Back to the Blog!

Ok... so I haven't updated the blog since the day we started painting in Teresa's room.

I guess I should at least show that we did finish that wall! It does look good.

Now we're working on the next wall - it is still a work in progress. :( Not sure WHEN we will get to do more on it - might need Grammie or Aunt Anne to come for motivation!!!

If I'm not mistaken, this will be automagically updated into a NOTE on my FaceBook page, too... so maybe now I'll feel like people do read some of this, so I should continue!

Painting!

So, today we painted the ugly pink wall in Teresa's room.
Washed the walls. We pulled the molding off the top, caulked behind it, and then stuck it back up. Worked pretty well! Then painted. Looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Eagle!

We were on our way to Sunday School when I saw this eagle. It was in a tree next to the Anabessacook lake, right on Rt. 202. I turned around and went back, so that the kids could see it, and I could take a picture. This was in Landscape mode, with my zoom, and then cropped here on my computer. One time that I wish I had a more powerful zoom!

Meeting Maddy

So, on Monday we were at Uncle Rich's house in Taunton. My original plan included meeting Maggie and Maddy on a Girls Shopping Trip to Wrentham on Tuesday, but that had fallen apart completely, with Anne's back troubles.

So, instead, Maggie came over to Uncle Rich's house so we could meet Maddy. What a cute baby! Phillip and Maggie played Wii, so Phillip enjoyed the visit. Teresa pushed Maddy in the stroller while Maggie, Maddy, Phillip, Teresa, and I went for a walk. Maggie and I ran out to pick up pizzas, leaving Grandma holding the baby. She didn't mind. :)


Teresa really enjoyed Maddy - she even got in a little babysitting practice.

Teresa changed Maddy,


Teresa fed Maddy her bottle,
and Teresa changed Maddy again before they left!

Vacation Fun!

These are a few pics of the fun we had visiting with Aunt Anne, Uncle Alan, and Abigail over February Vacation. This first pic is what you get when you ask what is in those sandwiches -- "Cheese!" of course! :)

Poor Teresa... on Wednesday evening we were talking, and she says "Please just tell me we aren't having tomato soup and grilled cheese for lunch tomorrow!" --
oops.... we showed her the menu on the fridge, where that was exactly what was planned!!! She'd had that at Grandma's on Tuesday, and at Aunt Paula's on Wednesday! So we did make BagelBites, too, so she could have something different.

Anne has been having back trouble, so our visit was primarily to keep her from lifting, bending, stretching, or getting herself into trouble by doing too much. Boy, is it hard to keep a good woman down! :) But she tried to let us help.

We had a nice time. Looking forward to visiting again when Anne is up for more adventure!

Facebook

My experiment with facebook... I signed in last fall, tried it, and deactivated my account - decided it wasn't worth it. But this month, I reactivated my account, after Teresa said something about Facebook. Figured I should check it out before the kids do! I've been using it for a couple of weeks, and my opinion is...

Mostly, a colossal waste of time!

I got tired of the silliness, sending things to friends, etc. Maybe I'm just cranky, but I just clicked on ignore all the time.

Many of the same people I chat with on Facebook are the same ones I already chat with on Yahoo IM or on GoogleTalk / GMail. I don't need yet another thing to check to be in touch with those people. (you know who you are LOL!)

There are other people I've connected with that I had lost touch with. It has been nice to catch up, I will miss bumping into these folks. I hope you will check out my blog occasionally, and drop me an email or an IM once in a while! I've got a LinkedIn account, I find that useful for connecting, too - and not the nonsense.

While it's not quite the reason I'm stopping FaceBook, I do have some privacy issues - I know you can limit stuff to just friends. I did that, but preferred to REMOVE data than to leave it there under Facebook privacy rules. Didn't mean to create a stir, but I guess when I removed the "married" status and changed it to blank, FB notified my friends that "Linda is not longer Married". Hmmmm created a stir. Just the sort of issue I don't need to deal with.

It's too public for me to post stuff like "I'm going to head out of town for a week"... but it is a little inane to post "I'm going sit down and read a book now".... If you want to know my current status, feel free to check out my YAHOO IM status (which tends to be pretty accurate, or at least used to be Before FB!). But it's transient, not left around forever, so if I put somethign stupid there, it's not left forever.

So, that's the logic. Mostly, I spend enough (too much!) time on the computer as it is... I enjoy doing this Blog, and haven't done so in too long... partially thanks to Facebook. So, now I AM BACK! And I will have some great pics to post eventually, too....

Brrrrr

Ok, I am officially sick of winter. Tired of it. Ready for warm!!!!!!!!!!

We were scheduled to get oil today anyway... However, my furnace didn't realize that and sucked the tank dry overnight... BRRRRRR!!!! When I woke up at 5:30, it was 47 degrees in the kitchen, 56 in the living room. It was a little warmer upstairs! I crawled back under my covers until nearly 6, then called the oil company to ask to be FIRST on the list.

Kids had breakfast upstairs in the sitting room, with a heater on, got on the bus at 7 AM. Bob and I also had breakfast upstairs, then the oil truck came about 7:45. Jason came in and started the furnace, now Bob knows how, as well. At least oil was $2.429, not $5!!!!! Gotta be thankful for that!!!

I think it's supposed to warm up soon. I hope so.

Catching up!

Wow, I haven't posted in a long time... I'm not going to stress over it, though. Just figured a quick catch-up is in order...

Last weekend, my eye hurt... felt like something in it Friday AM, by Friday night it was painful. Saturday AM called the doc office, was told go to the ER so they could check it out. Got antibiotic eye ointment, and painkillers, and told to follow up with opthamologist on Monday. It was hurting Sunday - when I went in on Monday, (got an 8:20 appt! - YAY!) she said it wasn't healing well, was bumpy - so she smoothed it... rescratched it, basically. But it felt better right away (ok, the anesthetic eye drops might have helped!), and then was healed up overnight. I'm still doing the eye ointment, but other than that, all is good now. But it definitely meant much less computer for a while!!!

Today I have been trying to get this house back in order... last weekend was a loss as far as getting stuff done around here. Today I got the kitchen back in order, got to the dump with a TRUNKFUL of trash, and a BACK SEAT full of recycleables... good to get all that stuff out of the back hall! Now just to take in the two or three bags of returnable cans/bottles, and we will be good!

Teresa had company today, Danny came over to work on their school project together. Sue, Carmen, and TJ came over this afternoon for hot chocolate after they shovelled their camp roof off. TJ, Danny, Teresa, and Phillip played Clue and Life and Rummikube and Shrek Operation - they had a great time together!

I took the boys home, and Bob suggested I bring chinese home for supper. That made supper easy! :) Now I need to fold some laundry, finish picking up the newspaper clutter that I have all over the house .... I was having trouble reading the newspaper, too, but I hate to throw them out without at least scanning through to see important stuff... so I picked up a bunch today, scanned, and tossed. I think there's one or two more in the den, though. But I like to toss them all before I read Saturday/Sunday papers with the ads - gotta get the old ads thrown out so I don't get confused! :)

I have also joined Facebook... so feel free to check it out, and become my friend. :) Main reason I am using it -- because sooner or later the kids will be using it, so I need to know my way around it! But so far, I am enjoying it...

Math Meet pic

Despite all the excitement about the Rambler Revue on Friday night and Saturday night, that wasn't all that Teresa did this past weekend. She also participated in a Math Meet at Gardiner middle school. Their team did awesome!

This is Teresa, between matches - doing the puzzles in my newspaper! Nothing like a little relaxation...

Today I posted a video on YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOCWrI7PJCI

It isn't from the live show, I didn't want to mess with the camera during the show, instead I taped her performance at the dress rehearsal.

If you search for "Rambler Revue" you may also turn up some videos posted by other people!

Rambler Revue

Teresa performed in the Rambler Revue again tonight! It went VERY well, for Teresa, and for all the other performers, too. I think many of them did even better tonight than last night!

Teresa was fun to watch - she did a fun song, the Jonas Brothers version of "What I Go To School For".

It was hard to get photos, since it was pretty dark... here's one...

Now to get everyone rested up and back on schedule... it was another late night tonight, almost 10PM when Phillip went to bed, and 10:30 for Teresa!

Math Meet!

Teresa had a math meet today - so I dropped her at school at 7:00 AM (!!!) so she could ride the bus with the team. I drove separately, it was at Gardiner Middle School, about a half-hour from here.

They did great -- missed on the first round, but it's double elimination, and they just kept on winning after that, right up until they met the same team again, once that team had lost once.

I don't know how these kids keep all this stuff in their brains, and pull it out in time to answer the questions! Math meets are interesting. There are three rounds, each one is different. Teresa was in round 1 & 2 for the first couple of matches, but then in round 2 & 3 in the later ones, so she got to do a little of everything. Only 3 kids at a time are playing, they have 6 on their team, so they swap out.

That's not a bad day... except that last night, Teresa had her first Rambler Revue performance, and has another one tonight... so it makes it a busy weekend. And right now, we're off to church because she's an altar server today. Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Joyce (Grandma's sister) were here for tea earlier this afternoon, now they are headed back south to MA before the snow hits. They came up to go to the Rambler Revue last night!

I will post again later, hopefully with pics of the peformance! But I thought I should post now, since I have missed the past couple of days!

Tree is still up...

It is the Twelfth Day of Christmas, and our tree is still up.

Oh, well, it's pretty!

I managed to get a lot of stuff done around here today. Unfortunately, it's mostly paperwork, and the result is a full trashcan, which doesn't really make the place LOOK much better!

Teresa had her rehearsal for the Rambler Revue tonight, on the stage, even. Phillip and I watched - she's gotten pretty good, with all this rehearsing! I'm impressed! I am looking forward to the show on Friday and Saturday, I think she will do great!

Snow is predicted for tomorrow... Snow, I can handle. Sleet, though, will really be a bummer. I hope that school isn't cancelled!!!!!!

Back to routine!

Today was a good day. It seemed VERY LONG, though, all of us agree. Good to be back in the routine - but hard to get everything done that we needed to!

Kids did get their homework done after school tonight, BEFORE any computer time! :) I got a bunch of things done today, but there sure are lot still on my list!!!

Nothing very exciting to report, I'm afraid...

:)

Do You See What They See?

So, here Teresa and Phillip are looking at the tree with Jubilee Specs - special glasses, like 3-d glasses, except that they make bright points of light look like stars.

They were a gift to us several years ago, and we keep them with our Christmas stuff because the kids love them.




So I had to experiment - see what a picture would look like, if I took it through one of the lenses.

It actually came out pretty well!

Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Teresa got a lot more grown-up type of stuff this year - here's her new jacket! She also got a scientific calculator, a 4GB thumb drive, a new backpack, and some locker stuff - so she should be all ready for school to start! She did get some fun things, too... a bead kit, a drawer/closet alarm, etc..

Phillip of course loves his transformers best. He got Optimus Prime AND Megatron, so he's had a great time with those. He also got a bunch of other stuff, Santa was very good to these kids, and so were their parents, grandparents, and other relatives and friends!

Grammie and Grampie visited with us today, and will be back for breakfast in the morning. We got to do Christmas with them today. I think I got one picture today, maybe I will get that transfered to my computer tomorrow.

2009 continues on...

2009 continues on, and I'm posting again, already!

Today was a nice family day. The four of us played Clue and LIFE, we had a really good time. And then I decided it was too late to deal with making supper, I went out and picked up pizza! We had pizza in the den and watched SPACEBALLS (the movie). Funny stuff! It is amazing how much more Teresa picks up in a movie than she used to... she's definitely getting older!

No pictures today, either... still not motivated enough for that. I will eventually get back to posting photos!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

All four of us stayed up until midnight this time... had gingerale toasts!

First day of 2009 seems to have gone okay. I asked the kids if they have any New Years Resolutions, but they don't. So I'm giving them some goals. LAUNDRY will go into their HAMPERS, and their BEDS will be MADE every morning. So far, we've only missed one day this year! :)

Phillip played HyperDash this afternoon. I did one round with him - but it's too energetic for me! I was going to take a short video, but my camera batteries were too low.

It was a nice quiet day, the biggest excitement has been watching Cartoon Network's marathon of Looney Toons! It's got some great stuff - classics, like the Rabbit of Seville, the original singing frog, Kill the Wabbit... fun to watch!

Might even be a New Year's Resolution to post here daily. Maybe... keep watching!