It Happened Again!

It seems like. since Iz started school last Fall I haven't really been as committed to the ole blog as I used to be - part of the reason is because I feel like I barely see my girl, part is that I don't take nearly as many pics as I used to and I know that's all anyone wants to see anyway and part is because things have been pretty darn boring around the L house for the past couple months.

But here's a little catch-up for you....

First of all...

HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY

Jimmy Jim Jimmy Jim Jim Jim Jim!!!!!!!

(how on EARTH is he 20 already?!?)

My CNA class is going well. It's taking a lot more of my time than I had bargained for (studying for the test we take EVERY class!) so that's affected the blog. Plus, that's 3 nights a week that I'm not home with my 2 favorite people and I know you don't want me to recap the stuff I'm learning...some is interesting, some is gross. but most of it is just plain BORING.

Iz was home sick for an entire week from the 12th to 16th so that was rough for everyone. I've never seen her so sick before but she went back to school Monday and made it through the week...though now Hubby has it and he's been struggling through work for days but is spending the weekend crashed on the couch - poor thing :( Not to sound heartless but I'm hoping *fingers crossed* that I don't get it.

Tomorrow is Maple Sunday and we're keeping it low key this year - just going down the street to our "local" sugar shack for some syrup and ice cream.

Then Monday the Book Fair starts. I'm the chairperson so I'll be pretty much living at school for the week. Craziness, I tell ya!

Hopefully I'll have some pictures for you SOON!

Happy Saturday!

War Wound

As I may have mentioned we've been changing things up around here a little. We moved Iz into the bigger bedroom and moved Hubby and all his work/computer/guitar gear into the smaller one (girls NEED more room, you know!). I painted Iz's room a few weeks ago and we're slowly adding the finishing touches but I wanted to keep the momentum going and so I spent last Tuesday painting the spare room. For whatever reason, Hubby didn't really want it to stay purple and yellow with Tinkerbell stuff everywhere . . . I wonder why? Anyway, I picked a nice soft brown for that room and it looks great. The trim and doors still need to be done then I'll be posting pictures :) In the meantime, I thought I'd share my war wound with you.

When painting in the house I prefer not to drag the stepladder up from the basement (stepladders are for sissies!). Instead, I drag both bar stools into the room I'm painting and use those to reach the tops of the walls. Stepping from one to the next and then dragging the first one around to the other side - safe? Not so much. Easy? YES!

Our stools...nice, huh?

I probably should have used the ladder in this room though since I did Iz's entire room without a single incident but, instead, I pressed my luck. And I paid the price :( I went to step up onto a stool to tape off the ceiling and I stepped too close to the edge, the stool tipped and the legs caught MY leg and left me with quite the nice contusion (I learned that BIG word in class - aren't you impressed?). 

Isn't it lovely?

I put the quarter on my leg just to give you an idea of how ginormous the bruise is.

(please excuse the leg hair - it's winter, after all!)

In the last few days is slowly turned into a nice purply greenish yellow nastiness on my leg. Every night the cat is nice enough (not!) to jump up onto the bed and then proceed to step directly ON the sore spot which sends me practically to the ceiling. Ah well, that's what I get for using the wrong tool for the job :)

Be safe people. BE SAFE.

What Happened?

Where have I been? Where are all the pre-Christmas pictures? What have I been doing? Am I done shopping? Am I done wrapping? Am I ready for the big guy in the red suit to come in a couple days?

Well, let me tell you...my laptop died :(

My whole LIFE is on my laptop - all my pictures, my documents, patterns, music, links...everything. I took it to the shop and it's DEAD. The good news is that there's nothing wrong with the hard drive so we were able to save everything (whew!). The bad news is that I'm back to using my old laptop which runs with Vista (blech!) and it doesn't ave a lot of space so I don't have pictures or anything on it to share at this point.

We will be looking for a new laptop after the holidays but for now I'm using an old, slow one. Better than nothing, right? The downside is that pictures and stuff take FOREVER so there won't be a lot of those for a while :/ I have a ton to share - they just have to wait.

Gotta go - cookies to make, a big gift to assemble and last minutes errands to run!

Happy Christmas Eve Eve Eve :)

Catching Up

I'm a slacker. I know it. You don't have to tell me.

If you've been looking at the blog for the last MONTH you probably noticed that I've posted nothing. Nada. Zilch. That all changed today. It's not that I've had nothing to post I've just been busy. AND my laptop ahs had issues. But I back-posted a bunch of stuff this morning and here it all is for quick reference...

Hurricane

Soccer

Apples

Photography

Birthday

Camp

There. That should get you all caught up :)

The Blog Post(s) That Wasn't

I've been a MAJOR slacker lately.

My poor neglected blog. So many posts that will never be.

The post of Iz's field trip last week to the Children's Museum. *


The post of Iz and Mimi drawing in the mud during our walk today.


The post of pictures of girl's weekend with Mel.


These posts will never exist. Why? For whatever reason my camera has been forgotten every day. It sits in my bag. It sits in my van. It sits at home. Not really sure what's going on in my brain but I need to fix it!!!!

Here's to hoping that the next few days will bring more pictures and more BLOGGING!!!! :)

48 Hours

In the last 48 hours...

-Iz's gag reflex kicked in and she puked all over her bed...then she came into our room and did the same thing!

-My van died on the way to the laundromat to dry all the bedding.

-Hubby was home with Iz....and her booster seat was in my VAN!

-Hubby "fixed" the van enough to get me to the laundromat and home.

-Stopped 3 times in the 12 mile ride home from the laundromat to wait for my van to cool & add more water.

-It rained ALL DAY yesterday. While putting water in the van a passer by hit a HUGE puddle on my side of the road....saoking my ENTIRE right side. *sigh*

-Woke up this morning to a flooded basement - knew it would happen because of the terrible design of our bulkhead but....still stinks!

-And, oh yeah, Iz and I made sugar cookies....maybe today we'll get the chance to decorate them!

Happy Monday Y'all!!!! :)

Here's to Hoping

There's 11 days left in November and then the "official" countdown to Christmas begins :) I've already purchased a chocolate advent calendar for Iz (just like last year) and once we get through Thanksgiving we'll drag out the totes of decorations and get this place ready for the big day! I got a magazine in the mail yesterday that included "12 Days of Christmas Cookies" and that's in my plans now too (more on that another day). With a future filled with Christmas cheer and TONS of yummy baked goods I have a plan...

The next time I see someone in the area working in a bucket truck I'm going to beg and plead for them to come to my house and get down this branch:

It came off the top of the tree over a year ago and has been precariously perched over the turn-a-round of our driveway ever since. I might be wrong but I just have a *feeling* about that branch. A feeling that THIS is the winter it's going to come down. A feeling that, when it does come down, it will be on a day when there are people here and parked directly under it, naturally.

So. I'm going to plead. I don't know - if I worked in a bucket truck and some crazy lady came to me with promises of hot coffee and baked goods in exchange for getting a branch down I would take her up on it! What do you think?

Yeah, I think I'm outta luck....but, here's to hoping!

Busy

Sheesh! I feel like I've really been neglecting my blog lately...

I haven't been taking a lot of pictures and, honestly, not a whole lot has been going on around here.

At the same time, I'm just so BUSY! Monday, Wednesday & Friday Iz has school, Wednesday afternoon are our Auntie D/Ellie day, Tuesday mornings is ballet PLUS I have Jimmy before/after school at least two days a week....whew! It's taken me these six weeks of school to find a routine and get into a groove and I think I've got it figured out so here's to more picture taking and more blogging in the future :)

Happy Monday ALL!!!

Grrrrrrr....

....I am having trouble uploading pictures from last week!!!!
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Iz, Auntie D and I went "Upta Camp" and I have a TON of pictures to share with you.
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Maybe tomorrow?
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Patriots Day

Today is Patriots Day.

For those of you not fortunate enough to live in Maine and EXTREMELY fortunate enough not to live in Massachusetts today is a holiday celebrated only here and there which serves no other person than to inconvenience people like me.

People who drove 20 miles ONE WAY to go to the library only to discover that it was CLOSED!!!

Patriots Day. UGH!

I'm *Almost* Ready

What a GREAT weekend!

The weather was SO nice here on Saturday.....close to 70 degrees and we spent the entire day outside! Hubby worked on splitting wood, I raked and Iz played with Callie :) The perfect day was topped off with grilled chicken for dinner and a Handy Manny special on TV :)

Yesterday, Mel and I snuck out, sans kids, to do our Easter shopping. We kept each other in check....both of us tend to go overboard when it comes to shopping for our kiddos....and got pretty much everything that we need :) It's nice not to have to worry about it this week since we'll be "Upta Camp" for the next few days!!! I'll need to figure our what I'm making food-wise for Easter but, other than that, I'm ready - YIPPEE!

There was only one thing missing yesterday.....we couldn't find any of THESE anywhere (Mel's Hubby loves them as much as I do!)....seriously? Now, I'm on the hunt and I WILL get my fix! :)

ANOTHER One of THOSE Weeks

It seems like every couple months I go through a week where I have nothing to blog about. This was that week. I didn't take any pictures this week. We didn't really go anywhere new and exciting and the weather has been mild and uneventful.

But....tonight? Tonight, Iz is sleeping over at Mel's house and Hubby and I are going out to dinner....ALONE....by ourselves...Yippee!

Back on Monday, ya'll :)

The Aftermath

Friday I brought Hubby to get the rest of the items out of his work vehicle and to pick up a rental.

At first it didn't look too bad.


Still not too bad.


Oh, there it is.


What a mess!


I'm thinking 99% of the damage was done underneath the car. We're waiting for the estimate to be finished. Totalled????? Maybe. We'll see :)

Rain Rain GO AWAY!!!

It POURED rain ALL DAY yesterday! And I mean P.O.U.R.E.D.

It stunk. Our basement flooded. Hubby spent a bunch of time outside chipping away at the ice around the bulkhead (where all the water was coming in) trying to dig a trench.

We went into "town" today to pick up Hubby's rental car and get the rest of the stuff out of his work car and most places were closed. Nanni & Papa, Auntie D and WW all were out of power from about midnight until 1 this afternoon. Surprisingly enough up here in the boonies we just had a flicker and that was it :) Hubby bought a wet/dry vac while he was out today so clean-up will begin when he gets home. I picked up the grocery necessities we needed to last through the weekend and we're planning on staying in for the next few days since it's supposed to keep RAINING! Ugh!

What a storm.

On a lighter note...Wednesday afternoon S stopped by to pick up the baby sled we have to take Ellie out X-Country Skiing on their several acres of land. I stole this ADORABLE picture from L's FB page :)


Ellie just keeps getting cuter and cuter! L said one lap around the yard and Ellie was asleep :)

I'm going to batten down the hatches...gonna be a looooooong weekend!

Storm Update

Well....it's 5pm...it's been alternating between snow and rain and freezing rain pretty much all day which has resulted in a couple inches of wet, HEAVY, messy and slippery slush.

I spent the day down at Nannie and Papa's prepping for Papa's return home from rehab (Tomorrow!) and when I got home it took me FIVE tries before I got the van up the driveway!!!

The Slushy Walkway

The Slushy Deck

The Slushy End of the Driveway

(Notice the mound of slush at the end where the plows pushed even MORE slush off the road!)

UGH! Enough. What a mess! Luckily, I don't think temps are going to dip low enough tonight to freeze everything into a solid rock....thank goodness for small miracles.

It's Been QUITE a Week!

It started out normal enough....Monday and Tuesday Iz and I stuck around the house. We did some cleaning, some de-cluttering, some movie watching, some Princess Yahtzee playing....you know, TYPICAL.
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Wednesday STARTED normal with a trip to the library for story hour (Valentine's - CUTE!) and then we picked up Auntie D to head to the rehab center for a Family Meeting regarding Papa. This was a follow-up meeting to the first one we had a few weeks ago.
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The GOOD News? Papa is doing VERY well - responding very well to all his therapy, he's off the oxygen they had him on, he's moving better, he's vocalizing things better and as even lost a little weight :) They expect him to be able to come home in a couple weeks.
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Screeeeeeetch! WHAT? Two weeks?!? As wonderful as that sounds it sent us into a bit of a mad flurry. See, before Papa can come home we need to put in a shower on the first floor of my parent's house AND set up a bedroom on the first floor.
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That's what yesterday was all about. Auntie D and I headed up and started packing up Nannie's belongings to make way for Uncle P and S to start demolishing the closet in the front room and the wall surrounding it in order to expand the bathroom.
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We started at about 12:30 and left around 6:30....I was dirty, smelly, and READY for a shower, my comfy pants and bed.
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Iz had ballet this morning then we headed BACK to Nannie's for more of the same. Unfortunately, by the time we got there Iz was feeling rotten and I ended up doing absolutely nothing before heading home so Iz could recuperate.
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Whew! What a week!
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Thankfully tonight is LADIE'S NIGHT at HC......Yippee!!!
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I'm Doomed...

Well, it's been a week since several inches of cold, white stuff fell from the sky forcing Hubby to stay home from work and throw off my groove. I DID get it back, though. I watched my eating a little better last week and had the *pleasure* of Jillian kicking my butt a couple times with her 30 Day Shred (LOVE it! But it's a rough 20 minutes!). I also plan on getting "shredded" today and tomorrow before Iz and I head UPTA CAMP with Auntie D for a couple days.
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However, all the shredding in the world will not help me now. While out getting new tires on the van I made a quick stop to get Thank You notes for Iz to send out for her birthday gifts and THIS is what was calling my name on the counter at CVS.
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Cadbury Mini Eggs. They're dangerous. Seriously. I WAS able to resist the big bag and just get a tiny one for 75 cents, which I split (almost evenly) with Iz on the way home. They were good. TOO good. The crunchy candy coating. The chocolaty inside. I'm in trouble. Why? Well, not to go into too much detail, but I have a certain "monthly visitor" arriving soon (you know what I mean, right girls?) and, due to my extreme chocolate craving during that time (and, let's be honest, the rest of the month too!) I see a whole heaping mess of Mini Eggs coming into this house and going straight into my mouth (and henceforth straight to my BUTT!).
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I'm doomed.
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* image credit

Four-Year Check-Up

Iz had her 4-year physical this morning.
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44 pounds...40 inches tall...right on track size-wise :)
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Dr. M asked Iz a TON of questions (in fact, it was like I wasn't even there) and Iz passed with flying colors :) Dr. M was especially impressed with Iz's unprompted use of "please" and "thank you" and also her imagination.
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Whew! I always get myself worked up about Iz's doctor visits. Like I'm going to go in there and they're going to discover something about her that deems me unfit to be her mother. Or (and this is definitely possible) Iz will rat me out about something that will make me want to crawl into a hole and wait for the end of time...and she will be repaid when she's a teenager and my very existence will make her want to crawl into a hole :) Tee hee hee!
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How Can It Be...

....that I can shop for HOURS at Wallyworld AND the grocery store AND get gas, spending close to 200 smackeroos and within 10 minutes of being home remember almost 10 things I forgot to buy which will probably cost me close to another 50 bucks???
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Shop with a list, you might say.
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The problem? I HAD a list....and it was a doozie. I stuck to my list too, meaning all that money I spent was not on a bunch of extra junk we don't need (I only bought one thing not on the list but it IS something we need AND it was half price...totally justifiable). The problem is that there were things that I need that I did not put on the list. Obvious things too - I'm doing a spaghetti dinner this weekend and forgot not only garlic bread but the stuff I need to make sauce! Hello?!? I got meatballs but no tomato sauce? Seriously? It may have been all the "help" Iz gave me while we shopped but I think it's more like the fact that I can be quite a dim-witted idiot at times and it's been a heck of a week.
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So, tomorrow, which was supposed to be a day at home getting ready for the busy weekend will now begin with a "quick" and probably expensive trip to town to get everything I forgot. UGH! At least there's a DD there so I can get my iced coffee fix :) Gotta look on the bright side, right?
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Meltdowns

There have been two meltdowns in this family this week...one major, one minor (surprisingly, neither meltdown was mine!).
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MAJOR MELTDOWN:
On Monday I left Iz at Auntie D's house while I went to the hospital to see what was going on with my Dad (long story...maybe another day). Iz spent a few hours there and I picked here up on the way home (it's about 20 miles from Auntie D's to home). About ONE mile from home Iz declares that she forgot her pine cone Christmas thing at Auntie D's house (I had ZERO clue what she was talking about) and I had to TURN AROUND and go get it. Um? No. *insert MAJOR meltdown here*
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MINOR MELTDOWN:
Hubby rented a movie yesterday (a bad one at that...I ended up picking up my book halfway through and ignoring the TV completely until it was over). He popped the movie in the DVD player and grabbed our "universal" remote (well universal as in it will run the TV, DVD, and stereo but NOT our satellite so we still have 2 remotes floating around) and attempts to change the TV to the correct station to watch his movie. Nothing happens. He replaces the batteries. Nothing happens. *insert minor meltdown here*
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Sometimes it's just the littlest things that set us off around here :)
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Note: Hubby WAS able to watch his movie after I opened the drawer next to the couch and got the ACTUAL TV and DVD remotes, which work fine. I also reprogrammed the Universal one so there shouldn't be any meltdowns about that in the near future AND we got Iz's pine cone thing when we stopped at Auntie D's today. Phew!
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