I am working on wedding dress bodice number two. I am also working on the house, and I just glued the drawers ot the desk together (they were all falling apart). This is lunch break. Lyle is teaching fire school tonight so I ahve a few extra hours to work on the house. Anyways, I have nothing exciting to say, and I have loads of stuff to do, so..later

This was my plan for the day - I lured myself out of bed at seven am with the promise of a half hour of computer time - It worked!
7:10 - 7:40 - comp, 7:40 - 8 - shower, 8 - 8:30 - sew (a bunch of ribbon flowers for my wedding dress so I have something to do (each one has to be hand gathered and tacked) between meetings), 8:30 to 9:30 - return phone calls for business, 9:30 - dress, 9:45 leave for flower mound - first meeting at ten, 4:15 - head home after last meeting, 4:30 - lay on couch and ignore phone, watch Oprah, 5:00 - make supper, 6:00 - plan everything that has to be done before wedding. However, at ten to 8, I am standing in the shower, and my cell phone rings (I use it to time ten minute increments to do my daily list in the morning), I look and it is Lyle. I answer it, and he asks me if I can come pick up Ashley from his work because he has been waiting for Nancy for twenty minutes and she hasn't shown up. So, I had to go get Ashley instead, and I ended up taking her to my first two meetings because her mother didn't call Lyle until after ten. She forgot. Can you frigging well imagine? The woman forgot her own child. Then she came to get her from me (Lyle refused when she asked if I could meet her half way) and Ashley cried because she didn't want to go with her. (Only because working with me is more fun.) Si then I got to feel like crap all day, and be pissed off at Nancy for doing that to her child. What is wrong with the people in this world?

lalalalaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I have a busy day planned today, and I owe a couple of emails. I'll have to do that tonight. I went to bed with my hair wet, so I look like a fluffball. I am wearing shorts to work today! I have five meetings between ten and three thirty. How exciting! (sarcasm.) My legs are peeling from a sunburn two weeks ago and I can't stand the thought of wearing HOT pants again. We went boating yesterday afternoon and had a ball. I made one out of three bodices I am testing for my wedding dress. I needed a zipper, so we stopped at Wal-Mart on the way home. I have to stay home all day tomorrow waiting for the phone guy, so I will try to do a bit of sewing on my breaks. I want to fit the bodice I choose so it looks good on me. My timer just went off, shower time. Love you...
a

Used to be, Loretta talked to herself. Now I just talk to myself. I am sewing and reading email in 15 minute increments today, because I am in a BAD mood. Part of it is that Ashley and Lyle want to go out on the boat, but can't go without me (One to drive the boat off the trailer, one to park the truck and trailer) and I DO NOT WANT TO GO! I mean, I want to go , but I have so much to do that I would have a crappy time because I have to finish this bid for Le's nail salon and start Charles and Patti's shop and pool thing, and make the wedding dress. i am taking Wednesday off (When you worhk for yourself it is even harder to take time off) and my friend Cathy is coming over (unless she has jury duty, she goes in Tuesday but she thinks they will get rid of her first thing because she tells them there is no such thing as justice) and we are going to work on my dress. Lyle called some friends to see if anyone wanted to go with them this afternoon, but no one was home. I told him that was because normal people were at church. I am praying one of his friends will call back and say they are going. The guy we met with on Friday night wants to invest $100 000 in our business, but we have decided that is a bad idea. All we want is a line of credit. If he invests, he owns a large part of the business and we pay him part of the profits - that's why I left Royal Seal, because someone else got most of the profit. And soomething just felt wrong. He did say that he would look at helping us out with a line of credit if that was what we decided we wanted to do, but he didn't sound like he really wanted to. Oh well, I have time because the insurance is still not set up yet.
Marianne called yesterday and she might come for the wedding!!! That is so cool!

I hate shoes!

I am supposed to be folding laundry, but I just helped Ashley do a successful five minute room rescue and felt so good at how good she felt that I had to share. I was also defrosting spaghetti sauce, wondered why the timer hadn;t rung and realized I had popped a breaker. I hate that microwave. Why would anyone care about that? Sorry I am so boring. ANYWAYS!

Lyle's Mom (BITCH! - although I can't say that out loud in real life) asked Lyle why her friend had gotten an invitation to the wedding and she hadn't, Luckily, I had given him an extra one the night before (stuck it in the fold of his wallet) because he thought he was going to see a friend he wanted to invite. He gave it to her. She was mad because I didn't mail her one. He said - "well, aren't you part of this whole thing? You know when it is...". Had I mailed her one, it would have been "What, I am not close enough family that you couldn't just give me one?" GRRR! BITCH! He saw them when he picked up Ashley from them - we were going to go see them tomorrow, but Lyle decided we weren't going to because
a) his father was supposed to marry us (he is a pastor) but decided not to and just told Lyle last night that he wasn't going to. Luckily, Lyle expected that and we had a Justice of the Peace on notice.b) he decided that he didn't want us to borrow their motor home. Now where will everyone sleep? They offered to let us use an air matress, but since we already have two fold out couches, we are out of floor space. I hate for anyone to have to go get hotels.

Thank God we don't have to go see them! I try so hard to be supportive of him and not tell hom his parents are assholes, but.... Jeez! Thanks for letting me rant.

I believe my desk is slanting away from me. Just a wierd thought. I Expressmailed (Like fedex) a package to Charlene yesterdat so that she could make the travel arrangemewnts for Loretta and her. Then, if the kids come back the day before she is scheduled to leave, she can reschedule the tickets. Luckily, Southwest is super flexible and will let you change anything pretty much at any time. I have tons of work to do today, but I got so frustrated atthe guy from the phone company was a total idiot, I thought I had better switch gears for a while until I settled down. I ordered my second phone line on the conputer, which was what I should have done in the first place. In a good note, Lyle found a potential investor for our company, we are having dinner with him and his wife tomorrow night. Every body pray for the best!
Love you,
a

I saved the computer! Don't be too impressed, all I did was turn it back on, and strangely, it worked. I am NOT going to try to reinstall that printer. I called Charlene this morning, and found out her sad news. I wish there was something I could do!

I can't save anything because I can't get into the computer! It crashes when I turn it on. :( Yes, Nancy wanted to home schooL Ashley, she did home school her for kindergarten, and Ashley hated it, for a while she wouldn't even color because she thought she wasn't good enough at it. Since Nancy works full time, she gave "lesson plans" to Lyle's Mom, who is NOT a disciplinarian and didn't want to do it. Rather than say no to Nancy, she did it, but was resentful, and when Ashley whined about not wanting to do a lesson, Grandma gave in. If Lyle's Mom had been on Nancy's side on that one, we would have had to go to court to have her put in school, as it was we had to get a lawyer to write her a letter. Adventist School is a school that is part of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Adventists (lyle's parents and ex wife) believe that his woman who lived in the late 1800's was a prophet, and anything she says is more sacred than the bible. They are vegetarians and they go to church on Saturdays, instead of Sundays. They have other odd stuff too, Lyle says it was more rigid when he was a kid.

They have a reading program at the library, but we only have Ashley for three weeks in the summer, so it is hard to do a lot with her. Anyways, I hate talking about such depressing things. I hope I can fix this computer thing.

I broke my computer! I tried to install the new printer on it, and I seem to have angered it. Windows will not even start up, it just says I have a fatal OE exception. I restarted it like twenty times. If you reinstall windows, do you lose everything on your hard drive? I couldn't find the Compaq "rescue" disk, or the WIn 98 one, so I didn't try it. If I have to reinstall, I am going to install XP. I have a copy of it from Lyle's laptop (which I am currently on. I don't know if it is better or not, but I like using it. And I love the previews it gives you on pictures.) All in all, I unpacked two boxes of books, and cut out four bodices (all different) one of which may or may not become my wedding dress bodice, and broke the computer I was supposed to be setting up for my new business. Great day, all in all. (note the sarcasm.) Lyle came home two hours early, and he went out and got me a burger. I love that man. He is watching yet another rerun of lethal weapon. Wasn't MIB 2 awesome, retta? We had to see it in the theatre, we were so excited aboutn it. We also went to see Bruce Almighty Friday night, it was pretty good. I liked it a lot. It made me cry once, though. Lyle said it was because it was so real. I won't ruin it for you. Anyways, I'm off to bed, it is almost ten.
Night!!!

Well. Lyle gets along with his mother on the surface, but very superficially, he feels like since he got divorced from Nancy, they would rather keep Nancy than him. Mostlt it is because Beverly (Lyle's Mom) gets to see Ashley, and she always wanted a girl (Lyle says) so she would rathr give up her boy than "lose" her girl. Part of it I always thought was that the religion thing made it bad for him to have been divorced, but at Lyle's Dad's birthday he had kids there from two other marriages! One woman wouldn't come because she said that Ernie had nothing to do with her when she was growing up so why should she bother now. I was talking to Dawn, Lyle's niece who is ten days older then him, and she was saying that only the sons got to know him because they could work in the shop. I'd like to know more about why they never visited because it might help me to understand Lyle's mom better. Dawn and I are going to keep in touch via email. It might also explain why when Lyle insisted that Ashley go to real school, his mother sat there and cried that we were trying to take Ashley away from Nancy. I told her in no uncertain terms that I had no plans to have children, didn't want them, and only loved Ashley because she was part of Lyle, but didn't want her. Then she cried about me not wanting kids. So I told her I couldn't physically have kids, and reminded her about the twins we lost. She was all confused then, she couldn't accuse me of loving Ashley too little or too much. That accomplished little other than her telling Nancy she didn't want to be involved in things that were between Nancy and Lyle. That was a while ago. She is still mean to me, but I refuse to stoop to her level and I am always nice. When we leave I write down all the mean things she says so that I don't have to be mad about them anymore. Lyle's Dad is sweet, though, mostly.

When Ashley is at her Grandma's she calls him every day that we know she is there. (During the school week she is there every night because her Mom works nights as a nurse.) She never calls from Nancy's. If her school weren't two hours away from us, we could have her, but that is why Nancy moved to the outer edge of the county. She has to stay inside the county where Lyle works, but unfortuneately it is a big county. The only way she would put Ashley in school is if she went to an Adventist school, so she goes to a five room school house that does up to grade 8. So far it is hard to tell how she is doing, her marks are okay, but she still tells me she can't read, and hates to do it (at bedtime she has to read the first three pages, then I'll finish the book), and at the grocery store if she wanrs a treat, she can usually have it if she reads the box to me. (She cheats though, and guesses from the pictures! - she picked up cool cocoa spoons and thought it was cocoa puffs - it was cute). Her printing is atrocious. We bought practice books for her, but no one has been practicing with her but us. I'm not going to talk about that anymore - too depressing.

A pincushion is a great idea! I've never even learned to knit, so she won't learn that from me. I am so proud of Chuck! I hope it goes well for her. Remind her she is not behind, she just has to jump in where she is. I tried to call earlier but there was no answer. I needed to remember that this morning. I want to go out and scrapbook, just to get out of the house. But the house needs some projects done - the weekly cleaning is done, but I have a dress to make and books to unpack and tile to fix in the bathroom - lots of little honey dos. I am going to "clean" (meaning do projects) and sew in fifteen minute timer times, and let the sewing be the break for the projects. I have to move my other computer out into the new desk I made, out of Ashley's room. I keep thinking of new things I want to do. Yuck! Wish me luck - I'll update you on my progress.

The pics Mike sent were sweet. I am glad you're feeling better. My fifteen minures a day of blogger didn't work out as planned. I am caught up on my email, though. I did that last Thursday. On Friday I went to the Great American Scrapbook Convention in Arlington - there were 25,000 sf of scrapbook stuff. I have decided that I am going to start my own product line. I have a couple of ideas, and I am really excited. I am going to focus on the construction business first, because it is bigger money faster, but so far it seems like the start up costs for insuarnce and all are also bigger money needed faster. The Small Business people were no help at all - she was actually quite depressing. She even emailed me an apology for being so depressing! Then at that conference I found a scrapbooking company that is both Canadian and American, I have been thinking about being a consultant for them, like Jessie does with C & M. I love to scrapbook, so this might be really fun. I met this sweet lady who started her own scrapbooking company and she was telling me all about how she started - she designed six different papers. That was it. And she started selling them at tradeshows. Then she added little things one at a time, and she and her sister have both quit their jobs to do this full time.

We have had Ashley since last Friday. We found out that her mother had dropped her off at Lyle's grandmother on Wednesday of last week, and since they had so much company for Lyle's Dad's 80th birthday, Ashley had to sleep on the floor. Ashley's Mom had picked her up at three o'clock on Friday, just in time to meet me to drop her off at five. Lyle's Mom often has Ashley, but we don't know about it, so we don't have the opportunity to have her. I feel bad for Lyle because it is like his Mom and his ex-wife conspire against him. Lyle's Mom was telling Lyle's aunt that she would have Ashley until Thursday, when Nancy was leaving for Michigan, and I was so proud of him, he jumped right in and said - "Wait, if Nancy does not want to have her then I will, she's my daughter. We'll keep her until then." Lyle's Mom just looked at him, all shocked. He called Nancy on Sunday, and left a message on her cell phone, and she called him back on Tuesday. I wish they would get along better, because Ashley always wants to call her Mom before she goes to bed and Nancy never answers when she sees our number. The saddest part is that Ashley knows it, because when I got the new cell phone she wanted to call on it because it was a new number "Mommy doesn't know", and Nancy did answer that first call. I always tell her Mommy must have gone to the bathroom or run to the mailbox or something, but she just looks at me like I am nuts.

It is definitely true that having a kid in the house makes it harder to get stuff done. Instead of working for an hour at a time on tasks, we set up the timer for 45 minutes, and I would get Ashley started on a craft or a toy and play for fifteen minutes with her, then work for 45 on business stuff. She got really good at telling time on the timer,
and at thinking of new things to do. We meant to sew a Barbie dress and do a scrapbook page, but didn't get around to either. Part of that is because my "studio" where my craft stuff is, is overflowing with wedding stuff. I think I will get ready for both of those things ahead of time for her next visit. Well, maybe for the scrapbooking page, But I'd like her to figure out sewing the way Mom taught me, from the beginning. I still remember that library book from the library that had the Barbie patterns in it. I got her some patterns off ebay last year for her birthday. Her cutting skills are good enough now to cut out the patterns.

I have been trying to email Charlene my cool schedule that I have on the fridge for chores (I am a day ahead this week because Thursday is grocery day and I went yesterday while Ashley was with me, because she likes it.) but her mailbox is full. Bummer. I guess I'll have to mail her one...hey - that's a great idea! Of course, Monday being "I love Lyle day" (I changed that from Laundry day because there is no frigging way I am doing all my laundry in one day!) might not work for her, but...she can modify it. I'll email you a copy, whee. It is great - Each day has five or six chores, and that's it. And my zones are on the bottom, but I am not doing those consistently yet. A lot of them are hard because i DON'T HAVE THE ITEM IN QUESTION - I.E.the sink! I know, no excuses. I have started to do them while I am making supper - I am up and waiting on stuff to cook anyways between five and five-thirty. Anyways, love you all, talk to you soon. Glad you're feeling better whee.

HI! I am dropping in for the first tiem since I was in Mohannes - I am not caught up on my email yet, although I am almost there. I am only allowing myself 15 minutes of email time, twice a day, because I am on WAY too long otherwise, but i am going to switch to 15 email and fifteen blogger for a while now that I am almost caught up in emails. I have a meeting with the small business administration lady on Wednesday. This morning I spent two hours working on my business plan, and I just spent a half an hour reading tax law. On wednesday I am also going to go to the library to look for some "Starting a business for dummies" books, because I am surprised by the number of things I didn't know I had to do that I keep finding out about from unexpected places. Today is your dr appt, whee, hope you are feeling better. Rolana, I am so sorry I didn't get a chance to see ou while I was home. I was going tp drop in at the greenhouse on Monday but when we went downtown I forgot. The trip was a little stressful for me. I had a great time visiting though, I feel like I got to catch up with my sisters again - I had been feeling rather lonely. I wonder how Angie and Charlene are doing with their timers? Speaking of the timer, I have sixty seconds left! I have to check on supper, then edit a "how to study" document for Lyle. We have no tv, our cable is out, so it is surprisingly quiet today in my house. I tried on wedding gowns today, more on that later.

Hi everybody. I hope you are feeling better Loretta. I am so tired lately it is unbelievable. I have to work tomorrow and then I get two days off yeah!! The garden centre has been really busy so far. They have the bulldozers clearing the land for the new store I can't wait. My boss and his wife are telling me my greenhouse is going to be huge.

So what is everyone up too? Sorry I missed you when you were up Andrene. Maybe next time.

Well I haven't been doing much aside from working and at the moment it seems like more than enough. Anyone got any ideas on how to increase your energy level? Maybe I should take up a sport or something.

Right now I think I might just get something to eat take care everyone.

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...