Oh Canada!

I admit it - I am an Olympic junkie. Opening ceremonies were awesome!! I've recorded whatever I couldn't watch at home, I've been checking the web for updates on the various competitions, and reading all the little background stories. Of course the games have been operating under the dark cloud of the young Georgian luger's death during a training run - such a sad, sad thing.

But I'm so excited for Canada! Of course I want to see USA do well, but I also want to see Canada win too. When Bilodeau  won the first Gold for Canada this Olympics we were cheering here at home too. And what a beautiful personal story.

I'm really loving Canada!  Such diversity - much like our own country, but somehow they seem... more unified. Wonder why that is? Such a beautiful country! I am so enjoying all the clips showing more of the country.

Favorites so far have been the Speed Skating, Short Track, Snowboard X, Nordic Combined, Mogul, Downhill, Luge, and we're looking forward to the rest of the Snowboard events and the Bobsled, as well as more speed skating & short track.

Ok, figure skating...what are they thinking with some of these costumes?? Many of the men's costumes are decidedly feminine and I am convinced they are designed to strip the guys of any hint of masculinity so that they appear androgynous. Just my thoughts, lol...

Heartbreak for Lindsey Jacobellis today, bless her heart. Sooo close, and she had such good runs & then the final run for the medal - disaster. Still, she did fantastic and her country is proud of her :)

SO - What will we do when it's over??  I went through withdrawals after the Summer Olympics, too, lol, so I guess at least it will be familiar...Better go check my DVR settings...again....

The Great Cricket Round-Up

Been awhile, I know...all kinds of stupidity happening over the last few weeks, and to be honest, I cringed at the thought of reliving it. I have the feeling January will always be a crummy month for me, now. Mom died in January last year, so I think everything will be colored by that.  Two of my three dogs ran off last week, but only one of them returned. Lucy, the one I fully expected to come home, did not, but Stella, the one that had never done it before did. She was gone 3 days and then found her way home. Since Lucy hasn't been reported as needing to be picked up (either alive or dead) I can only assume she is with someone. She's an awesome Lab, so I can understand why anyone would want her...

The snow hasn't quite finished with us - we got another 8 inches dumped on us last Friday, and now we have giant icebergs on the street corners again.  The city used to haul the scraped up snow in the business district off to parts unseen, but they haven't done it at all this year. I'm thinking they didn't do it last year either. I am noticing big holes in the streets where the plows have torn up the bricks. I may have mentioned this once before, but our downtown area has brick streets. I'm not sure how many miles, but most of the paved roads have bricks underneath. Visitors thing they are so wonderful - try driving over them in a truck 8 1/2 months pregnant and we'll see if they still think they are wonderful. Having said that, they do possess a certain charm. When properly maintained, of course...

Last night on the way home from work, I went by the pet store and bought 4 dozen crickets. We were down to about 4, so it couldn't wait. Skittles eats twice a day, and there wouldn't be any for the morning. Normally they aren't a problem, but occasionally you get a noisy one. There was one in this batch that was chirping pretty loud. I had put the boys to bed early because I'm having trouble getting them up in the morning - well, not Tucker - he's Mr. Rise and Shine At The Crack Of Dawn - so, I thought ok, get the crickets out of there so he has no excuse to stay awake. I'm carrying the plastic container by the handles and I get all the way into the living room, almost to the exact spot I'm going to put them, and the bottom falls off.  Four dozen crickets in my living room...they're going everywhere, in all directions, and I'm hollering for the boys to come help me (Bobby is at the church doing whatever deacons do, lol).  I couldn't get either one of them to touch any of the crickets, so I had to round them up by myself. I tried picking them up by hand, but it seemed like they were getting squished - if you don't grab them kinda tight, they squirm out of your hand - so I grabbed a container and a lid to shoo them into. With the boys as spotters, I got most of them rounded up and then Bobby came home and helped me get the last three - that we knew of, lol. I didn't count them.  So much for going to bed early.

At the time I wondered how many of them would die from shock over the trauma they had just endured.  This morning I discovered only about 3 actual dead, some severely wounded, but several that appeared to be dazed. Possibly due to freedom being within their grasp only to be cruelly yanked away?? Who knows, but they looked like a train wreck. You had the walking wounded; missing a leg, but otherwise moving about as if they didn't know it was missing, those that didn't appear to be injured in anyway, but totally nonfunctional, and then the others. They were the obviously and grotesquely damaged of the lot. Back legs now in the front going the wrong way, feelers bent, wings missing - carnage!  Needless to say, Miss Skittles had several more crickets for breakfast than she normally would have gotten.  Saved them from a long drawn out death. Now the question was: How many survivors would I find when I got home?  Who knows? They aren't the smartest insects, I've discovered. They will happily drown themselves if they have access to water deeper than their own body, for example, so it's conceivable that they might get trapped under or around something and die. They've done that before on a good day with their orange slices...

I was happy to discover there had been no more deaths, and they all must have recovered from their shock, because they seemed pretty chipper. In fact, I think I heard chirping...

Is It Cold Enough For Ya? Well, Is It??

Is it just me, or does anyone else hate that question?  You get the same one in Summer, only substituting the word cold with hot.  I've always found it irritating in the extreme, but one day I found myself saying it *gasp*! That did not just come out of my mouth!  But it did!  One of those instances where you wish you could reel it back in like a fishing line.  Ugh!  I had become one them - I had crossed over...but maybe hope is still alive if I make a mental promise to never utter the foul phrase again!!  LOL

The temps here, and elsewhere from the Midwest eastward and southward, have been horribly, record-breakingly cold (I know that's not a word - I just made it up. I can do that. It's my blog).  Right now, as I type, the actual temperature is 9 degrees. The windchill is fluctuating with the breeze: -1, -12, -6...ugh!  A lot of people are saying that this is winter like it was back in the day...back when they were kids.  Others are saying the amount of snow is like it was back then, but not the temps. And they're not liking it, lol.  Of course this is the crowd that needs to worry about breaking a hip if they slip on ice, so no, they wouldn't like it.  I'm not liking it much either, though and I'm not part of that generation.  However, things can still get broken at my age so, caution is advisable.  We have had snow on the ground since Christmas Eve without a break.  I'm thinking this must be what it's like to live in Alaska, only not as beautiful.  So there is the trade off:  white, snow-covered everything 8 months or whatever out of the year, but it's a gorgeous view. Here - enormous piles of icky black & white scraped snow on every street corner...not as pretty to look at, I'm thinking.  Of course, the snow covers up the various piles of junk lying around in certain yards and manages to make them look rather fetching - until it melts. "Ahhh...there's your treasure" (quote from the first Mummy movie with Brendan Fraser, lol)

My mother-in-law had a New Years/Christmas get-together at her house New Year's Day.  Bobby's sisters were in town, and all the grandkids and great grandkids were there and it was a chance for everyone who couldn't get  together on Christmas or Thanksgiving to visit and exchange gifts. Of course this happened after the big announcement at Thanksgiving that there would be no more dinners at her house...did I dream that? Hmmm...Anyhoo, since they live just down the street from us, Bobby & I sent the kids on ahead and we walked down together.  Now, our street is a solid sheet of ice since the snow plows never even looked at our street, so we were walking carefully.  I was doing pretty good, until I got involved in something I was telling Bobby, and I wasn't paying attention.  It was like a ballet in slow mo, only not nearly as graceful.  It took me a minute to go down as I made a valiant effort to stay on my feet, but alas! It was not to be...down I went, and with my husband laughing his head off, no less.  Then we both started laughing wondering if the neighbors saw me go down and him not even trying to help.  I'll be paying more attention next time, lol.

Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010

Hard to believe it's 2010 already!  This year went by as a blur.  Personally, I'm glad to see 2009 go.  It's been a horrible year for many, many people. I'm looking forward to this new year,

Christmas was good - it was white!  We got about 6 inches all together, with drifts in places of about 11 inches.  About 2 inches of ice before that, and now it has all melted a bit due to it being warm yesterday. Today was only in the 20's so now everything is frozen back up. Now we have huge ice patches everywhere instead of snow patches.  The ice took out our internet on the morning of Christmas Eve and we didn't get it back until late Monday afternoon. Yikes - that's longer than I ever want to go without internet again - ever! 

My boys tried to stay up until midnight, and failed, lol. They are, as I type this, sleeping: Sully is sitting upright on the couch, and Tucker is sprawled out in the chair.  They were watching Star Wars, lol.  They are obsessed with it right now because Sully got Lego Star Wars for Christmas and they have been playing it every chance they get.  I'll drag them to bed once 2010 gets here.  That way I can tell them Happy New Year and they have the illusion that they made it :)

Well, it's almost time.  I'm wishing all a very Happy New Year, and hoping for God's blessings and favor upon us all. Bye 2009 - I wish I could say it was a great year, but it really wasn't.  There were some great moments of course, but it's been a year of dramatic loss for many. So...hello 2010  :)

Slack Much?

Ok, so everybody has pretty much figured out by now that I can slack with the best of them hee hee.

I'll do a quick catch-up of Thanksgiving and everything else - which really wasn't much - and get current;

Thanksgiving day dinner was at my house - immediate family, so not big & noisy or overly hard on the cook :) It went well - I did everything homemade because I had a point to make with my mother-in-law. She gives off the impression that I can't/don't do anything. So, homemade rolls, homemade dressing, homemade pumpkin pie& pecan pie with real whipped cream, real sweet potatoes - not canned.  Everything came out perfect :)  She seemed a little disappointed, hee hee 

Saturday was the ginormous whole family dinner at her house.  I will give you a perfect example of the kind of things she does to me: when I asked her what I should bring, she told me to bring sweet potatoes and a pumpkin pie. When I get there and put the food down, I see that she has made sweet potatoes and a pumpkin pie...what the heck??   *deep sigh*  that's how it always is, lol.

Next was a trip to Topeka on Monday after thanksgiving and by Wednesday Bobby and I both were sick with an intestinal virus.  One of those that you wish you would throw up, but you can't.  I was literally sick for two days, but my stomach still wasn't right for another two days after that.  It would ache and burn and I felt hungry, but the thought of food was just nasty. The body aches lasted about 3 days also - ugh!  Feeling better now, but weak after all that and spending like four days in my recliner, and no energy to do anything.  I know I'm sick when I don't even feel like opening up the laptop, hee hee.

Saturday was my birthday, but wasn't feeling up to doing anything, so it will probably wait until our anniversary on the 28th of this month.  Yeah, my birthday, Christmas, and my anniversary are all in December. I guess I'll have to start celebrating my half birthday :)

Real Life

Like a lot of people, I like to escape from real life to movies, books, games, digital art, internet... Nothing wrong with it - it's a need!  And the caveat to that is: everything in moderation, LOL.  Not good to wake up someday and find that you haven't showered in a month and your bills are all late, the cat has eaten the dog while it was sleeping, and your fish are all floaters, hee hee.

There has been a lot that I would like to escape from these last couple of weeks, but unfortunately I haven't had time.  Real life has reared it's ugly head to an alarming degree.  This past weekend my stepdaughter's husband cleaned out their house and took their twin boys (not 2 yet) and their daughter (not quite 3) with the aid of his parents while she was busy arranging a birthday party for her 5 year old.  He told her (LIE) he would have his mom take care of the little ones since she was busy with the party and he'd have her bring them to the party since he had to work...nice.

So, why did he do it?  He was following up on a threat.  The week before, while at his parents house, his best buddy was wrestling with the 5 & 7 yr old boys and accidentally got 'nutted' by the 5 yr old.  It's a risk when wrestling with little kids, obviously, but he got mad.  He picked up the boy by the neck, threw him down and then shoved him across the floor and stepdad did nothing.  In fact he thought it was funny - until Mandy told him she was filing a report against the guy.  Then he threatened to take the kids (just the three that are his) if she did.

So, now she's fighting to get her kids back.  Something I've never understood: a good parent takes kids away from a bad parent (abusive,drunk/drugs,etc.) to protect them and the good parent gets in trouble.  A bad parent takes children away from a good parent for spite or some other reason and nothing happens to them.  Ok, so this may not be true most of the time - I don't know the statistics on that - but I think everyone would admit that change is needed.  I know that a large number of child abductions are carried out by a family member, and the current process is get a lawyer and file for temporary custody.  Yeah, and while you do that, your child is gone, getting farther away, & you don't know where they are.  If you come home one day to find your house empty, your spouse gone, your kids don't come home from school, and your spouse is not answering their cell phone, you should be able to file a police report immediately for parental abduction, shouldn't you?  I don't know about anywhere else, but around here it's not like that - you have to be awarded temporary custody first, only then will they listen to anything else - "he/she is a parent too, they haven't broken any law" is the customary response...These are my personal thoughts and observations - if  I am wrong, I am sure I will hear about it.  People are notoriously quiet unless there are mistakes to be pointed out...

On a more positive note; after saving & working for enough money, Tucker has gotten his Bearded Dragon!  She is so cute!  He has named her Skittles, and she is 2 months old. We didn't get any sleep at all that first night because he was up watching her and worrying over her..."Mom, her eyes are closed." Me: "She's sleeping." Him: "Are you sure?" and then I went in & checked her: "See? She's just sleeping."  A little while later..."Mom? She's still in the same spot & it doesn't look like she's breathing." ... and on it went.  Just in case anyone out there is interested, when they are asleep, you don't really see their sides move much - not like when they are awake. I will have pictures up soon  :)

Fall-ish

...and so I changed the layout for November - the theme being Thankfulness this month in preparation for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.  I'm presently working on a little freebie thing to post over on my designs blog to do Thanksgiving tags with or to do a scrap page with a couple of papers a frame & some doodads to dress it up with - and some wordart :)

Jason Aldean performed in our dusty little town Saturday night. It was held at the fairgrounds, which are about 2 block from our house, so it was a little noisy, hee hee.  Bobby worked backstage security, so he had lot's of fun stories about the drunks trying to get backstage, lol.

This weather has been so weird!  Cold, then warm then cold again...

My tree in the front yard the day before Halloween:

and here it is the next day, Halloween:

 

practically all the leaves gone in a day, lol.

And the last few days it's been in  the 70's, so oddly enough I have wildflowers blooming in my front yard also, lol:

and since I'm posting pictures, lol, here are some of my boys at Halloween:

Sully was a pirate - Dread Pirate Sullivan, lol, and Tucker was a Wild Hog; Woody is who he says he was, but I thought he looked more like Doug, lmbo!

Ok, well, I'm watching The Italian Job (2003) so I'm gonna get back to it :)  Awesome movie!!

Disturbing Behavior

No, I'm not talking about that relatively unknown song by the late Robert Palmer (sad, that).  

I got a call from the school nurse today at work - very sweet lady - who immediately let me know that everything was ok, but that Sully, my five year old, had been choked and pushed over a table by another kindergartener.  They examined him and he wasn't upset or crying, and other than some small red marks, he was unharmed.  Then the principal called me and we talked about this other kid, who, from time to time, according to Sully, has picked on him in various ways.  But things are escalating, and I want to know how they plan to protect my child from this child.  There's something profoundly disturbing about a five year old trying to choke another five year old!  Of course the principal couldn't give me much information about this other kid, but I already knew who it was.  They will continue to monitor things, pull him out of the class when necessary & keep a close eye on him - basically do what they can to keep the kids safe.  Sully seems to be mostly unbothered by it - he lets most things roll off his back.  I just don't want him to think this kind of thing is normal, and I don't want him to just let it happen, ya know?  He sure doesn't let his older brother get by with anything, but that's his brother - it's different in his mind.  I still can't get over a kindergartener trying to throttle a classmate.  Wow...

Happy Birthday Mom

Today my mom would have been 70.  It's just been 9 months since she passed, and everybody says the first year is the hardest - all those holidays & other milestones. The next three months are going to be hard. 

I could talk about how much I miss her, and how so many things are just not the same now, but I'm not. She wouldn't want me to concentrate on what I don't have :)

So, instead, I'll tell you a funny story that my friend Kathyfrances reminded me of this week with a post of hers about a bat, hee hee.

I don't remember how old I was, but the time of year was either late Fall or early Spring.  We were visiting my aunt (her only blood sister she knew) & uncle in St. Louis, Missouri, and the weather was damp & cool.  We would go for walks around their neighborhood in the mornings and late afternoons and it was misty and gray outside many times.  I remember large hedges and big black Gothic gates barring the view of the houses behind them and a little Beagle that would walk a long with us sometimes...

One misty afternoon we were walking past a tall hedgerow and I remember there were two or three trees next to the hedge.  My mom spotted what looked like some kind of molded fruit hanging on one of the trees.  It was all dark and fuzzy looking, and slightly shriveled up.  She reached out to get a better look at it and as soon as she touched it, there was a squeak and a sudden flapping and the moldy fruit flew up and away while my mom, my aunt, and myself all squealed and jumped around flapping our arms and danced like we were standing on hot coals...and then we ran, lmbo.  We ran about a block with the neighbor's little Beagle chasing behind us and about passed out from laughing so hard.  The last time we were all together, we got to laughing about that bat.  The funniest thing about it, was that bat was just as frightened as we were, lol.

Love you, Mom  :)  Happy Birthday

Too Busy To Think

Have you ever had that happen?  You are just too busy to think about what you're doing, so you just operate on auto pilot?  It reminds me of a Sponge Bob episode where he clears everything out of his mind but 'fine dining' and he is the perfect waiter.  Then he gets asked what his name is and he has a melt down, lol.  That's how I'm feeling:  vacuum - check; clean the bathroom - check; laundry - check; supper - check; paperwork, answer the phone, run pc scans, find everything under the sun because nobody knows where anything is at home and at work..."Mom, the dogs got out and are running amok in the neighborhood..."  HUH??  I completely blanked for a full minute...then I went out and chased them down.  I discovered I am in horrible shape - completely winded and gasping for air - what a pretty picture, lol. Of course, I'm still coughing a bit, so running around in 47 degree weather just throws that into overdrive. Lucy (Lab) is to blame for the whole thing - she always wants to run out in the field, and so she made a mad dash for it and Ruby Sue (Basset Hound) followed.  I can normally get Lucy back with very little trouble, but because Ruby Sue was out, they both just turned their ears off and were two dogs behaving very badly.  Every time I would almost have Ruby Sue, Lucy would buzz by her & then she was off again.  Ruby Sue is built pretty low to the ground so she's tough to grab and awkward to haul back home by the collar - you walk like Igor in Young Frankenstein; all hunched over - not fun!  And of course once she is caught she lets out  a big holler like she's being beat *rolls eyes* she won't be, but she sure wants everyone to think so, lol.  And the whole time this is going on, the other two dogs in the back yard are running and jumping and barking their fool heads off because they're missing out on all the fun.  The biggest thing that saved me was that because Ruby Sue has an excellent nose, she was distracted by absolutely everything she got a whiff of and would stop to check it out, lol.

That happened yesterday afternoon - Sunday.  Saturday I got the bathroom all spiffy clean, and cleared off the kitchen table - Bobby's biggest pet peeve, lol - and got the kitchen all cleaned up, plus helped the boys in their room.  I still didn't get my catch-all room - I mean computer room, hee hee, cleaned out, but I'm procrastinating on that, and so far it's coming along nicely, lol. 

Every time somebody comes over unexpectedly and I have to pick up in a hurry, well, it all goes in there.  Some people throw stuff in their oven, or under the bed or in a closet, but the computer room works better for us, lol. I'll probably get it done next Saturday - we'll see...