Tuesday, October 25, 2005

It's been awhile

okay, it's been a little crazy. I usually get to post here on Sunday's but pulled a double shift at work and I'm apparently a whimp cause I was toast after that. Baby sat Gabby yesterday and had to get ready for a Pampered Chef party last night. So decided I needed to catch a few minutes here today. There's something about just recording my thoughts about what's going in life that helps me to keep centered a little.
Jamies sister usually watches Gabby when she goes to work, but Shannon is almost ready to have her own baby and is having some contractions so I get to pinch hit until she has hers. Pat and Wil like to help so i have it pretty easy. It is soooo fun. She's such an adorable bundle.

Ben graduates from boot camp on Friday morning so we're heading down tomorrow. Tom and Jamie are going too so the whole family will be there. Everyone is looking forward to seeing Ben. He sounds like he's changed alot. More mature and self assured. He say's he's bulked up. I can hardly wait......I'm hoping to get a good family pic.

Monday, October 17, 2005

I hate mornings!!!

I'm not a morning person. Never have been, never will be. I've accepted this about myself but it doesn't make mornings any easier. I used to feel guilty about not being fully functional in the am. But I heard a sermon once about how people are created soooo differently and one of the ways that comes out is that people are productive at different times of the day. It was a defining moment of my life, I didn't have to be pleasant right the moment I wake up? It's okay that I don't get much done in the morning? When 2 pm hits and I kick in I need to take advantage of it. I can get more done in and hour in the afternoon than the whole morning. This is why I like to work at the restraunt more during the night shift than over the lunch hour (thank goodness I don't have to do that too often). When Marty is ready to go to bed at 9:30 and I'm wide awake, that's okay! When he's out of bed at 6am and out the door 20 minutes later, that's okay, I don't have to make him breakfast (he's a smart man, he figured out early on that it's much better if he doesn't try to have a serious conversation right when I wake up, I either don't respond well or don't respond at all). So after hearing that sermon I felt FREE. Thanks Pastor Norm!!!!!
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Marty and the boys moved our pond last week. It used to be up in the train layout but we never were very happy with where it was. It wasn't in a place where you could just sit and enjoy it. After visiting some friends last summer who had their pond just out their back door off their deck we decided to move ours closer to the house and right off the patio. it's so wonderful to walk out and hear the water flowing over the fall and see the fish swimming around. I need to get on Marty's computer and get a couple of pics to post have to work on making the patio a little bigger. It entails digging and setting down bricks so that may take a little while, don't know if I'll get it done before the first snow. Marty said that's my project as he thinks the patio is just fine as it is.
I haven't had any gazeboo time lately, hopefully this evening I can go up and sit for a little bit, if I'm up there everyone else usually ends up there too. It's the whole 'where's mom and why would she want to enjoy some 'quiet' philosophy. I watch as one by one they come out the door look around and spot me. It's the same as my phone magnet philosophy, if I was on the phone all the boys were irresistably drawn to me. I could move from room to room and they would just follow me around the house and bicker. And it's not just the boys. Every once in awhile I'll decide to veg out in my room, I'm not hiding but it's upstairs and quiet. It's really quite sweet but they all have this compulsion to 'check' up on me. Marty is usually the first one and unless I'm pms'ing and really nasty he'll come up every once in awhile to see if I need anything. If I'm nasty they flee in fear. Smart men.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Another Sunday

Time for my Sunday update. Good news. Tom asked Jamie to marry him this week and she said yes! She's sporting a beautiful rock that I'm totally jealous of. I love this pic of the three of them. They plan on getting married in June of 07' so lots of time to plan. So I have two girls joining the family!!!!! Some day there may be enough to outnumber the men, sweet justice. (BWA-HAA-HAA)
We're busy making plans for Ben's graduation from Basic Training. The whole family is going down for two nights. Pat started working as a bus boy at the Embers. He brought home a good little wad of money after he got tipped out. We always tip the bussers 10% so as he was the only one today and they were busy he did pretty well. Wil is still pretty nervous about holding Gabby. She's starting to hold her head up so I think he'll start getting comfortable. Life just keeps marching on, everyday has some new and exciting thing to look forward to. God is VERY good!

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Blah, blah,blah,blah, BLAH

I've been in a funk since Sunday. BLAH. I finally FEEL like I want to accomplish something. I've been getting stuff done but d-r-a-g-g-i-n-g. For some reason when i woke up this morning something was different. Who knows what but my attitude was magically changed, I care what I look like, I've done a couple loads of laundry, I'm unpacking my supplies from scrapping on Saturday, I'm writing a letter to Ben, I don't want to tell everyone to just go away.....magic. Part of it may be that I'm not working tonight and I'll be able to watch Alias (shallow, but true). I'm going to be home to make supper and eat it with my family (a noble endeavor).
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I started an album about me, have been thinking of it for awhile and came across these photos of me laughting as a lil one. Seems that remembering to laugh has been on my mind a lot lately, I haven't been doing it enough. I started a thread on one of the on line communities I belong to listing 5 things that make you laugh. Seems that I'm not the only one that needed to think about it. so that's how this page was born. I'm working in 8x8 which makes it soooo much simpler. I'm gonna title the album "Things that make me". I get to make an album all about meeeeeee. In some ways it seems a little self centered (I need to get over that, I know). Reflecting on my life is a good thing to do, get a little perspective on who I've become, what is important to me, what has shaped me. So here's to ME!

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Of mice and Melanie

OF MELANIE: I'll start with Melanie, my lil sis. She spent the weekend with us. No matter how long she's here it's not long enough. We looooove to play scrabble and had a couple of good games. As in we kinda impressed ourselves with the words we came up with. That's not saying to much as we usually end up with quite a few 3 letter ones.
OF MICE: So I'm trimmin her hair Sat am and we keep hearing this rattling sound. I'm trying to see where it's coming from when I notice my potholders moving in the container on the kitchen counter. Of course I did my 'ewww a mouse' dance. Then we started moving things. The mouse leaps out of the potholders and back behind the stove. So a little later Wil and Mel are sitting at the counter talking and Mel notices a twitchy little nose poking from under the stove. I made Lasagna a little later and haven't heard the mouse since then HMMMMM.
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I went to the saddest funeral yesterday. A girl I used to work with lost two children in a house fire. I've never seen so many grown men cry. Tina and her 3 month old daughter made it out of the house. How do you go on after that????

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

remembering....

I've been scrapping some old family pics I got from my mom and ran across this of my brother Brian and I from about 40 years ago, goodness that makes me seem ancient. It was always hard to get Brain (yeah I called him that, it irritated him and he's also extrememly smart) to stand still long enough to get a shot of him. Back then they just called him 'high strung' today he would have been labeled with ADHD. He had a little bit of a temper (understatement) and I would prod and torment him until he attacked me, he would usually get in trouble as he was the one that caused bodily harm. Little angel me would get away with provoking him. He was and still is a pretty sensative guy, he tries to hide it but those who know him well see it. I know he feels things deeply and intensely.
I'm sure that we really wanted to jump in the water and get all wet but if I remember right (ha, I can't remember what I did yesterday) we couldn't. And it REALLY bugged us.
Today I need to work on the accounting side of the business, oh sooooo fun. And then finish up some ATC's (artist trading cards) I'm doing for a swap. I've been on a little creativity binge and have been getting some layouts done and have actually liked them. Sometimes I'll get done with one, step back and get a good look and not have been really happy. Most times I just shrug the shoulders and say 'oh well' then go on to the next one. Sometmes I'll have to rip it all apart and start over. That seems to mean that it will take awhile for that particular layout to come together, like maybe months.
This is an example of one of 'those' layouts. I got the basics down and then got stuck on the 'sisters' ribbon thingy. I'm still not too sure I like it, it just doesn't seem right. With one of 'these' layouts I'll usually stick it in a page protector then hang it from my shelf so it stays in front of me, just waiting to be completed, for the muse to hit and the perfect element to be found. So I may end up changing this one, maybe add a layer of vellum over the sisters ribbon thingy to soften it up. By jove I think she's got it!!! Wow this bloggy thingy is great. I just talked myself into a solution.
BTW this is my great grandma and her sisters. Gotta love the dresses. "Mom can I have a dress just like Great Gma Katie's?"

Saturday, October 01, 2005

This is how they do it baby





This is how you 'do' a steam up. Get lots of guys with lots of trains each holding a controller for their train and then let them go.



One thing I learned this year is everyone needs to have their controller on a different
frequency.

The date is already set for next year. The plans are already being made.









I got to witness a trainwreck, it had just come out of a tunnel (HA,HA) There weren't too many other wrecks though, a highlight of the weekend for me.









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Here's to 'old' boys playing with their toys