I am coming home tomorrow! I leave at seven am and I'll be there around 11pm or so, driving from Boston. I haven't started packing yet, but there are a lot of projects I have been trying to finish up lately. Today I have to organize my scrapbooking stuff, I am bringing home the pieces of wedding invitations so you guys can help me put them together. And doing a little laundry, and etc. Seems like every project I have done lately requires a trip to Home Depot, which takes time too. Hope you all had a happy Mother's day.
A

Hi again! Well Loretta I fixed the hospital error, better? We had a fun day today, Greg stayed home sick and we had a bunny incident. I think Greg was more tired than sick, you know how you feel when you haven't had enough sleep?

The bunny incident happened when Scruffy was out loose and somehow managed to find a new born bunny. Of course Scruffy, always interested in bringing new and exciting things home brought home the bunny. Brit thought at first she had a rat or something but it was going "Meep, meep" which really didn't sound like a rat. So she took it from Scruffy to see what it was and found out it was a little bunny. She brought it in and we got a box and some hay for it. I called a friend of mine who is a vetrinary surgeon and she told us that she would be surprised if it made it because rabbits are one of the hardest animals to rehabilitate. She was kind enough to bring over some food and stuff to try and save it but unfortunately it died before she got here. It was really cute too!

Mom was over for the afternoon and stayed for supper so it was a pretty good day all in all. Mom seems to be feeling pretty good, sore of course but I feel better just seeing her up and about.

I wonder how Andrene made out with the painting and the carpeting thing? Is Charlene still playing with matches or did someone wrestle them away from her ; ) Just teasing. How is Angie making out with baby Alec? or is that Alex?
Well I am off to tuck Tim in night all.

All is quiet on the blogger front eh? I am back to work at the Garden Centre so I haven't got as much time for playing on the computer these days.

Mom is home from the hospital and trying to rest as much as possible. She looks really good lots of colour and such.

All this physical exercise and fresh air is making me really tired these days so I will just say hi to everyone and goodnight.

Wow what a hectic week Mom had surgery for cancer. Thankfully all went well, the surgeon thinks they got it all. She was looking a lot better tonight when I went in to see her, she had some colour in her face.

My dog got lost in the woods all tangled up in her chain on Sunday night, Tim found her finally this morning. I have been running back and forth to the hospital and walking in the woods trying to find the dog. I can relax for a minute now that everyone is safe again.

Mozilla is a browser Andrene it is pretty neat actually I use it most of the time.

Charlene has been playing with fire eh? Funny I never saw or heard anything.

Anyway I am off to relax and not think about anything.

Well, Loretta IM'd me and then said "I can't see anything" and disappeared. Lyle just stabbed himself with the needle nosed pliers and ran through here to bleed in the bathroom so he wouldn't get any on the new carpet...such a good man. I don't even want to know what he is doing with the pliers in the first place. Me, I'm sitting on the couch thinking about all the stuff I should be doing. I called Southwest to find ticketless travel funds and I had $133 from last year, but they could not find the $238 I had from this last month or so. SO I may not have enough free tickets to get there, I will check SWA online to see if I can find any specials. Anyways, I guess I'm off to do that, then...

hehehe - you missed us...hehehe... Can you huys ALL come to Texas in July? We want to get married.

OK Rolana, what's Mozilla? Is it a web browser? I can't believe Chuck set Mohannes on fire! And Joni's description of it was pretty good. :) I haven't read my email from Mike yet, but I am glad to hear Alex is feeling better. I have on my list of things to do today to call Southwest and see is I have any ticketless travel funds to come home for a long weekend and set up another phone line for Mom so she can be connected at her place. It was great to hear from her! I am glad she is happy although I wish she weren't working full time, but she would be a good addition to any organization. I'd hire her in a heart beat! Hey, Retta, if the comic makes Joni empty the dishwasher, I wouldn't complain! We have some pretty embarrassing cable shows here, send her down, because I have a diswasher full from yesterday! Although I may be prejudiced. The EB brought tons of candy for the kids - unfortuneately he dropped off 140 empty eggs and some bags of candy and it took Lyle four hours to fill all the eggs. But, sadly, one of Lyle's brother's stepsons took Ashley's bag of candy home as well as his own, so hers is (hopefully they have found it) at Lyle's Moms. She is another one of those believers in "You can have five now, and save the rest". Lyle and I both think (and it works for us) that if you let her have as much as she wants she doesn't eat as much. If you let her have five, she eats five. We threw out her Halloween candy last month in a 27 fling boogie. What did you have for dinner at Charlene's, wheee? I have to go read maiol, talk more later...

Wow this blog went from being really quiet to really busy. Hi Loretta it is so good to have you back on line. You will have to drop by and show off your new hair color. Joni when did you dye your hair? I dyed mine a darker color than it was, I think I like it better than blonde.
Andrene how goes the shelf escapade, it must be nice being able to do stuff like that by yourself. I remember helping Dad when I was a kid build cabinets and cases for his medals, I love the smell of wood. Joe jr is here visiting Greg he has gotten quite a bit taller.

I decided to post in Internet Explorer and see if the buttons stay on the screen so far so good. I get a split screen in Mozilla too but the typing area is no where near as wide. Doesn't matter alot but it might be nice to have the buttons stay where they are supposed to. I guess I may have to use IE to post.

Well I had better get to work I am supposed to be doing some elearning for work, it is going kind of slow hard to get motivated for some reason.

Whoops! I didn't realize it was so late! I invited Reen, but now I have to go start supper. Talk more later! I meant to ask you how DAd was doing...

Loretta! Long time no type! That snake was bigger than an inch and a half hose! He was a good two inches. Yuck. The shelves are going well, setting up the drill press to actually get started took longer than making the holes in the boards is taking. It takes about ten minutes to do one side of an 8' board. I am putting the holes in for the little adjustable shelf pegs. I am using the "You can do anything for fifteen minutes" flylady thing, only I adjusted it to twenty so I could have a ten minute break after each one (cause IT IS HOT OUT!!!) I have my timer going. That means this will be a series of a couple posts, because I can only do ten minutes at a time. I actually remembered your birthday! I hope it will be wonderful. I heard about AManda's baby, Mom told me when I called her after her first day of work. I also got an email from Laureen, she told me too. It was so good to hear from her! I am going to invite her to join the blog on my next break.

Last night I went to Lowe's (huge home inprovement store) and got the stuff to make the built in bookcases for the bedroom, and to make a new top for a couch table that I am going to turn into the bottom part of the computer desk. I got the guy to cut everything to size for me and he didn't charge me anything! So that will save me tons of time today. I have to go out and set up my drill press that Lyle got me for Christmas to cut the little holes for pegs for the adjustable shelves. Plus I went to WalMart and got my "other stuff", all the stuff that is too expensive at the grocery store. I had some coupons and I took back two four dollar plastic shelves that we had bought for Ashley's room and didn't need, and my total went from $78 to $61. YAY! I also splurged and got some Wilton Candy melts for Ashley to make some more Easter lollipops with this weekend. And I got a $1.75 craft organizer for my embroidery floss, which I needed because I used my old one that Angie got me for Xmas years ago to organize little pieces of glass for mosaics. Anyways, I am off to go build shelves. Since I am working on the lawn, I hope it isn't as windy as it was last night!

Whoops PPS - That shop hop is exactly the same thing, Rolana! I got some great organizer bins at the dollar store for the tools. Now if I could just magically make the stuff jump in.... We also got a beautiful wall unit at our "Global" (called CCA) on Saturday. It is so pretty! We are going to set it up on top of a deep desk for the computer stuff so it will all be hidden but still be in the room so we can watch Ashley while she is playing, and so I can work on my book without being hidden away in the back room somewhere. I also bought two pairs of jean overalls to work around the house in, neither of which fit my fat butt. Depressing! They have no changing rom there, so I can't tell. I hate that! I have to go wrap Joni's LATE birthday presents, I am planning to walk the mile to the post office.

PS - Chuck - thanks for the Grover introduction - that made me laugh! All our birds are gone, I guess they headed back to you guys. I heard about a plan online for a loftbed that you can set up an office/closet/whatever underneath, and thought of you - http://www.oploftbed.com/index.php It sounded so cool, I wated to do it in Ashley's room!

I probably shouldn't tell you this so close to when some of you may visit, but....

We killed a HUGE snake in the yard yesterday, and I went online to look up what it was. We couldn't figure out what it was, but Lyle (who moved here from CA when he was seven) said there are two kinds of snakes, king cobras and water moccasins, and he was killing it regardless. It was funny, he hates the cop thing, he is a fire marshal, so often doesn't carry his gun or even know where it is. He was mowing the yard, the mower turns off, he comes running into the house and yells - "Where is my gun?" I thought the Iraquis had made it to Texas. After finding his gun under the seat in his truck to give him courage, he killed the snake with a shovel and a fireaxe. Much more firemanly of him. I puked and we delayed lunch a couple of hours.

I quit my job on Friday. I gave two weeks notice but the VP was so mad he didn't want it. The President (Gene) tried to talk me into staying but the VP (Steve) didn't want me to. It helped that I told him I was tired of him being demeaning and rude to me. Lyle has wanted me to quit for six months, so he is happy. We have savings for three months of living with no change, or indefinitely if we scale back on the shopping and remodelling. Gene suggested I start my own business. Lyle agrees. I am scared! But, Lyle said I have to marry him if we start a business so it will have his name on it. :) Lyle wantsme to take a week off and relax because I have been working 70 and 80 hour weeks lately, but relax is a relative term.

Luckily, this no job thing means I have more time to clean the house up and finish the nine hundred chores I have to do with the remodel. And I am doing the fifteen minutes at a time flylady thing, but I have found it works better if I use the timer backwards, and count up, then I go faster. Then I try to beat my time. I have an anal retentive chart that will allow me to do all of the housework M-F in 45 minutes a day. So far so good, I have been refining it for a while now, and I am trying to make it second nature to do it while I make supper. Of course, not having a kitchen makes it easy because there is one less room to clean, but harder because I have to "mop" a wooden dusty subfloor, and there are open cracks that lead to the dusty attic.

Anyways, that is my news, so I'll go for now, and hopefully I can check in more often.

Hi Charlene and everyone. If you want to see robins just drop by, they are all over the place here. It was just like a spring day today, probably snow tomorrow.

I was thinking Andrene the buttons scrolling off the page might have something to do with the browser I'm using I use Mozilla I will have to try it in IE.

Well it is late and I must head to bed. Take care all.

What is this shop hop thing anyway sounds like fun? I went shop hopping yesterday off to Global, the dollar store, just about every drug store in town and the new super store. I love Global and the Dollar Store, they are my favorite places to shop.

We have had a lot of Robins and BlueJays around so maybe we will get some of these 80 degree days soon, here's hoping anyway.

I am still having the problem with the post and publish button scrolling off the page, oh well have to keep life interesting.

Everyone has been sick lately, Tim missed two days of work and both kids missed one day. I am glad I'm not working because I seem to have laryngitis and it wouldn't be fun trying to talk to all those customers.

Poor Alex! What a lot of tummy trouble. I loved getting the pictures of the birthday party. The cake was really sweet - who made it?
Someone has a creative nature. I spent an hour working on my scrapbook last night, I am still finishing Halloween 2002. I have on epage left to do, but I started getting stuff together for our ski trips, so I can do that next. I think I only want to do that next because I like all the snowflake papers. I did a "Shop Hop" last week, went to 9 different scrapbook stores in 8 days. I got busy at work because I had to fire a guy, which means fixing all his messes, but Ashley and I went to the last five stores on Saturday. At the second to last store the lady gave her her own stamp card, then she wanted to start over to get all of the stamps. I told her we would do it again next year, and the lady said they may have another one in the fall. I spent almost $300, I hope they wait until next year. I was feeling bad about spending so much on me when we have so much house stuff to do, but Lyle said I work for it! Just last week there wasn't one day I was home before ten o'clock. Although, one of those days I could have been home by 8, but I went to a scrapbook store!

My post button isn't going anywhere, Rolana. But I have a split screen where I see the blog posts on the bottom and I type on the top. It doesn't look like the blog you and Loretta have.

I actually like painting - it looks like you did something when you're done - except for trim, which is just a big pain in the a**. You either mask evertything off, which takes hours, or you make a terrible mess. I am the "terrible mess" type myself. We did get it painted before the carpet, and the carpet is in, and I love walking on it. It is hard to get people to take off their shoes - that is not something that is done around here. I am a little disappointed in the carpet in a way, it doesn't look "new", I don't know how to explain that any better. I keep thinking though, that will likely mean that it will look that way for longer. It is a "frisee", which is a new word for the seventies shag, but it is short and very thick, so it just looks like an interesting texture. And the color is "linen", which is very light, explaining the shoe problem.

Last weekend it was in the 80's and Lyle had to mow the lawn. It is supposed to be in the high seventies today. This time of year you need the heater one day and the AC the next. It was 40 this morning. It only freezed "hard" (they say that on the news here, but I don't know what they mean - isn't ice always hard?) three or four times this past winter. Otherwise it was above freezing in the day time.

I know for sure no one would go near me with pliers if I had a bellybutton ring - that must be a sign of trust in her Dad. I almost never use the holes I have in my head - now when I wear earrings my earlobes itch by the end of the day. I guess I am out of the habit. Well, I guess I should get to work, I just wanted to check in because it has been so long. Miss you guys - hope to talk at you again soon. :)
a

Alexander has to be bacak on the growth charts before they can take the tube out permanently he does go every 4 weeks to get a new one and they switch sides so the nose does not get too iritated he is do for a change on Monday and we were hoping that it would be out for ever but he has had a lot of setbacks this month and he will need to go to Iwk to see a gastroenterologist (sp?). We are waiting on when that will be.

We had a great time at his birthday party although he missed some of his Aunties, he really enjoys his toy steering wheel that his auntie Loretta got him Emily is constantly taking it from him to play with. I really like it too especially because it plays a lot of different songs some of the toys we have gotten just have a couple and they get so tiring this is so colourfull too.
Hope Loretta gets her puter fixed up so she can read this LOL.

So where is everyone these days? Andrene how did you make out with your carpet? Did you get your painting finished in time?

Angie how are you and the kids making out? Hopefully Alex will continue to gain weight. So how long do they figure before he will be able to go without the tube?