Sunday, December 28, 2008

Christmas!!!!

Our Christmas day, in 3 pictures and 3 movies :-P



The Christmas Tree! With way too many presents under it!


Jeeves, Enjoying his Bully stick that he opened himself! Silly dog


And Jett getting his Bully stick!



This is quickly becoming the tradition of the Christmas night Pit session. Pit is a card trading game, based off the stock market. It's a nice, quiet, peaceful way to spend the evening. (hah!)

I taped one hand. People playing, starting in the lower left and going clockwise - Greg (Karen's brother), Charlie, Kevin (Karen's sister), Joy (Lindsey's mother), Mom, Lindsey (Greg's girlfriend), and Kim (Lindsey's aunt). Also appearing are Dad, Rosalie, and Papa's shoulder :-)

Strider, attempting to access the catnip inside. While he would have gotten to it, eventually. To save us from having to pick up shreads of paper through out the house, we opened it for him shortly after


The battle of the paper. Between Sam and Strider, for the privilege of being able to claim the paper as ones own.



Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Hayden Holiday Update

While I've been photographing events around the house, I haven't done much posting of them. Here's the last month or so, in review :-)

Thanksgiving brought on the need for apple pies. Mostly, one for us, and one for the in-laws. So, that morning, I dutifully made two gorgeous apple pies, and left the one below sitting on the stove, with a rag over it to cool off while we took the other one and went to Thanksgiving dinner with C's family. Now, Apple pies have a tendancy to sink as they cool and form to the apples inside, but when we got home that night, we found a very strange spot on the pie, where it had not only sunk in, but had broken the crust and juices had come up.





Suspect #1 - aka. Strider and Suspect #2 - aka. Sam-wise
Due to his brothers innocent look, lack of interest in jumping on counters, and lack of interest in human food, Sam-wise was found to be guilty, and was subsquently tortured by being held in the air and flipped upside down.
As a 2nd story with thanksgiving and apple pies - I had taken the 2nd pie as we left, covered it in foil, and had it sitting on my lap (on a hot grabber, since it was still warm!) C backs out of the driveway, and 2 seconds later, I'm covered in apple pie juice, all over my sweater and pants. Apparently I didn't seal the foil well. Back into the house, and the hour of planning what to wear quickly went to plan B - whatever's clean and matches!


Here is Sam, showing off the hiding spot for the next month. And no worries, once there are presents there, they'll do flying leaps over them into and out of the tree!
The winter has also brought on a new toy for C. This was two-folded, as it means we had to spend the money, but at the same point, I no longer have to shovel the driveway :-)


Our snow-stick that we got for christmas last year and never got to use!

So, on December 11th, at approximately 11:35 (judging by when the clock stopped) the power went out over most of the north-east. We were in the middle of a WONDERFUL ice storm, and some where between the power company and here (actually, lots of somewheres) The lines decided to not be connected anymore. Anyhow - this resulted in us losing power for about 44 hours. We were lucky - 11-12 days later, and some people STILL don't have power back...

Some of the damage from around the neighborhood





And, as a result of having no heat for that time, Fishy finally left us. Yes, he was called Fishy, mostly because when we had multiple fish, we couldn't tell the difference, so they got named "Fishy 1, Fishy 2, and Fishy 3" The first one we saw was #1, etc. Of course, we have Kitty 1 and Kitty 2 as well... so I think we're just lazy at naming animals.
But C has some great plans to make a terrarium out of the fishtank, once he gets around to it. Meantime, while i'm doing my scrubbing of the house from one end to the other, I cleaned out the fish tank and made my own terrarium. Complete with ceramic happy frogs and a stuffed multi-colored lizard :-)

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

..

It’s 5:46 AM, and I’m at work.  Actually, I was at work 15 minutes ago… there is something seriously wrong with this.

 

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Wildlife

Long story short… Charlie was home this morning due to a flat tire needing repair.  About 9am this morning I get this e-mail from him..

 

“And strider is crouched down in the front window looking out.. and I’m all like, what the heck are you looking at kitty!

And being the kitty that he is, he says “this is what I was looking at daddy!” (see picture)”

 

And I’ve attached the picture, but I’m posting this by e-mail, so I’m not sure how it will come out.  Will fix after work.  You can see the reflection of strider sitting in the window looking at the deer J

 

 

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

....

Wednesday, October 29, 2008 – 7:45 AM

The elusive “snow” has not made its appearance yet.  We are disappointed in the weather station for giving us false hope, as it doesn’t look like there is much chance of it in the near future. L  We will be keeping our eyes to the windows though to verify.

I was promised snowflakes!  Where are they?!?!?

 

 

 

 

/giggle

 

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Kitchen Part 2

Apparently Picassa limits you to 4 pictues... bah!


Anyhow, the final results of the work!










Let's see how long it stays this neat :-P
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Kitchen!!!


One of the few pictures I actually took before. This was actually to show off the curtains, but it was white, with a lot of repair spots on the walls.




Work in Progress. The first coat is up, and the stove is actually moved!


First coat on the other wall.


The temporary Kitchen, in the corner of the dining room :-P
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Thursday, October 2, 2008

What Altima?

Here it is! All shiney, and new!
Well... it wont' stay that way for long!
It's a 2007 Toyota RAV4 - with only 7000 miles on it :-D I think that was the biggest seller for me :-) Of course, more room, higher up, and the roofracks are nice too :-)






I must say, it's a bit bigger than I'm used to driving! I'm getting used to it, but it's kinda a weird feeling to be sitting up this high :-)

Good Deeds

If you do a good deed, and then an event happens, which results in negating that good deed – does it count?

 

I was in the grocery store last night, it was about 10:15 (yes, I was grocery shopping at 10:15 PM), had just gotten into the 1 open line, when 2 guys came up behind me with a 6-pack and a bottle of wine.  Since I had a full cart of groceries, I was nice, and asked if they would like to go before me, since they had 2 items.  They graciously accepted, and we went back to waiting for the 2 other people to make it through the line.  At this time, another lady had pushed her cart up behind mine.  The supervisor on duty at that time made the call to open another line.  The new cashier looked at me and said “Ma’am, I can take you here”  So I went over to that line.  Now, I am much farther ahead than the two guys I let go in front of me, but not because I was trying to be rude.

 

Oh well – at the same point, the two guys got done paying about the same time as I did….

 

And if anyone would like to go and hide under the covers until the world straightens itself out – I’d be more than happy for the company.  There have been way too many deaths and illnesses in the past week.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

*sigh*

Note to self… remove signature before sending post.  I’ll have to remove that later I guess…

 

And it's not even 11 yet...

I can't work… I have to, since I'm here – but we're all in a general shock. One of our 3rd shift operators passed away unexpectedly last night. I found out when an operator called me this morning on my way into work, but some knew last night, and had a hard time sleeping because of it. I just sit here, looking at the computer screen, and my mind starts wandering.

It's just the shock of it – He was on 3rd shift, so I rarely saw him, except for the two weeks that I was training him on the new machines. Most recently, last week. He was working 12 hour shifts for that training, coming in at 2AM and staying until 2pm. Something makes me wonder if that was just too much for him, but that's me trying to put blame somewhere. You always want to have someone/something to blame when you lose someone, the idea of their time being up, is a much harder concept to grasp.

As hard as it is to grasp, I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason – even if you can't see that reason right away, or ever see that reason.

<4 hours later>

Well, the initial shock has worn off, sort of. I still don't want to work, but now it's because I want to go get my new car :-D A nice shiny 2007 Toyota RAV4 with only 7000 miles on it! So, it doesn't have all the options my MIL's does, like the sunroof, and the 6 CD changer system, and such – but I don't really need those. What I do need to go get, is a cable so I can plug my ipod in :-D

Will post pictures later :-)

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Rambling and updates...

Well, it’s Thursday, I have no ambition to work this afternoon, and someone hinted that she wanted more stories to read on blogs, so here I am writing :)

Life here has been uneventful.  Busy, but uneventful.  It has been way to warm for February, and we just had 3 days of rain.  *sigh*  I’ve gotten out skiing once between being sick for half of December and January, and now we’re getting rain.  I think Mother Nature doesn’t like me :-/  The rest of the time has been filled with work, rehearsals, meetings, more meetings, more rehearsals, and taking care of the house.  Oh, and the obligatory trip to Troy for the annual Sousaphone pilgrimage… otherwise known as Freakout :-)

So lets see here, work…  it’s been busy.  The country seems to be going into a recession, so my company is expanding, going to a 7 day work week, and buying new equipment.  Good to know we’re following what the rest of the country is doing  ./sarcasm.  January started off slow, as most of the machines still weren’t running from shutdown, but now that everything is up and going, my to-do list gets longer every day.

Rehearsals…  It’s February, which means my 3-nights-a-week of rehearsals is starting to get to me, and will until June, when 2 of then stop.  Now, add onto that we have a show in April and contest, which means longer, more intense rehersals… and you have one drained me.  But they’re fun, so I put myself through it :-)  I’m sure I will cut back on them at some point, just not yet.  What I really need to cut back on is…

Meetings.  Ugh, this is where I torture myself.  I somehow thought it would be a good idea to let myself be volunteered for Volunteer coordinator for the convention were co-hosting.  As an afterthought, I don’t really need something else on my plate, but it’s for the good of the chorus, and it’s over in 8 weeks.  But who’s counting ;-)

The house is doing well, considering.  We have new curtains for the bedroom, full bath, and kitchen.  Which of course means I need to paint windows… :-/ Well, I hung the kitchen ones up already, without painting.  The whole kitchen needs a coat of paint, so I’ll pull them down when I get to that point.  The basement is in the same condition it has been for a month now, although C and Dad are supposed to start putting up walls soon :-)  Yay! Of course, I need to pick out paint colors then :-)  I’m thinking tan, with brown and red accents… but C says that would be too much like the bathroom… we’ll see. 

Hmm… I’m rambling again… and it all sounds so depressing.  It’s not! Really!  Just busy.  I’m just at the point where I want to go home and stay home.  Which I’ll get to do tonight :-)  Going away for the weekend throws your schedule off, but the trip was fun, and I got to play “my” sousaphone :-)

 

I guess I should get back to the data entry that’s sitting in front of me… *sigh*  Is it Friday yet?

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

What winter?

There is something decidedly wrong with the fact that today has a high of 64 degrees. It’s JANUARY! Where’s my snow!  I want to do more skiing still!

*sigh* I need to move farther north.