the big day. Last Sunday when I checked the 10-day forecast, it said it was going to be 40 degrees. Not too shabby. Piece of cake! I am 100% sure it said FORTY above zero. I don't think the temperature made it above zero at all, and the windchills had to be nearing the 40 below mark. When we got up this morning we were unsure of how this was all going to pan out. It turned out okay--being that the hole they cut in the ice last night was already frozen over this morning. No jumping allowed! It was kind of a bummer, but more of a relief to the moms and dads in the crowd! A few of the girls peeled off the layers and wore their original "costumes" out to the hole...most left their snowpants/jackets/hats/gloves/scarves on. As a spectator I was freezing. I don't know when or if I've ever been that cold! Good thing the sun was out. Cait is looking forward to next year...hopefully will be a little warmer and they can actually PLUNGE!

The hole:

Running to the hole to dip (Cait in the middle with the red headband-pink shirt/black shorts):
Warming up after running around in shorts and t-shirt in below zero temps:

Super Sunday!

2008-02-04T12:11:00.000-06:00

Well yesterday was the big game. From what the sports reporters tell me it was a pretty big deal. We did watch the game...we popped in a few "appetizers" before the game...barbecue wings and potato skins, then at halftime we had a Tombstone pizza. We sure went all out! :o) I was hooting and hollering for the Giants like they were my favorite team. I think, with the exception of the NFC championship game against the Packers, last night was the only time that I watched a Giants' game. It certainly was a good game, and I was glad to see the underdogs win.

With regards to the commercials...I wasn't thrilled. I thought the Budweiser commercials with the wine and cheese gimics were stupid. I did like the Bridgestone commercial with all the little animals screaming, but my favorite was the Tide commercial with the talking stain. Other than those few nothing really stuck out. I keep seeing/hearing about the FedEx commercial, but I must have been switching the laundry during that one.

Until next season...

A Day in the Life

2008-01-30T19:27:00.000-06:00

When I was trying to think of a clever title for this post I thought "A Life in the Day". Whoops! Tells you where my mind is...NOWHERE! Because I've lost it. :o) Rewind 36 hrs...

Yesterday a.m. we woke up to a pretty normal morning. The temp. was 4 below (down from 37 above @ midnight, if that tells you anything). Cait came into our room at about 7:15 a.m. and said "Olivia sent me a text...she said 'Good morning! No school!'" What? No school? Why in the world not? Well I turned on the t.v. and saw the blob headed our way, and by golly they got it right! By about 11:00 a.m. it was snowing, blowing, whatever else. They tell me it rained the night before...somewhere during the 37 degree midnight hour, I'd imagine. SO, we had ice, then snow. And wind. It was a lovely day. Jason stayed home from work...I'm glad he didnt' chance the 55 mi. one way drive considering the road conditions. I left work at 5:30 and picked up McDonald's on the way home for dinner. Bleck. We watched a little American Idol. Shortly after that Cait was off to bed...she's had a nasty cold for a couple of days. I wasn't too far behind her.

This morning I woke up around 5:00 a.m. to my dear husband banging around in the kitchen. :o) I stayed in bed...it was, after all, only 5! He came back to bed...and then I heard a motor boat (snoring). I couldn't wake him...I knew he had a pretty restless night so I let him be, thinking maybe, just maybe he'll stop soon and I'll be able to get back to sleep. Well maybe that didn't happen. I lay there until 6:00 and decided to get up then. I came down to feed the cat and hopped online just to make sure there was school today. There WASN'T. The list was HUGE. It seemed alright, with the exception of the -35 degree windchills. I suppose the country roads weren't cleared yet from our little blizzard yesterday. No school. Again. So Cait was home today. She did do a few things around the house "without being told" as she so stated in one of her million phone calls to me. She did the dishes, swept the kitchen, shoveled the steps (she was told to shovel the steps though). Jason was home today too...he always has Wednesdays off. He did the snowblowing--ours and our deceased neighbor's. After that I met him at Shopko to pick out some new frames. Then I went back to work. Until 6:30 p.m. It has been absolutely nuts at work with the recent interest rate reduction(s). Good for us, I guess. We're not quite ready for the spring thaw...ready or not, here they come! And now my brain is mush.

Have a splendid evening! Oh, and Jason did have dinner ready just as I walked in the door. Perfect timing...he didn't know when I was coming home. It was a relief to not have to worry about that.

Go Brass!

2008-01-24T16:02:00.000-06:00

Caitlin had her first official band concert on Tuesday evening. I must say I was quite impressed with the whole band! If my memory serves me correctly, my 6th grade band concerts were not anywhere near as exciting as this one was. They did a fantastic job! I counted the number of members on the program...there are ninety-two little musicians in the 6th grade band at Northstar Middle School. NINETY TWO. That's a lot of harmonizing to put together. Jason had to run his regular basketball practice so my friend Nikki went with me. We ended up sitting way in the back, so the pictures aren't as clear as I'd like them to be. Cait's on trombone...kind of in the middle in the pic above (the only female trombone player, I might add). This was their "section song", thus the reason all of the other kids have their backs turned.

I'm going to attempt to add a video here...in this song called "Trombo Mambo", the trombones were featured in front of the stage. Again, we were in the back and I used my digital camera to record this. It sounds pretty good...still think we need to invest in a video camera.

*Update...the video didn't work. I thought it was on track because it uploaded and then was "processing", but then I got an error message. I'll have to read some more and try again later. :(

Cold Snap!

2008-01-24T15:51:00.000-06:00

The weatherman says today should be the last day......I sure hope so! It has been frigidly cold for days on end...days, and days, and DAYS. I guess its only been about a week, but seems like much longer. A few days we didn't get above zero at all. This a.m. was the coldest, I think. When I turned the news on at 6:30 (to see if school was running late) the temp was -19. Negative nineteen. Nineteen below zero. I should be used to it by now; I've lived in northern WI my entire life. For whatever reason I just cannot accept it. :o) I've captured the cold in a couple of pics...

This HUGE mound of ice was made of just the little bitty drips of condensation. It takes a lot of little bitty drips to make this big ol' pile. I did end up breaking it off at the ground--concerned that it would block the exhaust and make our furnace automatically shut off or something. We sure don't want that!

This is a funny story...Cait had a swimming unit in P.E. the last couple of weeks. One day last week I picked her up after school so she could bring all of her wet, smelly gym clothes home from her gym locker. Well, we forgot that they were in the trunk (because they were smelly) and ended up leaving the bag in my trunk until this afternoon. When she brought it in and dropped it on the floor it was like a huge cement block. This frozen clothes cube is made up of 3 t-shirts, a pair of shorts, a bathing suit, a beach towel, several (at least 4) pairs of socks and a bottle each of shampoo and conditioner. We ran it under hot water in the utility sink and pulled things apart before throwing them in a hot water wash!!

Mmmmm...tasty!

2008-01-16T17:55:00.000-06:00

I made this chicken recipe last week and have been meaning to post it ever since. I am pretty close-minded when it comes to cooking...I usually follow the recipe, unless it calls for something along the lines of anchovies...then I figure out a substitute. Anyways, who would've thought to use taco seasoning for anything other than tacos?! Huh!

Salsa Chicken...

Ingredients:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
4 tsp. taco seasoning
1 C. salsa
1 C. shredded cheddar cheese
2 T. sour cream (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place chicken breast halves in a lightly greased 9 x 13 baking dish. Sprinkle taco seasoning on both sides of chicken breasts, and pour salsa over all.

Bake at 375 for 25 to 35 minutes, or until chicken is tender and juicy and its juices run clear.

Sprinkle chicken evenly with cheese, and continue baking for an additonal 3 to 5 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bubbly. Top with sour cream if desired, and serve.

I found this on allrecipes.com and we all loved it. I especially liked it because it was super easy! I used quite a bit of taco seasoning, a little less salsa and cheese, and we did use a dollop sour cream. We had corn and Spanish rice on the side...

Try it and let me know how you like it!

Happy, happy, happy...

2008-01-15T19:10:00.000-06:00

BIRTHDAY! Today's the day. The big 2-9. My boss told me today that this is the first of many 29th birthdays. :o) I don't feel older, I guess that's good. It was a pretty mello day...it started with the cat tipping over the flowers that Cait got me...at 5:00 a.m. That was not cool. Then I was off to work, where shortly after I arrived one of my co-workers whisked in with a cake. I love cake. Cake is my vice. It's bad. But I ate it anyways...it's my birthday! After that I went about my day, enjoying many "Happy Birthday!"s throughout the day. And guess what I found waiting for me when I got home? CAKE. Cake. My dear little Cait made me a cake after school today. She went to the grocery store to buy the mix, frosting and decorations. She even went to the neighbor's to "borrow" 3 eggs because we don't have any! (The neighbors are one of her friend's grandparents--no worries!) She also paid $2.00 for the eggs! HA! That was funny. Now Cait and Jas are at basketball practice and will be home shortly after 8:00 with my dinner...Wendy's. I know, try to contain yourselves. It was too much to try to get out for dinner tonight. Jason and I went out to eat on Friday after work (to TGIFriday's, mind you) to celebrate my birthday. All I knew was I wasn't cooking tonight! Wendy's has that salad, I forget exactly what its called...southwest-rancho-taco-something salad. It's YUMMAY. So, that'll be my dinner. 'Til next time...

Me and my cake:

My pretty flowers:

Basketball and Shopping...

2008-01-12T19:18:00.000-06:00

Today Jason and Cait had their weekly Saturday afternoon basketball game. They lost pretty bad, but it's okay. The team they were playing is undefeated thus far, and they have one player who is in a league of her own...definitely more suited for a traveling team...or the WNBA. :o) The girls took the loss pretty hard because they've been on a good winning streak. It's okay...back at it for next week!

After the game Cait and I hit the mall and Target. She had a few gift cards and a little cash from Christmas that she wanted to use. She got a nice Wisconsin Badgers long sleeve t-shirt at Sears and 2 new undershirts/tank tops. She also picked up some yummy smelly stuff from Bath and Body Works (including a nice little raspberry lotion for her mom to take to work). At Target she found a great deal on a pair of jeans--$10.48! She also bought a t-shirt at Target. My cousin Keith and his wife gave her a Blockbuster gift card, so on the way home we stopped so she could rent a movie...and get some Sour Patch Kids. :o)

I wasted my morning away so I'm off to try to get some cleaning done. I have to be at the office most of the day tomorrow...it's been a long time since I've been busy enough to have to work on the weekend.

Forgot to mention...

2008-01-07T20:42:00.000-06:00

The curtains are a little wrinkly...well, they have creases from being folded in the package. Hopefully the creases will fall out so I don't have to iron or something. That would be awful.

Curtains, finally!

2008-01-07T19:10:00.001-06:00

Jason's mom, Jan, gave me an e-Bay gift certificate for Christmas. I thought I would use it for a new purse, or possibly another pair of shoes, but after thinking long and hard I began my search for curtains-something I've been wanting since we moved in. And it wasn't easy. You see, we have this lovely (or not) wallpaper that is fruity, and purpley. I like fruit, and I like purple, but not on my dining room walls, although the paid color we chose for part of the dining room is called "grapey". Oh well...the wallpaper isn't quite hideous, and it will be replaced eventually, but for the meantime we have to manage with what we have, right? After mulling through many, many, many listings, I happened upon these. They were the right size and they looked to be a little darker than the paint, which is good, right? (I watch a lot of HGTV, I know these things.) The only thing I wasn't sure of is the type of fabric...it's almost a satin type of fabric. I didn't read the label, so I'm not exactly sure, but it feels like satin PJs, which immediately made me think they should be bedroom curtains. Well anyways, as soon as I got home after work I threw the curtains up on the rod...and they're not too bad! I actually really like them! What do you think? Oh, and I paid a grand total of $14.74 for them, which included shipping. A pretty good deal for 4 curtain panels...yay for me!

2008-01-07T19:04:00.000-06:00

Before: These are the curtains I was using. They're nice curtains--Cait's Grandma C. made them when Cait had a cherry theme in her room before we moved, but they don't really match. :o)

After: Here are my new curtains! I liked them alot better after I got them up. At first I thought they weren't going to work; but they're not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

Practice Makes Perfect!

2008-01-07T18:54:00.000-06:00

Here's a picture of Caitlin...she's rehearsing for a concert that she has to perform in front of 6 or 7 adults. Our friends, the Wiegels, have so generously offered their ears for this little performance. Cait had to choose 10 songs to play, and then the attendees of her homemade concert have to sign in and write comments at the end. It should be fun. She's doing a good job--just needs a tad more practice. :o)

On a Mission!

2008-01-06T17:03:00.000-06:00

I forgot to mention, that even through the holiday season, with the big fancy meals, Christmas parties and get-togethers, cookies and candies on the back counter at work, and the hustle and bustle leaving little time to think about what to make for dinner and what I should have for lunch...I managed to lose ONE whole pound. I missed 2 WW meetings in a row, and was not looking forward to facing the scale this last Friday, but I knew I had to bite the bullet and look it in the eye. And, WOO HOO! I lost a pound. Just one. But, the bottom line is that I didn't gain even an ounce. I was prepared, and had talked myself into believing that a small gain was okay. This little loss seems like the biggest ever, though only a pound. I'm happy with that, and ready to drop the pounds in a big way.

Issues.

2008-01-06T16:39:00.000-06:00

Does is seem like every time I post that that post is followed by a post like this? Well...I have issues with this program! I tried and tried and tried to get the spacing on my previous post *just right* and LOOK AT IT! And how many times have I said I need to study this Blogger to get the ins-n-outs in order? Lots. And I still haven't. Maybe that will be added to my New Year's resolutions, of which I have several...that way I can be happy after I hit "view blog in another window", and not frustrated.

Let me take you back...

2008-01-06T15:54:00.000-06:00

Phew! It's been a long time since I've posted. Here's what we've been up to:

December 11: Jason's cousin, Leah (25), passed away unexpectedly of a brain anyeurism. It was a very, very sad time for everyone who knew Leah. She's was a bright young lady, a wife, mother of 2 little guys, and a good friend to many, many people. Her funeral was on the 18th at the Hayward Wesleyan Church. What a showing of love and support! Anyone who knew Leah doesn't have anything but beautiful memories of her. She'll be missed!! Here's a picture of Leah and I from our wedding, and one of Leah and her two boys.

December 21: On Friday we headed south to the Chicago area to spend a weekend with Jason's family on his dad's side. We stayed with his Uncle Pat and and his wife Sandy. They were gracious enough to give up their home for the weekend to several who decided to bunk there. I'm not sure how many were around total. Some came and went; some stayed the whole weekend. It was nice being able to visit in such a casual environment without a real timeline. We stayed Friday and Saturday nights and headed home Sunday morning.

December 23: We left Lake Zurich, IL at about 9:00 a.m. The sun was shining, but it was windy. (Some may recall watching the Packers/Bears game. THAT was the day we were traveling.) Things seemed okay until just south of Madison...then it was really windy. No snow actually falling, but blowing like mad. It was okay though...we were doing good. We talked about getting off the interstate in Madison to see if it would pass, then hit the trail back home. We decided to push on. Until Wisconsin Dells. When you're going 10 mph on the interstate, there's a problem. There were cars, trucks, and semis in the ditches all over the place-left and right. A little less than 5 hr. trip from IL to home turned into 4 and we weren't even half way. We decided to get a hotel and spend the night and hit it early Monday (Christmas Eve) morning. that kind of threw a wrench in things, and I had a lot of tasks to complete that Sunday afternoon. Now pushed to Monday, I was not a happy camper!

December 24: We got home at about 9:30 a.m. We didn't even unload the car and I was off to work. I worked until noon then went to the mall, Wal-Mart, and TJ Maxx to finish my shopping. I came home and finished wrapping, unpacked, washed a couple of loads of laundry, packed again and we were off to Hayward! We spent Christmas Eve at Jason's mom's house. Christmas Day we lounged around in the a.m., then we went to Jason's brother's/grandma's for Christmas dinner.

December 25: 7:00 p.m. WE'RE HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know if I was ever so happy to be back home. Although I had a million and one things to do, I told myself I was going to unload the car and hop in the tub! And that's just what I did. I didn't unpack, I didn't put things away, I didn't do any laundry. NOTHING. And it felt good. :o)

December 26: Back to normal, somewhat. Jason and I were both back to work. And, for me anyways, it was quite welcome!

December 29/30: This past weekend I took our Christmas tree down. For whatever reason, I felt the need to clean up all of the Christmas decorations pretty early. I think I had just had enough of this year's festivities! Our tree was pretty, though. We went to a tree farm and tromped around in the snow, picked it out, cut it down, and drug (dragged? Karen, what is the proper word here?) it out of the woods oursevles.

We thought we were smart when we were loading the tree on top of the car. Cait was inside so she could feed the twine through...but, oops! The car doors were shut and she had rolled the windows down to string the twine through. We didn't realize until we got home that she was roped in the car! She couldn't open door until we snipped the twine. Here she's trying to chew her way out. Shoulda let her sit in there for a while...hee hee...just kidding!

December 31: Jason and I both worked all day on New Year's Eve. After work I threw some meatballs in the crockpot and boiled some eggs, then I took Cait to her friend's house for a sleepover. Jason got home and we finished the deviled eggs and headed over to Wiegel's for some snacks and visiting. We managed to make it until midnight, but barely! New Year's Day we just hung out at home. I took the day after off as well, just for fun. Cait was back to school on the 2nd, and Jason and I back to work on the 3rd.

January 6: Today! This weekend was pretty uneventful. Yesterday we did some housework in the a.m., then we had a basketball game at 4 (pictures at 3:00 though). Cait's/Jason's team won again! YAY! I think their record is now 4 and 1. Next week they play the toughest team in the league. The "yellow team" happened to be playing while our team was getting pictures taken, so Jason did some scouting...we're on to them! They better watch out! That would be a great victory...but given Cait's last 2 seasons of basketball, this season is already the better of the three, and it's not even halfway through. Today we planned on working in our "scary room" in the basement. There's some old, icky carpet in there, and some junk that the seller said "came with the house". We plan to get it all cleaned up and use it for storage. "Plan" is the key word...that means in the future-good for us since it's 4:30 p.m. and we haven't lifted a finger. :o)

Tidbits

2007-12-13T09:02:00.000-06:00

-12 days until Christmas. Wowie! Sunday we went to get our tree and we finished decorating it Monday night. I haven't really started shopping yet...ick. I do this every year-wait until the last minute then it's hard to enjoy because of all the crazies!

-Last night my friends, Nikki and Peggy, and I had what has become our annual holiday dinner at the Olive Garden. We even sat at the same table as last year... Peggy got me a $25 gift card to JC Penney, and Nikki gave me a pretty necklace and a Willow Tree angel. Nikki also got Cait a really pretty sweater and matching necklace. Such great friends I have...

-As of last Friday I was down 11.4 lbs. in 5 weeks...still keeping up my average of a little over 2 lbs./week. Yay for me!!

-Jason is coaching Cait's basketball team this season...and they WON last Saturday. Woo hoo! We're looking for win #2 this coming Saturday. What a treat that would be!

-It's really cold in our basement so I'm going to go back upstairs and warm up my fingers...

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

2007-12-02T13:05:00.000-06:00

Yesterday afternoon/evening we got our first "real" snowfall. I haven't seen any official totals, but I'd guess it's around 5-7 inches in parts. I absolutely love the first heavy snowfall of the year. My favorite time is after the snow has ended, and its late at night when everything glows. Last night it was about 10:30 and I looked out side and just stared...it was so pretty! The snow in the backyard was so smooth and untouched...even without any outdoor lights, I could see clearly.

The not so pretty part of all of this is having to clear the snow away from the stairs, sidewalks, and driveway. Luckily, Jason ran into the daughter-in-law of our neighbor who passed away in September and she is letting us use their snowblower as long as we take care of the snow removal at his house too over the winter. Works well for both of us. She doesn't have to worry about it, and we can use a snowblower instead of shovels. His drive/sidewalks aren't as big as ours (ours aren't huge either), so it won't be too much of a hassle.

Today I cleaned, and I'm getting ready to pack up all of the fall decorations and get out my snowmen! I'm not quite ready for Christmas stuff yet...I'll wait and do that when we get our tree. But my snowmen can come out, and they'll stay until spring.

Phew

2007-11-25T16:04:00.000-06:00

This last week+ has been a whirlwind! Jason's production of Aladdin started last week Thursday and lasted through Sunday 11/18--5 shows total. It was a superb show and Jas did a great job. Cait and I really enjoyed it! The same weekend, Jason's aunt, sister-in-law, and niece stayed with us Friday and Saturday. Monday was the first evening in a long time that Jason didn't have rehearsal. It will sure be nice to have him home most evenings. Tuesday afternoon Jason's friend Jonah came and stayed with us until Wednesday, and Wednesday afternoon my brother and his family arrived. Crit worked on my pantry/closet (I forgot to take before and after pictures...darn!) and got it pretty much done. We're going to add a couple of shelves to make good use of the space, but the important part is done...our heat can no longer escape up the old stairway. Yay! Thursday we all piled in (except for Jason) and went to Waupaca for the day. It was a nice day and great to see everyone! I think all totalled we had 41 for Thanksgiving dinner. Talk about a full house. It was a lot of fun, and the food was superb, as usual. :o) And, sticking to my Weight Watchers program, I didn't stuff myself until my pants burst. What a novel idea huh? I was pretty comfortable after dinner for once! The drive home was not so nice. Not bad--we were all just really tired and it seemed like a looooonnnnnng ride. We all crashed within minutes of getting back to our house. Friday Crit and Brandy went shopping for a bit and then left around noon. After they left I got a cleaning bug...I pulled out the couches and swept/mopped underneath. Moved the dining room table and chairs and scrubbed the floor. I did a lot of laundry too. It was so nice to have a few days off from work. Saturday seemed like Sunday, but, BONUS, it was only Saturday and I had another day off! Today I did more laundry and started loading up my new pantry and moving stuff into the kitchen from the basement that didn't fit before. I sorted and organized in the basement too...we're getting there! I have just a few things left to go through before we can move stuff out and start our major cleaning/painting job down here to make it a little more homey. Shortly I'll be off to get Cait, and then we'll have dinner and lounge around until bedtime, which I'm sure will come pretty early tonight.

Have a great Sunday night!

When I am Bored...

2007-11-09T18:43:00.001-06:00

I take self portraits! :o) AND, I figured out how to add the profile picture...YAY for me! On Tuesday, my day off, I styled my hair with a little flip. I knew I needed new pics to post here, something other than my wedding photo from over a year ago, so I whipped out my camera and started shooting! This is just one of the many pictures I took of myself. And no, I'm not that tan...I used the scene effects in the Kodak program. This one is called "forest". Not sure why...in the forest I think of shade, but maybe it's supposed to be the sun showing through the trees...ahhhh...sounds nice, doesn't it? Too bad I was actually in my dining room! Hee hee...

A Day Off

2007-11-06T19:41:00.001-06:00

I took the day off today. I felt I needed a little breather, and today was a good day for it. I have weekends off, but I still "work" around the house, etc. Sometimes we need a day just to be alone and, well, be alone. :o) I did accomplish quite a bit though, too. I did several loads of laundry, mostly blankets and comforters. I've been storing our extra blankets in our basement since we moved so I washed all of them today and will be putting them away in Cait's closet. She so graciously (or not) gave up the top shelf in her closet for our extra blankets. My bro is coming the day after Thanksgiving to build my "pantry", where I can then store the extras. I'll definitely have to do some before and after pics of that project. You'll be surprised! So I did laundry, organized a little bit in the basement (I have a long way to go), washed dishes, watched the Today Show, watched the news-twice. I found a new way to style my hair, ran to Wal-Mart and the mall, and took my cat to the vet. After that I met my girlfriend Lori and her two kids and her niece at Applebee's for dinner. Lori's little guy is just 3 weeks old. He's a peanut, that's for sure. He fit pretty good in my arms...hmmmm? ;o) I had Applebee's Confetti Chicken. Wasn't too impressed. I'm on this little plan called Weight Watchers (for the umpteenth time, but this time I AM GOING TO DO IT! I have alterior motives for this weight loss i.e. 3 sentences ago) so thought that would do me good. It was okay, but I'd have much preferred a nice salad or quesadillas or a burger or chicken strips. Now I'm off to the couch to watch Dancing With the Stars and The Biggest Loser. It's my Tuesday night thing. Jason and Cait are both gone every Tuesday evening, so that's what I do.

Ahhhhh...

2007-11-04T12:18:00.000-06:00

Sunday. My favorite day. Well,usually. Today's not so bad. I didn't sleep in, even though we had an "extra hour". I still don't understand why we throw our natural clocks out of whack for an extra hour. I think I blogged about this a while back, and Brandy gave me the reason for the bad deal. Apparently it has something to do with saving energy? I don't know. But I don't really like it, except that it's a little easier to get out of bed in the a.m. when it's light outside. But it's no fun coming home from work in the dark. Oh well. It's temporary, right? Let's see...what else? I'm in the midst of cleaning today. I've already dusted, swept, and mopped. I'm doing laundry inbetween and I just changed the cat's litter box and swept the basement. I'm waiting for Jason to get out of the shower so I can clean the bathroom, then I'll be pretty much done except for a few odds and ends. I might take advantage of the nice day and clean my car one last time before winter. I hope to spend a nice evening with the family. Starting tomorrow Jason has rehearsal every day (including weekends) until the show, which starts the 15th. So, two full weeks of little husband time. It's worth it though--he enjoys what he's doing and I really enjoy watching the shows. Cait has a friend over for the afternoon so I'm sure they'll keep busy doing girl stuff. :o) Other than that not a whole lot going on. After the first week Jason's job is going well. He really likes it, except for the 1 hour drive each way. I hope he can adjust to that soon so it's not so hard on him. Last Monday was my 7 year "anniversary" at my job. Wowsa. I haven't decided if that's good or bad. Good, because I'm gainfully employed, but bad because I don't want to be stuck in a rut there. I don't really have anywhere to move there anymore besides sideways (hopefully not down!). We'll see. I've been contemplating going back to school, but that is put on hold until Jason has some security at a job. A lot could change between now and when I could enroll in August...

Anyways, Happy Sunday! Enjoy your day.

Halloween Fun

2007-11-02T17:22:00.000-05:00

We had an every day Halloween...I came home from work and sent Cait off with a friend. Then I loaded up the candy bucket and waited! I was excited this year, thinking we'd have a few more trick-or-treaters than we have in the past, being that we moved. We did, we had all of 23 (including Cait + friend). It was fun though. Cait was her favorite football player-Brian Urlacher of the Chicago Bears. I think her Great Gramps and Great Uncles would be proud. Her friend was the enemy-Brett Favre. We carved our pumpkins on Monday night. I'm glad I took pictures of them that night, as Tuesday was very warm and they kind of wilted. Cait did three of them. My favorite is her "Starry Night". I tried to be fancy and carve the word "Boo" but it didn't turn out the greatest. We didn't use any patterns or anything and I think they turned out pretty well.

P.S. I still can't figure out how to post a picture, write a story, post another picture, write another story, etc., so all the pics are at the top and my story(ies) are at the bottom. I'll have to work on that...

Meet Mitnik

2007-10-27T20:19:00.000-05:00

Today was an exciting day! We adopted Mitnik from the Eau Claire County Humane Association. :o) We've been talking about getting another cat ever since Maggie Moo died, but wavered on whether or not we really wanted to. Originally we went to find a kitten...and we found one. I filled out an application online and called the next day to check the status and they said they didn't get it. So, I rushed over there and filled one out at the shelter and when I got there to fill it out Fozzy (the kitten) had already gone to his forever home. We went back today as a family to pick out another kitten, but this cute little Mitnik caught our eye. She's such a pretty girl-very unique markings. She's a "diluted calico" and she's just precious. We brought her home and she's spent her afternoon/evening checking out her new surroundings (which for the time being is the basement--don't worry, it's finished for the most part). She even has her own twin bed, so I'm sure she'll be fine down here. We decided to keep her down here for a couple of days until she's really familiar with where her food/water and litter box are. She has eaten and lapped up water, and she has pooped and peed in the litter box. (YAY!) She seems like a great little kitty. She's by no means a kitten--almost a year old, but she sure is sweet. And we're glad we chose her--it doesn't seem like any training will be needed. :o) This picture is from the shelter's website. She's a little bigger now, and a lot prettier! I'll post new pics soon. I just don't want to sabotage her with flashbulbs yet!

OH NO!

2007-10-24T21:21:00.000-05:00

So I'm at work today, and every now and then I check in on Cait's stuff...Edline has grades, the school website has announcements...MyLunchMoney.com shows me what she had for lunch the last few days...MyLunchMoney.com also shows me the balance in her lunch account. THE BALANCE IN HER LUNCH ACCOUNT IS $.15!! OH NO!! I looked at the clock quick, 11:20 a.m., maybe she hasn't eaten yet?!?! I quick flipped back to the school website to grab the number, then while I was calling I flipped back to MLM.com to transfer funds to her account. Come to find out the 6th graders already ate. So, I thought maybe the $.15 was AFTER she ate. Nope, because it was updated yesterday. The person I talked to said if she was short $ she would be able to go to the office to get a ticket for hot lunch, and then we'd pay the office back. Sounded good to me. The poor thing, when I got home from work I asked what she had for lunch (you know, nonchalantly, like any other day) and she looked at me and said "I didn't eat." OH NO! I felt horrible. She didn't know she had the option of going to the office to borrow lunch, so she didn't eat. Ugh. Today was one of those I-feel-like-a-bad-mom-but-I-know-I'm-not-and-it-was-an-honest-mistake days. (I just checked MLM.com, and my transfer has posted. She'll be able to eat tomorrow. :o(

Grrrrrr!

2007-10-22T18:52:00.000-05:00

Or maybe I should say BRRRRR.....! When we bought our house in June we asked for the seller to pay for a 1-year home warranty. He wasn't happy about it (as with a lot of things), but he did. I think it cost him around $400.00. Luckily we took that step--we'll be using it twice, at least. The home warranty covers a lot: appliances, hot water heater, furnace, roof, major mechanical/electrical, etc. It's really a good safety net, I think, for first time homeowners who really don't know what they're getting into. :o) Anyways, shortly after we moved in we discovered the dishwasher that was "included" doesn't work. I've been washing the dishes by hand (I know, boo hoo). I really don't mind it. Sometimes I find it relaxing, actually. Seriously. So we've kind of put that off. The first night it got really cold (around 30 degrees) was a while back, and we turned on the furnace. Then we didn't need it for a while. When we did need it again it only worked sometimes. When we would turn the thermostat, we could hear it fire up, but nothing was moving. Well now it doesn't fire up. And it's cold. The service people come tomorrow morning. Only problem is that with this home warranty program we're only supposed to pay a $100 deductible per claim. Okay, that's not a problem. The problem comes in when the home warranty company doesn't have an "approved" service company in our area for furances. Are you kidding me? Northern Wisconsin and they don't have a service company for furnaces. Their alternative is for us to find a service company (we called the guys on the label on the furnace), pay them out of our pocket, and get reimbursed "within 4 weeks". Great. What are you to do then? We have to get the furnace fixed--we just pray that it's reasonable. Funds are quite tight right now with Jason having been off work for a little over two months. Good news is he has a fantastic job that he will be starting on the 29th. Unfortunately that doesn't help us tomorrow when the furnace repair person will want a check on the spot. We really hope it's not anything major and won't put us in a big ol' bind. :o)

Victory!!

2007-10-18T18:26:00.000-05:00

WE GOT ONE!!! We finally captured one of those dirty little rodents that is plaguing our beautiful yard. We tried one type of trap, nothing. Bought a different kind...the trap went off a couple of times, but no dice. I saw this morning that it went off and didn't think much of it because I assumed it'd be the same thing: nothing. Welllllll...after work I went out and pulled it. Didn't see any evidence so I was a little disappointed. Then I took a gardening tool and kind of dug in a little and poked around and BINGO. There it was! (By this time we were all gathered 'round) Of course we couldn't just leave it--curiosity got the best of us so we dug the whole thing out. Ugly little bugger! We dug the hole a little deeper and left it to the earth, where it belongs. (And maybe as a warning for his mole friends!) We moved the trap to a 3 way intersection this time...looks like high traffic there so hopefully we'll get another one. YAY!

Weekend Review

2007-10-14T20:04:00.000-05:00

Cait didn't have school on Thursday or Friday this week because of the annual teacher's conference. I had planned on taking those days off, but since I was off the previous Friday for my grandma's funeral and we were fairly busy I decided to work anyways. Thursday Cait spent the day with a friend and they went to the Y to swim, etc. Thursday evening I ran her and 2 of her friends to a football game. While they were there I went dress shopping again with Peggy and Nikki. After we were done shopping we went to eat at Burrachos. It's like Subway for tacos. It was pretty good. Friday night Cait had a friend over and we just hung out at home. Saturday morning I ran a few errands and then worked in the garage. I was pretty happy with the results. As a matter of fact, BOTH of our cars are in it right now! After working in the garage I cleaned up and Cait and I made caramel apples. YUM! The apples are from a local orchard (we didn't pick them--one of the local grocery stores had them). They were a little pricey, but boy are they good apples. My new favorite-honey crisp. I used to love Granny Smith's, but they're just a little too tart for me nowadays. Here's a picture of Cait and our creation...

After that we ate dinner and watched a couple of cool shows. I don't remember if they were on Discovery or what, but one was about cockroaches and the other about jellyfish. Trust me. As icky as these creatures are, the programs were extremely interesting. This a.m. I got up a little late...after TEN. Yikes. Then I cleaned house and did laundry. Cait and I went to the mall for a bit to look around for shoes for her. After that we went to Wal-Mart, came home and had dinner, finished laundry, and washed the dinner dishes. Whew! That's about it...a pretty productive weekend, I'd say. :o) Oh, and my girlfriend Lori had her 2nd baby, a boy, on Saturday night. I believe he remains unnamed for the time being. She'll be going home tomorrow some time, I imagine he'll have a name before he leaves the hospital.

Freecycle

2007-10-13T10:46:00.001-05:00

Wow! I just had to write this one down. When we moved into our house in June, the man who lived here previously left a bunch of junk in the garage. He thought we might be able to use it. (Yeah right!) It was miscellaneous lumber and some gutter pieces. Basically junk, not enough for any one project. We always joke that "it came with the house". Appliances "come with the house", little pieces of boards and gutters do not. Anyways, we need to get our garage cleaned out so we can actually park our cars in it so I posted all of this stuff on Freecycle. Someone responded (I always work with the first person that replies), and I told them the stuff would be in our driveway by 10:00 a.m. today. I had to run an errand and by 10:26 when I got home they had EVERTHING loaded and were on their way. Bless their hearts! I figured they would come and pick through it and take what they wanted and leave the rest. Nope. They took it all. Yay for Freecycle!

Links

2007-10-10T18:55:00.001-05:00

I want to try to build my list of links, just because I know from experience that sometimes it's fun to wander from various blogs to various links. I was searching for a recipe online the other day and happened upon a gentleman's blog. I added it to my link list, but for some reason it's not showing up. I'm going to give it some time...maybe Blogger takes time to make those adjustments. Otherwise, I'm not sure what happened to it. But anyways, when I do finally get it in the right place you should check it out. This guy's blog has lots of neat ideas and recipes on the "healthier" side.

Oh, and last post for today. :)

100 Posts?!?!

2007-10-10T18:45:00.000-05:00

I just realized that a couple of posts ago was my 100th post. Wowie! That's pretty cool. I've been blogging a lot more recently so 200 will come in no time. Woo hoo!

Brrrrr!!

2007-10-10T18:35:00.000-05:00

The first day of fall has come and gone, true, but 47 degrees for the high? C'mon! It's crazy. We've had some pretty bizarre weather lately, that's for sure. Saturday was so stinkin' hot that at 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning we put our window a/c back in because it was too hot to sleep. Sunday all day I spent watching Cait play softball (she had 3 games, beginning at 10:30 a.m. and ending at 4:00 p.m.). I think it was near 90 on Sunday, and I was sweating bullets just sitting there. It was so hot and humid that when I got home my capris were drenched. Ick. And now, it's just a little chilly--definitely jacket weather. Sheesh! Someone's confused. :o)

Prince Adu What?

2007-10-09T07:53:00.000-05:00

Well Jason didn't get the part of Aladdin, just as he suspected, but it was awful nice of the director to throw him in the production anyways being that he missed the "official" auditions. He has 2 parts, one as Guard #1, and the other as Prince Dahdu Rahn-Rahn. I must note that there is also a character named (The) Prince Formerly Known as the Artist. Goofy! He'll also sing in most of the numbers, and he has one song with his good friend Kurt who will play Jafar. Another good friend is Iago, so it will be fun for them to be in this production together. Jason has kind of taken a hiatus from the theatre for a couple of years so it will be nice for him to get back into it. It's something he really enjoys and he's good at it too. So...stay tuned for backstage reporting. :o)

Happy Monday!

2007-10-08T18:52:00.001-05:00

Well, not really. I guess it's not sad Monday either, just Monday. :) Usually on Sunday evenings I'm all ready to go to work on Monday morning; today was just kind of blah. My lovely morning started when I opened the bathroom closet to get a fresh towel and I saw a little centipede scurry by. YUCK. We found it (after taking all of the towels out of the closet) and flushed it. I dropped Cait off at school and came back home to get ready for work. I close the office 3 days this week while the regular receptionist is on vacation so I got to go in a little later. I always like the idea in the a.m., but when I have to stay at work until 5:30 p.m. it's not as likable. I had a dentist (hygienist) appointment this afternoon too, so my teeth are squeaky clean. The trip to the hygienist is less and less enjoyable every time I go. My mouth is super sore this evening from all the poking and prodding and scraping. And I go every 6 months. I can't imagine NOT going that often. Whew. I planned to make a quick dinner of some-type-of-pasta-and-another-type-of-sauce, but by time I got home I wasn't feeling like it and it would have been cutting it close on time so I went down the block to the grocery store and bought a rotisserie chicken and some microwave broccoli while Jason threw some bread in the oven. Have you had the micro veggies? I LOVE them. They're easy and taste really fresh. They are, however, a little more expensive so I don't buy them that often. Jason auditioned for a play at the very last minute last night and the director told him to show up for the first rehearsal tonight. He doesn't even know what part he has! The auditions last night were for the part of Aladdin, but Jason doesn't think that's the part he'll be asked to perform. He thinks he's too old for Aladdin and they just want him to be an extra something or other. We shall see! I'm off to watch Dancing With the Stars. Love it. And, have you seen Journeyman? I really like that show so far. At first I thought it seemed a little "out there", but it's not too bad. Have a happy Monday evening.

Grandma Myrtle

2007-10-04T16:24:00.000-05:00

My Grandma Myrtle passed away on Sunday. She was 89 years young, and lived a long, happy, and healthy life. Even still, it's sad to see her go. She'll be missed! I have a million and one memories of Gram from childhood through the recent past. I'm so glad that Cait got to know her too. One of their favorite things to do together was play a card game that Cait taught Gram-Hong Kong. I'm pretty sure Grandma thought it was silly, but she played along anyways. I could write for days if I went through the memories...but I'll leave a few here. Some of my very eariest memories are going down the street whenever possible to get an ice cream cone from Grandma. Ice cream was never out-of-stock at their house! I also remember my 5th birthday party in Grandma's basement (I had the chicken pox!). Of course there were all of the Christmas Eves spent there with the whole family. Sometimes we'd walk home after the festivities, if it was warm enough. One of my favorite things to do was play in Grandma's basement office. She didn't care one bit if I rummaged through her desk, used her stapler and ink stamps, and even the telephone. That must be where I got my start! As I got older the visits became about life, talking about school and friends. She was always interested in what was going on. After I moved to Eau Claire our visits were less frequent, but she still liked to know everything. Most recently, we would talk about Cait, Jason, and work. For the longest time she called Jason "Chase". She must not have heard very well, and I never corrected her. Then all of a sudden she had it right. (Someone must have corrected her.) One of my more recent (and I think favorite) memories of Gram is from my wedding. She looked so pretty in her pink dress and pearls and she seemed very happy (although confused). It will be sad to go by Grandma and Grandpa's house since they're both gone. And will be strange to see someone else living there. My Grandpa and Grandma were both beautiful people, and now they're together in a beautiful place.

One more time!

2007-10-04T16:06:00.001-05:00

Tuesday night I went for "coffee" with my friends Nikki and Peggy. Peggy arranged the meeting and I had a sneaking suspicion what it was all about. Sure enough...Peggy asked Nikki and I to be in her wedding. How exciting! She even gave us a little card and a gift-this handy canvas bag.

I'm glad she asked me...it will be a lot of fun. The three of us get together quite often (I work with Peggy so we get together almost every day), and we've all been good friends for a while. We all met while working at American Title. Nikki has since moved on to be a dental hygienist, but of course we keep in touch. Nikki was in my wedding in August. Peggy wasn't, but looking back I wish I would have had her be a bigger part of it. She was there for everything anyways, but I should have honored her with being a bridesmaid. Oh well. And then both Peggy and I were in Nikki's wedding last October (Me, Nikki, Peggy).

Boredom

2007-09-30T16:30:00.001-05:00

So...the "important" football games are over for the day. Cait's softball game this afternoon was cancelled, and a dinner date with a couple of my friends was rescheduled to Tuesday. I read our local paper online, checked my e-mail, surfed around (saw that WI Badgers moved up to #5 in the rankings!). Wasn't sure what else to do...do you ever Google your own name to see what you find? I do every now and then, just for fun. It used to be that my work website would come up, but they must not have changed my name there yet because that didn't come up. I got a lot of Anna Nicole Smith references (her given name was Vickie Lynn Hogan), some references to an artist by the name of Vicki Lynn...and, this...isn't she cute?

Waahhhhhh!

2007-09-26T21:23:00.000-05:00

Well that didn't work. I was searching the Net for a different template, other than those in/on Blogger. Found one. Loved it. Couldn't figure out how to use it. Oh well...I'll save that project for another day when I have time to study up on this HTML BMX PG USA computer stuff.

A Little Bit of Everything

2007-09-26T20:25:00.000-05:00

-Does anyone have any advice for getting my tub clean? It's really bothering me, especially since we're not really dirty people. I've tried my "regular" cleaning supplies (Sprinkles, the foamy stuff, spray stuff) and nothing works. I even bought a new scrubber thinking that might help. Nope. It's not a nice, new fiberglass tub. It's old. Not sure the material, maybe ceramic, steel, iron? All I know is it's cold in the a.m. and it's not fiberglass. Anyways, I can't get the darn thing clean for the life of me. And I don't like a dirty bathtub (I tend to refrain from taking a bath, which I love to do). Someone must have a magic solution for me...?

-I have the day off tomorrow. The other day I was standing at my kitchen sink looking out at the yard and thought to myself how, since we moved, I haven't had a day at home to myself. We're almost always home on weekends, but that doesn't count because there's cleaning and laundry and this and that. I mean a weekday where I can just relax and lounge around and be by myself. So, since work is a little slow this week, I asked my 2 bosses and they said go for it! YAY! (Not to mention that the atty. I work for was on vacation the last TWO weeks and I worked my tail off!) I'm really looking forward to it.

-The Schwan's man stopped by on Monday since we were "new" in the neighborhood (how does he know?). Anyways, he gave us a catalog and said he'd be back on Wednesday. After looking through the catalog I decided we'd try a few things. Some items were reasonable. Some were not. At all. We ended up getting some French baguettes (We love bread!), some pancakes, and popsicles. I'm all about the pancakes! My dream one day is to run an IHOP. Even though I've never been to IHOP I still want to own one. Huh.

-Jason has/had 4 interviews this week. Hopefully something will work in his favor. He's been trying and trying to get into the prison system as a social worker. He had an interview at Jackson Correctional on Tuesday and another at Stanley Correctional tomorrow. This will be his 2nd trip to Stanley. The first time he interviewed there they called him and offered him the job, then called back 15 mins. later and said they called the wrong guy. He was 2ND on the list. Nice, huh? We're really praying that 2nd becomes 1st and they'll just offer him the job at the interview on Thursday. :-)

-Cait is doing well in middle school so far. She really likes it and seems to like her teachers (that's always key). She's made lots of new friends and is having fun. We have 2 more weeks of fall softball and then basketball starts up in November so we're still running, running, running.

-I'm going to work on my blog a little bit. See if I can jazz it up.

Mr. Rene

2007-09-25T16:18:00.001-05:00

I'd like to give a shout out to Mr. Rene, who is now looking down on us from Heaven. Mr. Rene was our neighbor, and although we didn't know him very well, we already miss him! He passed away last Wednesday and I saw his obituary in the online version of our local newspaper today. We knew something was up because Mr. Rene had a lady friend that went to his house every single day, like clockwork. The lady friend's car wasn't there one day and I knew something was wrong. Then we saw another vehicle and a woman there along with a contractor changing the locks. Mr. Rene was a very nice man. He was quiet and kept to himself. He kept a nice lawn and he let us borrow his phonebook when we first moved in and didn't quite know where ours was. I couldn't believe when I saw in his obituary that he was 91 years old. He rode his bike around the neighborhood quite often and still drove his car to the grocery store every Saturday morning. It wasn't too long ago that I saw him on his bike. He was the kind of guy that everyone would want as a neighbor. I think he secretly watched out for us, even though we didn't know him that well. And we watched out for him, even though he didn't know we were. :o)

Whoops!

2007-09-21T17:36:00.000-05:00

That's a big squirrel, eh? LOL...oh well. I'm still learning about posting pictures. I chose the "small" option! Good thing I didn't choose large. Must be the original size of the picture I stole from Photobucket.

Squirrels Squirrels EVERYWHERE!

2007-09-21T17:25:00.000-05:00

And they're so cute. At least I think so. Some might see them as an annoyance, but I think they're fun to watch. For the past few weeks they've been harvesting chestnuts from our lovely chestnut tree. We have one and our neighbor across the street has two, so they run back and forth across the street and up and down the trees. They go waaaaay out on the very end of the limbs to the point that the little branches bend and the squirrel is left hanging there. Just after work today I was sitting on the couch looking out the window and I could see 5 little squirrels all at the same time. It looks like they get the chestnuts and peel the outside (leaving a mess in my yard), take the nut on the inside and then bury it to save for a later date. It's fun to watch them in all of their scurriedness (? made up word ?). Must be a sure sign fall is here...yay!

Junior High!?!?!?!

2007-09-04T19:10:00.001-05:00

Today was BACK TO SCHOOL! YAY!!! I don't know if I've ever been so excited for another school year to start. Part of my excitement was because of Cait's growing boredom towards the end of summer...the other part is because I am 100% certain that she is ready for this. And some because I really like her new school and I think she'll fit in well. She started today as 1 of 175 sixth graders at Northstar Middle School here in Eau Claire. Sounds like a lot of kids, doesn't it? Well the other 2 middle schools in town have even more of the little buggers! We were fortunate enough to find our little house on the "north side" of town, which enabled Cait to attend Northstar. She was apprehensive about the move and the whole bit until we got here, and until she visited Northstar back in May. Then 2 weeks ago she had Camp Middle School--a program for incoming 6th graders to go to school and hang out with the other students, practice lockers and bell schedules, and get to know each other and the school. Last week we had orientation, and of course she knew everything because she spent 3 days there the previous week, but it was my first time to learn about the school (other than our brief visit in May), so I insisted that we stay for the presentations. Anyways, here's a picture of her from this a.m. Not sure why the attitude, other than it was early. Exxxtrreeeemmely early for her! The bus comes at 7:10 a.m. and school starts at 7:40. She had her alarm set, and I set mine too just to make sure she got up. I didn't know she was up, so I hit snooze TWICE thinking to myself "she'll still have plenty of time". Well when I finally did roll out of bed she was already up and dressed and eating her breakfast. What a good kid! :o) We're looking forward to a fun year...

Fun Summertime Treat

2007-08-26T12:50:00.000-05:00

Here's a recipe for a great summertime cool-down beverage...we got the recipe from our friends, Kurt and Jackie. They got it from a strawberry patch where they went and picked fresh strawberries. We went to their house for dinner that same evening and everything we had had strawberries as an ingredient. What a fun idea! My favorite was these smoothies though!

1 1/2 cans of 7-Up/Sierra Mist/Sprite
1/2 C. sugar
14-16 strawberries (hulled and rinsed...do you hull strawberries?)
About 14 ice cubes

Put ice cubes in blender. Add strawberries and sugar. Add soda. Blend until smooth. You may need to tweak it just a bit because I'm guessing on the amount of ice cubes!! :o) But once you get it just right these smoothies are the best! They're fruity with a little zip, I'd say.

New DOOR!!

2007-08-26T12:43:00.001-05:00

I'm so excited!! Yesterday my brother and his family came down. Crit "helped" us put in a new door. Well, he put in a new door for us. We weren't much help! You know how the box that the door comes in has "easy installation instructions" on the side? Yeah, not so much. I really liked our old door; I believe it was the original door for this house. It was neat, even though it was old and beat up. We had two concerns with the old door: 1) efficiency for when we start up the furnace and 2) security. The deadbolt on the door did work, but really wasn't much use when the knob on the thing was pretty much pasted together. We're happy with the way the new door turned out--Crit did an excellent job!

Our Anniversary

2007-08-26T12:35:00.000-05:00

Sunday, August 19, was our one year wedding anniversary. The past year sure flew by! I'm looking forward to many, many more anniversaries. We had planned on going to dinner, just the two of us, Sunday evening. By late afternoon I just didn't feel like getting all dolled up to go out to eat and come home miserable because I ate too much. (We were going to go to Texas Roadhouse--it's easy to eat too much there!) So instead we ordered in--we had Famous Dave's. We still ate too much, but at least we could flop on the couch immediately after. After dinner Cait said she was riding her bike to get "something" at the store. After she got home she decided to make brownies. No big surprise--she likes to bake. Soon after the brownies were done she called me into the kitchen (I heard a little commotion with her and Jason in there). Here she had made the brownies, put candles in them, and wrote "Happy Anniversary" on them. She had gone to the store to get the candles and the gel to write on the brownies. What a sweet kid!! :o) Well I didn't think to take a picture, so I pulled the candles out and started cutting away. Then I remembered the camera...so I put the candles back in and lit them again for the full effect. All in all we had a nice, quiet 1st anniversary.

It's Raining...It's Pouring...Well, Not Really.

2007-08-18T10:34:00.001-05:00

It's raining! YAY! I love a good soaking rain, and it's been a while since we've had one. It's a perfect day for it too--we didn't have any outdoor plans (we usually don't). I planned on staying in all day to clean, do laundry, and sort.

I'm going to begin sorting for my first ever thrift sale, which I'll be having Labor Day weekend. I've heard holiday weekends are good weekends for thrifters...we shall see! I'm really excited about it. I think we're in a good location, and, of course, we can use the extra cash. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Other than that not a whole lot going on. Jason is still recovering from his kidney stone episode. Poor thing...hasn't felt decent in weeks. He's on the downhill side of it though, so things are looking up.

Cait got home Monday morning. She's glad to be home and we're glad she's home. She got us back into busy bee mode. Going here and there and everywhere. We have to get it all in before school starts, you know. She's looking forward to school starting (and so am I!). So far she hasn't shown any apprehension about starting junior high. That may change, but maybe not. She's definitely an extrovert and I'm sure she'll be fine.

I think the mail is here! My favorite time of day...it's like Christmas!

Old friends...fun times!

2007-08-13T21:21:00.000-05:00

Saturday was my 10-year high school reunion. We had a blast! It was so nice to see some of "the girls". A few of them I had lost contact with, but it sure didn't seem like it--after we gave the 10 minute updates on life we were the best of friends again. We all have good intentions of keeping in touch this time--hopefully this is the case and we don't have to waste our 10 minutes catching up next time we see each other. My friend Lori and I planned the event, and it turned out extremely well...even better than anticipated. We had a good showing, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. We all left looking forward to the next one...

I'd like to say something about each of the girls pictured here...

Me, of course, in the purple. I don't need to say anything about myself. In front of me is my friend Sarah. She was my maid of honor in our wedding and has been one of my closest friends since 6th grade. Next to her is Margo...Margo and I lost touch, but she's an all around great person and I'm looking forward to keeping in touch with her. Behind Margo is Jamie. Jamie didn't technically "graduate" with us. She left our sophomore year, but remained in contact and wanted to come and celebrate with us. Next to Jamie is Lori. She and I have been friends since 1st grade. She also went to college with me...we're very close! Next to her is Kylah...Kylah married one of my close guy friends, Zac, a couple of years ago. Funny how those things work out. They just had their first baby in February. Next to Kylah is Rani. My mom used to work with Rani's mom at the Shoe Revue...that's when we became good friends. I also worked at the motel that her mom and dad managed when I was in high school. And then again, there I am. :o)

All for now. Oh, and in case you're wondering...our school colors were black and gold (GO CANES!)

YUM!

2007-08-05T16:55:00.000-05:00

Thought I'd share this recipe while I wait for it to finish baking!

Cheesy Pizza Casserole

3 C. uncooked rigatoni pasta (9 oz.)
1/2 lb. lean ground beef
1/4 C. sliced ripe olives
1 can (4 oz.) mushroom pieces and stems, drained
1 jar (26 to 28 oz.) vegetable primavera pasta sauce
1 C. shredded mozzarella cheese (4 oz.)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cook and drain pasta as directed on package.

2. While pasta is cooking, cook beef in 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occasionally until beef is brown; drain. Mix pasta, beef and remaining ingredients except cheese in ungreased 2 1/2 qt. casserole.

3. Cover and bake about 30 minutes or until hot and bubbly. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake uncovered about 5 minutes longer or until cheese is melted.

Enjoy!

*Try your own variations--we use black olives instead of green. This time I put some chopped up pepperoni in too. And you don't have to use "vegetable primavera" sauce. Use any kind! We like to have this with french bread or garlic toast. Also makes great leftovers for lunch at work or tomorrow night!

This comes from Betty Crocker's One-Dish Family Favorites--I highly recommend this cookbook. I got it as a wedding gift from my friend Sarah's mom, Kaye. Thanks Kaye!

LOOK!

2007-08-03T18:29:00.001-05:00

Look what I have! Isn't it pretty? I'm so excited about this lil' lily! Jason's mom bought us a few perennials a while back. She, Caitlin, and Jason's niece, Nadja, planted them. These lilies are around the brick patio, then we have some other lilies in our raised garden (no flowers yet). They also planted some hostas (I love hostas!) which, we hope, will really take root and be beautiful next year. I'm new to this gardening thing--hopefully I'll learn a lot and be able to name these things other than saying "that one bush" or "those flowers". We have a couple of nice bushes too...not sure what they are, but as soon as we seem some color on them I'll do some research. I also found this evening that we have a robin's nest in one of our "bushes". This particular bush has green leaves and bunches of small, white flowers. :o)

Whew!

2007-07-29T20:00:00.000-05:00

A long weekend almost comes to an end...

Friday night I saw Cait off to California. Her flight left at 10:15 p.m., and I had to wait until the plane was in the air before I could leave. I guess that's policy-they want someone there in the event the plane doesn't take off. But it did, and it landed safely on the other side of the country. We've talked 3 times on the phone, and will probably speak daily while she's gone. I kind of miss her already. :)

Being that I didn't get home until almost 1:00 a.m., and then waited up until shortly after 2 for Cait to call, I slept in on Saturday morning. I think I got up around 10. After we got up and got moving we went to the apartment to wrap things up there. I thought it'd take a few hours...but not 7! Our "few things" left to move turned into 4 carloads. Ugh. And of course I wanted everything shiny bright because we have several hundred dollars coming back in a security deposit, and we could certainly use every penny. Our vacuum croaked on us at the apartment, so last night after we got home we went to buy a new one at Wal-Mart. After our little shopping trip we made pork chops on the grill and had a nice late dinner. And because I slept in, I wasn't really tired so we stayed up again until almost 1:00 a.m.

The vicious cycle continued this a.m. and I slept until almost 10 again. I got up and cleaned here and did a little laundry. Jason made lunch (steak!) on the grill and then I was off-back to the apt. for a final checkover, and then to turn our keys in. DONE! Yippee! It felt nice to shut the door there once and for all. After I dropped the keys off I went in to work for 3 hours...working on a project for my boss that I just can't seem to find the time for during regular business hours. After that I watered my plants and flowers outside, and when I'm done here I'm headed to Cait's room for a little work. But not too much, I'm beat!

Have a Happy Monday!

2007-07-27T14:49:00.000-05:00

This evening Caitlin leaves for her annual visit with her Grandma and Grandpa in California. She's very excited--this will be the first time she is flying by herself. Grandma's got her all set up in a cushy seat in first class, with a guardian from the airline, of course. I'm definitely more nervous than she is. Cait has more experience traveling the airways that I do though. I believe the last time I flew I was about her age, and I went to CA. If my memory serves me correctly, that is the only time I flew; she's been there and back twice now. I'm sure she'll have a ton of fun. I'll start to miss her chatter after a few days or so. :o) After she gets back it will be 3 weeks then back to school already.

Have fun Cait!

SUCCESS!!

2007-07-24T20:21:00.000-05:00

Jason passed his national board exam this morning...he is now an official social worker! Way to go, Jase! Well, he was an official social worker, but only had a temporary state license until he took this test, and passed. Woo hoo! What a relief...

Chippewa Valley Fastpitch All Stars

2007-07-15T11:31:00.000-05:00

Here are some pics of Cait during the Allstar game. What a fun time! She was honored to be chosen for the team and she and the others did a great job! The "Golds" won the game 2-0. It was a close one though...we're very proud of how far she's come in just a couple of years on the field. She's unleashed one of her talents, that's for sure! Way to go, Cait!

Heeeeere's Toby!

2007-07-15T11:20:00.000-05:00

Toby joined our family on June 24 as Cait's 11th b-day present. He's a pretty good dog, but definitely took some adjusting on all of our parts. He's still young, so very active and still isn't quite sure if we're going to come home to get him out of his kennel so gets a little anxious. (We got him from the Humane Association where he lived in a teenie tiny kennel.)

Also, our Maggie got very sick and had to be put to sleep last Friday (7/6). She was a great cat-we miss her a lot!! :)

And more updates...

2007-07-15T11:15:00.001-05:00

House Updates...

2007-07-15T11:11:00.001-05:00

2007-07-10T11:55:00.000-05:00

Just checking in with a life update...

1. We moved into the house last Sunday and we're sure glad we did! We had originally planned to move this past weekend, July 7/8, but thankful we moved it up because it was HOT (in the high 90s) and humid. It would have been miserable! We had 9 people in total helping, and we had the truck loaded at the apartment and unloaded at the house two times in 3 hours. It was fantastic...definitely the smoothest move I've had in a long time!

2. Caitlin got a pooch for her birthday. His name is Toby and he's an almost-2-year-old beagle/spaniel mix. He sure is cute! We got him from the Humane Association and he's had his ups and downs, but all in all seems to be a pretty good dog and has adjusted well.

3. Since we moved early our Internet service hasn't been switched over and won't be until this coming weekend so I'm not able to post pictures because I'm doing this from work. As soon as we're up and running I'll post more pics of the house (after our lovely paint job) and Toby. :)

4. Cait's softball season ended a couple of weeks ago. Her team didn't do so hot, they only won 3 games all season and lost the 1st game of the year-end tournament. On a positive note, Cait was selected from her team to play on an Allstar team. That was a lot of fun for her, and her team won the Allstar Game. Since softball ended she's just been hanging out at home or the pool for summer fun. She spends a lot of time with friends and she is also taking band lessons to get ready for next fall. On the 27th she'll be leaving for California for 3 weeks to visit her Grandpa and Grandma Carlson. It will sure be quiet around the house! :)

That's all for now. Check back soon for pictures!!!

Woo hoo!!

2007-06-09T23:05:00.000-05:00

Well, here's our house! I tried to do a cute little slideshow, but it's pretty big so it messes up the page. Oh well.

We've done some cleaning and yardwork so far...we have a lot more cleaning to do, and we'll paint most every room before we move it, so it's going to look different. I'll post again after we're in. :)

2007-06-09T23:04:00.000-05:00

Bloggity Blog Blog

2007-05-28T16:38:00.000-05:00

Wowsa. Long time no blog! Time flies...!

Let's see. We've been busy, I guess. :)

1. We found a house to buy. YAY! We're suppose to close on June 8. I say "suppose to" because we hadn't locked our interest rate yet, and they took a pretty big leap on Thursday of last week. We're really really really hoping they come back down, even a little bit. Where they're at now the payment is just out of reach. We desperately need a little dip to make it work. This week will be key...

2. Caitlin's back at the bat. She's doing really well this year and is one of the team's main pitchers. Her team, however, is not doing too well. Of the 12 girls, 7 of them had never played before this year. The other 5 were Cait's teammates last year when they won the league, so they've been a little disappointed, but their spirits are still up there. Cait does a great job-she's a good leader and role model for the young'ns. And we just bought her a new bat on E-Bay a few weeks ago. We got a steal of a deal-a $180 bat for $50! Brand new-sweet! :)

3. Jason is starting a new job on June 11. It's closer to home (he is currently driving 25 mi. one way) and the pay is more. This should work out good. When (if) we move, he'll be about 7 miles away on the new super-highway.

4. The MN Twins beat the Chi White Sox today...woo hoo! Oh how I wish we were at that game! We thought about going and getting cheap seats, but even the "cheap" seats add up with this fee and that fee, and with the price of gas we thought it best to stay home. Luckily WGN carried the game today.

5. Last night we went to our friends' house for dinner. Kurt was Jason's best man, and Emma was our flower girl. Kurt and Jackie are great people, and she's a superb cook! They have 3 super cute kids, too. :) After dinner we visited outside on their patio (the weather was beautiful) and then played a Friends trivia game. They were huge Friends fans when the series was still on T.V., and we have since purchased the first seven seasons, so we were pretty tough competitors. It was fun-Kurt won though. :(

6. That's it for the more recent past. We're hoping for a pretty exciting next couple of weeks...I'd like to come back here soon with pics of the new house. :)

Take care all!

Current Happenings...

2007-03-10T11:40:00.000-06:00

Happy spring! Well, almost. Sure feels like it today.

Long time no blog huh? We've been pretty busy, as usual.

Just last week we started house hunting again. Last Sunday Jason and I drove around and scoped out 16 houses! Of the 16 we found 4 that we will be looking at with a Realtor. Thursday evening we looked at a house that some of the guys I work with own. It was nice, but we don't have anything to compare it to. Monday afternoon we're looking at 3 more. It's pretty exciting!

Cait's basketball season wrapped up a couple of weeks ago. Their team didn't do so well overall, but the girls were great and had super spirits. I was a little disappointed because the one time I did bring my camera I forgot to use it. They were suppose to have a tournament where I would have taken pics but that was cancelled because of snow. :( Basketball took up 2 evenings a week and every Saturday afternoon, so a little of our running has been temporarily relieved. Softball starts in a month or so, so we'll be right back at it. But that's okay-I'm glad Cait is involved. Last week we went to a meeting at her new school. I can't believe she's starting junior high already!! The meeting was for band...and she has decided that she is going to play the trombone. A girl after my own heart. :) Even better, we have a trombone...just have to retrieve it from my dad's house and get it all shined up. She was also busy with her Girl Scout cookie sale. She managed to sell 184 boxes this year. That's the least amount she's sold in all of her years of scouting. We weren't too aggressive this year. Unfortunately she's losing interest in scouts and probably won't join next year. I think she'll have enough to do with starting middle school, basketball, softball and band. Other than that she's doing well...she's spending more and more time at friend's houses (or friends here). She's a well-rounded girl, that's for sure.

Jason found out Friday that his temporary position will become permanent. What a relief! He's been job hunting and there's not much out there right now. He likes the job he's at, but he's not paid as a social worker. We'll manage for now. At least it's permanent and will be full-time with benefits. Benefits are key! I have benefits at my job but when we got married we couldn't afford to add him for health insurance--it'd be an extra $200+ per month! The only other downfall besides the pay is that it's 20 miles from home. We're taking that into consideration in our search for a house too. I'm thrilled that he'll only have 2 0r 3 more Saturdays to work at his other part-time job. Monday through Friday...finally! :)

This morning I did some work in the garage-cleaning. My cousin Karen introduced me to Freecycle (www.freecycle.org) on her blog (www.karens2cents.blogspot.com). Yesterday afternoon I posted a message and within hours I had several replies. This morning someone took 2 of Cait's old bikes and someone else took our non-working gas grill. That's a lot of bulk from our garage that left nice open space! Freecycle is great...I've been running through other things in my mind that I'd like to get rid of. We have a couple of old T.V.s in the basement...hopefully they'll be the next to go! It would be nice if we didn't have to move that kind of stuff.

All for now. I've got to get some laundry going and such. Cait will be home soon so I'll have to fix lunch. Today is Nikki's birthday-she's a friend that was in our wedding. Later on we're meeting at Cancun-a fabulous Mexican restaurant-she and I and some other friends/family of hers. Will be fun.

Rumplestiltskin

2007-02-03T20:21:00.000-06:00

Here are a couple of pictures from Cait's play...finally! I wish I had more/better pictures. We didn't get tickets in advance (the "green slip" never came home from school...uh hmmm...), so we had to buy tix at the door. By time we got there they only had 11 tickets left so we were stuck pretty close to the back. One of these pictures is Cait in action as the Peddler...she's pushing "magic beans". The other is of her and her good friend Mackayla. Mackayla played Rumplestiltskin and did a fine job! It was such a cute play...a musical even! Not your ordinary "Rumplestiltskin" story, either. It mixed in many many other fairytale characters, from the Three Little Pigs to Mother Goose to Jack and Jill. A great production to say the least! :)

Week 4: -2.0

2007-02-01T12:30:00.000-06:00

I'm so very excited today...I've lost another 2 lbs. during this past week! YAY for me! Total to date is -6.8 lbs. A little less than 2 lbs./week average. I've got a long ways to go, but it's pretty encouraging to see the fat falling off. Jason even said my legs look smoother...now THAT'S a compliment! (Thanks, Jas!)

Other than that not much going on around her. It's FREEZING cold. Not sure how much more of this I can take.

I still have to sit down at the computer at home and get some pics on here from Cait's play a couple of weeks ago...

All for now...I'm at work so I should work, but I just had to share my success for the week!

Cheese? I'm not so sure...

2007-01-27T09:41:00.000-06:00

Cheese Pizza

Traditional and comforting.
You focus on living a quality life.
You're not easily impressed with novelty.
Yet, you easily impress others.

What's Your Pizza Personality?

2007-01-20T19:25:00.000-06:00

Jason works every Saturday from noon until midnight. And almost every Saturday I make a run there with some food or whatever. I went tonight...rang him and said "The ice cream truck is here". He came out to grab his Ben & Jerry's and I asked him a question. I said "Do you know what today is?" And without skipping a beat he said "Our 5 month anniversary?" I laughed and told him I hadn't even thought of that, even though technically it is our 5 mo. anniversary, going by the day and not the date. I was just surprised he had even known that! Anyways, today is actually the SIXTH anniversary of our first date! I had thought of having our wedding on this day, but decided that January weather is so unpredictable that I'd be taking a chance and wouldn't want out-of-towners stuck in a blizzard. And it is COLD today. And I like being married, so I'm glad it was in August. On our first date we met at the mall (woo hoo), went bowling, and back to the mall to eat at Garfield's, and then to my apt. to watch a movie. I totally remember everything about it. He was wearing khaki pants and a wool-type shirt (which has since been sent to Goodwill). I was wearing blue jeans and a brown zip up sweater. I called my friend Lori from the payphone at the mall because I was soooo nervous! I ate chicken noodle soup (that's all...how typical for a girl on a first date to not eat) and he had fish...and they didn't have any tartar sauce! He won the bowling game. We watched "The Green Mile"....ahhhhhh...the memories. :)

Week 2: -2.4 Yippee!

2007-01-20T15:30:00.000-06:00

I'm off to a good start so far with Weight Watchers...5 lbs. in two weeks. This is encouraging...hopefully I can keep it up. I'm on a different "plan" than my past attempts. This time I'm doing the Core plan, which means that there are only certain foods that I can eat, but I don't have to count the points for each little thing. I just eat until I am satisfied, but not stuffed. So far so good. I think in the past 2+ weeks I've eaten more apples and applesauce (unsweetened, of course) than I have in years! Funny how certain foods are much more appealing when it's all you can eat. In the past if there were an apple or a chocolate covered granola bar I'd always go for the chocolate. Now I don't even look to the cupboard for a granola bar, of any kind! What do they say? That it takes 3 weeks to form a habit...well I'm almost there. Yay for me!!

Happy Birthday To....

2007-01-15T20:24:00.000-06:00

ME! :) Yep, it's my birthday today...28. Yikes...I'm feeling a little older this year for some reason. Maybe because I'm really out of shape and such...BUT, we're going to solve that problem! I told Jason that I didn't want anything for my birthday for "me", but I wanted for all of us to get a membership to the YMCA. And so we did. Cait plays basketball there on Saturdays, but that's the extent of our experience with the Y. This evening after I got home from work we went and took the tour and signed up for four months for now. I'm excited to get in there and use the facilities! After we spent an hour at the Y we went to dinner to one of the best places I've ever been. It's nothing fancy--it's called Altoona Family Restaurant. And that's exactly what it is. It's a Perkins type of restaurant, but not as commercialized. We've been there twice. Once on a Friday night during their fish fry when they were swamped and then tonight. Both timew we had fantastic service and the food is delicious and very reasonably priced. I had their grilled chicken breast (it was 2 huge butterfly type pieces) and it came with a salad, a veggie, and a potato (I had rice pilaf)...all of that for $7.19! Jason had a huge plate of ribs with the veggie and potato for $7.59 and Cait had a kids meal for $3.50! With tax and our drinks our bill was $22. Can't beat it. I have the Golden Globes recording on DVR so I'm going to go catch up with all of the action... :)

Wow!

2007-01-13T18:45:00.000-06:00

Has is really been almost 2 weeks since my last post? Sheesh...where does the time go?

Here's a quick update:

Cait's been busy at play rehearsal 2-3 nights per week, basketball practice 2 nights a week and games on Saturdays. Add that to homework and being a kid and she's filled to the rim with things to do. The play is this week, so after one more week she'll have a little more spare time, which is needed. She's barely had a chance to dive into all of the scrapbooking goodies she got for Christmas!

Jason has been working somewhat normal hours for the first time in years (literally). On the last day of his internship the county offered him a "temporary" position in their Community Support division. He works there Tues.-Fri. and at Triniteam (halfway house) on Saturdays. He has 2 full days off per week (in a row even!), and he's not working any crazy overnight shifts, so his days and nights are finally in order. Last week he sent out a couple of resumes for permanent positions--hopefully we'll hear from someone soon.

I'm back on the weight loss track...almost 2 weeks now! (See June 2006 post--I didn't make it very far). This is my 3rd or 4th time on Weight Watchers and I really feel good about it this time. (For real.) My head is in it, and a couple of times it just wasn't, which lead to failed attempts. I'm setting "mini-goals" for myself rather than always thinking of the end (which is 90 lbs.). Ten pound increments seem much more attainable--and I get a reward for every 10 lbs. My first 10 will be a trip to JC Penney Salon for a new do. The 1st week I lost 2.6 lbs. I'm anxious to go back Tuesday and see how I did this week. IAnd I feel a million times better, which is a bonus!

Yesterday we lost our sweet little Sparkle. A few weeks ago I had written a post about her. It was really a battle for the last week or so. We called a couple of vets to see if they'd give us any advice, but they of course wanted us to come in and pay for an office visit. I don't want to say that she wasn't worth it, but knowing that she had lived a long life and knowing that by how sick she was she wouldn't suffer long, we decided to let nature run its course, and it did. We were sad to see her go, but relieved for her because she was in Hamster Heaven.

Brrrrr!! It's cold! We've been so spoiled with the warm winter weather that the teens just don't feel too good. It's been mainly in the 40s so far all winter, and there's no snow to insulate from the bitterness, so it's rough. :)

That's all for now...I told Cait I'd watch "Best Gameshow Moments" with her, or whatever it is on GSN.

Have a splendid evening!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2007-01-01T15:55:00.000-06:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! (Cue the bells and whistles)

January 1, 2007. Whew! Crazy.

Cait and I hung out last night--we never usually do too much on New Year's Eve. Jason had to work (hopefully his last 8:00 p.m.-8:00 a.m. shift) so we just ate cheese and crackers and watched GSN. GSN has become one of my favorites--I love Chain Reaction and Lingo. Cait likes the old game shows like Match Game and Password. Silly! We also watched part of the Packers/Bears game...

Cait said she'd pay me $50.00 if I stayed up until midnight with her. I said okay, so she brought me $50 in Monopoly money! At about 11:00 p.m. I went to bed and read for a bit. After a few minutes Caitlin came in and said she lost a tooth. I didn't even know she had any loose! Anyways, she left and came back and said sarcastically "You know Mom, I still believe in the Tooth Fairy." She proceeded to put her tooth under her pillow and when I woke up at 4:00 a.m. I snuck in and took her tooth and left her a dollar...and her $50 Monopoly money. She thought that was a ripoff! :)

That pretty much sums up the excitement of our New Year's Eve. I'd prefer low-key, so it was nice.

I hope your New Year is a prosperous one.

Sparkle Harple

2006-12-29T22:06:00.000-06:00

Meet Sparkle. Sparkle is our little hamster...isn't she cute? She doesn't come out of her igloo much anymore so when I saw her out filling up her cheeks tonight I thought I'd snap a few pictures. Caitlin got Sparkle in Oct. 2004 from Grandma Nut (Jason's mom). She is such a sweet little thing. Never once thought to bite what's not meant to be bitten. Never escaped (except once, when I left the cage open--oops!). She doesn't know any tricks--it's enough for her to be cute as a button.

Merry Merry Christmas...

2006-12-29T21:58:00.000-06:00

The hustle and bustle of Christmas has come and gone and this is one of the few pictures we captured. This is the three of us at Jason's mom's house on Christmas day. I don't realize how tall Caitlin is until I see her standing next to me in a picture. Sheesh! Not sure why we all look cross-eyed in the pic. :) Cait is wearing her new sweatshirt from Grandpa and Grandma Metcalf. She cherishes that shirt! Her Grandpa has worked on or near the LSU campus several times and he couldn't just pick up any old LSU shirt--it had to be the real deal, straight from the LSU store. She loves it.

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-24T17:21:00.000-06:00

Well, much to my dismay, no snow for Christmas. :( With just the little sprinkling on Friday and 45 degree temps today, it's not looking good for my white Christmas. Oh well...we can still spread holiday cheer without snow.

It's been kind of a quiet weekend. We did a little shopping Friday evening and yesterday morning, but not Christmas shopping. I was actually done with that last week! Amazing! It's crazy out there, so I've stayed home most of the weekend. I did some cleaning yesterday and a little baking today. Caitlin is in Hayward at her Grandpa and Grandma Carlson's until tomorrow morning. We usually head up north on Christmas Eve, but my parents are in Louisiana so no visit with them and Jason has to work 8:00 p.m. tonight until 8:00 a.m. tomorrow (BOOOOOO!!!). As soon as he gets home we'll hit the road to pick up Cait and then go to my brother's house for breakfast with his family. After that we'll move on to Hayward to go to Jason's mom's house and then his Grandma's for Christmas dinner. We haven't decided yet if we're going to spend tomorrow night or just come back home tomorrow evening. It's nice to spend the night, but it's also nice to be home in your own bed. I have to work Tuesday some time too. I don't need to be there until after noon, but I should probably go in earlier.

I hope all is well with you and yours and that you have a very merry Christmas!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

2006-12-22T14:35:00.000-06:00

It's snowing! YAY! I was dreading another brown Christmas...we have had very little snow this year so far, and what we did get didn't last for more than a couple of days because it's been so warm. I'm not one who plays in the snow (snowmobiling, skiing, etc.) so I can certainly do without, but when it comes to Christmas it just doesn't seem like Christmas without the white stuff. This would have only been the 3rd Christmas that I can remember that we didn't have snow. When I was a kid there were always piles of snow everywhere at Christmastime. It's been raining here for the past 36 hrs. so I was a little worried. Now we have some heavy, wet snow falling. Hopefully it will get cold enough tonight and snow some more and stay cold so that we have a white Christmas.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

HALLELUJAH!

2006-12-13T21:06:00.000-06:00

At 1:00 p.m. today Jason stepped into the classroom at UWEC for the last time! YAAAHOOOOO!!!! I am extremely excited about this (just in case you were wondering). It has been an unbelievably long journey and I am so proud of him for sticking it out and getting to this day. The graduation ceremony will be on Saturday morning, and next week is finals week. SO...there won't be a diploma in the diploma cover, but it will follow shortly by mail. He has one paper to finish up and then he's DONE. No finals...this semester was his internship. All of the hard work, long hours, and patience (on my part) has finally paid off. Way to go Jas!

p.s. BLINKING AGAIN!

2006-12-11T20:30:00.000-06:00

Still not blinking... :)

Update

2006-12-10T20:31:00.000-06:00

LOL...

I plugged the lights on the tree in this afternoon and they're not blinking anymore! What a fun game this will be...or not! :)

Every Year!

2006-12-09T20:17:00.000-06:00

It happened again! I don't know why I think it won't happen each year. I guess I just HOPE that it won't. Here's what happened...

Wednesday afternoon Jason and Caitlin went to get a Christmas tree. Cait didn't have school and Jason was home early. I couldn't get away from work so they just went. It was fine with me--it was COLD! :)

Wednesday night I hauled all of the Christmas lights and decorations and ornaments up from the basement and pulled out everything I wanted to use this year. I plugged all of the lights in to make sure they worked. We got as far as putting the lights on the tree and then it was bed time.

Thursday evening Cait and I decorated the tree. I love having a real tree! For the past few years we've had an artificial tree, but nothing beats a real Christmas pine.

Okay, so that was Thursday. We had the lights on Thursday. We had the lights on Friday morning before work and school. We had the lights on all of Friday afternoon/evening. We had the lights on this morning. The lights came on this evening and one string started BLINKING. UGH. It never fails. I plug those stupid lights in every year before putting them on the tree JUST TO MAKE SURE. And every year a couple of days after the lights have been on the tree at least one string starts blinking. This year it's the string on the bottom. Last year it was the string on the top. But really, it doesn't matter where it is. It's still frustrating and look silly! I don't know why I think "maybe they'll all work right this year". This year I think I will throw out the lights and buy all new next year.

Happy decorating!

Kinda Fun...

2006-11-30T18:26:00.000-06:00

I used my name, Vicki Jean Lynn, female, of course, and put friendly as a main trait. It gave me Scout Lee Lynn as my new name...hmmm...it's okay, kind of boyish though. And no...there's no specific reason for being on babynames.com... ;)

Weekend Update

2006-11-28T21:33:00.000-06:00

I guess it's not the weekend anymore, is it? It sure was nice to have 4 days off from work last week (Wed.-Sun.). And it was hard to get back in to the swing of things Monday morning!

Last Wednesday evening we went to Waupaca to visit with my mom's family. It's always nice to see them. We don't get over there too often, even though it's only 2.5 hours away. We had a delicious dinner Thursday evening and then drove home with our bellies busting out from all of the good food.

Friday morning Critter and Brandy did the "crazy shopping" while Cait and I (mostly Cait) watched their kids. I would rather watch 10 kids than shop on Black Friday! (No, they don't have 10 kids...I'm just saying.)They left Saturday afternoon just as I was getting a migraine. :( That kept me down all of Saturday and most of Sunday morning. Saturday night Jason and Cait went to the Blugold women's basketball game while I rested. It was quite peaceful.

Sunday we just hung out at home...did laundry and a little house work. Caitlin went to see Deck the Halls with a friend Sunday evening. Late Sunday night, actually it was early Monday a.m. Cait woke up ill. She puked a lot then went back to sleep. :) She felt okay Monday morning and wanted to go to school so she went on her merry way.

Yesterday Cait had rehearsal for the school play after school but after I picked her up from that we were home and after dinner we planted our butts on the couch. I was so tired!! I don't think I moved in my sleep last night, not a once.

This week at work I'm filling in for a girl who is on vacation in Hilton Head, SC. I'd rather be there...but I'm here, and it's been pretty busy at work being that it's the last week of the month. The last week of any month is busy, even November.

Tonight Cait had rehearsal after school, then basketball practice. After b-ball we went to the grocery store...and now I'm tired again. :)

Off to bed!