This is another early blog for me in the day. I just shooed Em and JT to the bus stop and couldn't wait to share the latest with you. Again, I pretend lots and lots of people read this so I won't feel as though I'm talking to myself, which is ok, but it makes me feel more sane if I tell myself that. Not that this blog is going to make any sense because Marebear is climbing all over me and demanding that I put her one snow boot on she's been carting around everywhere the last two days.
Anyway! I just distracted her so maybe I can blog my ode to toilet...
I woke up this morning feeling like a bus ran over me. Ricky and I did Pilate's yesterday morning (he bought me the DVD of the lady at the gym we belonged to in AR) and I could hardly get out of bed this morning! I need to start exercising more consistently because I wouldn't feel that way if I did, but I'm getting off track... surprise!
I got the kids and myself fed and headed upstairs to get ready to workout and went to the bathroom and lo and behold what might I find sinking in my toilet? A cute pink children's place sock!! This is a first for me! I've fished all kinds of CRAP out of a toilet, but never an article of clothing...believe me, I was shocked, mostly because the cute little pink sock belonged to my Marebear and I'm fairly certain she did it which much to my shock and horror would completely erase the sweet cute never do anything wrong in her sweet little life image I have of her! And to make matters worse, it would coincide with the biting she's been doing to poor little G and the ball she threw right at my face after we got the kids off to school... what is going on here? I should have entitled this post, Ode to the terrible twos...
So there was the sock in my toilet and believe me, there are few things I do not tolerate, stomach, handle, one of which anyone who knows me is vomit. The other is poop in underwear, (I immediately throw that away because I will NEVER try and get poop out of underwear, call the People for the Unethical treatment of waste for all I care), and thirdly, retrieving ANYTHING from the toilet. I would normally have thrown it away even though it was "clean" toilet water. Is that even a possible phrase? I mean seriously, "clean" toilet water? No.
So I took a deep breath. I couldn't get any of the other children to help me because I didn't want to raise any excitement about items in the toilet! Before you know it, it's pandalerium and there's all kinds of non essential items floating in a toilet... ugh... the thought sends that nauseous feeling in my mouth...
I took the deep breath and picked up the very tip of the sock that was still somewhat above water, but completely soaked since it absorbed almost every ounce of toilet water. I let it drip for what seemed like eternity, feeling like I could easily toss every bit of breakfast back into that toilet... oh, Lord, I prayed, please don't let this child be a throw items in the toilet child...one of my worst fears... Trying to control the urge to absolutely lose all bodily functions, I carefully carried it over to the sink, where it is still at. I will not be removing it from the sink until I'm fully gloved and much better prepared. This was an emergency to get the sock out because I had to actually USE the restroom. So I sterilized the floor, my hands, and anything else I thought the sock may have dripped on. Good grief, I'll need to call a hazmat (that is not spelled right) team in to completely sterilize the entire bathroom including that sink, that I may never possibly use again. (WHY DIDN'T I STICK IT IN RICKY'S SINK?????)
I need to go wash my hands again. I think I missed a spot...
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Grass and air conditioner dude all in one!
All at once...
I had a great week last week, don't get me wrong. I love my kids and spending time with them and whether I have five, two, one, or a dozen, I would have been exhausted with all we did, and I am completely out of shape because I haven't worked out consistently since we moved. I gave up our gym membership with this transfer and I'm beginning to wonder if I made a mistake... (with the gym, of course!)
Anyway, I swore to myself I wouldn't digress, but you're used to it, so oh well!
Last Thursday while we were in Canada for the day, the builder of our home sent his brother and his Kabota tractor (if you know us, you would know that Ricky once had a Kabota tractor once upon a time and he drooled all morning before we left, poor boy) and a few teenage boys to level our yard. Our yard looked like a dump before they leveled it, and they did a decent job of leveling it, although if grass does grow through all the boulders they left, I'll be surprised. But it's leveled and then Friday morning a big truck came to hydro seed the yard. That was one of the "deals" we worked out with the builder. Seems there's a lot of goofy things that don't just "COME" with a new build, one being a yard and landscaping. That being said, anyone who knows of a good landscaper who lives in New York, please send me their name. So the hydro seeder dude came and had this fire hose that literally sprayed the yard green with water and some super fast growing seed that supposedly comes in much quicker than by doing the old fashioned way...here's the catch-one, Ricky and I have to water the lawn and supposedly it's not supposed to dry out, well, minus the last two days of rain, this is going to be tough. You see, the stuff dries really fast and when we watered it on Saturday, it dried within a few hours. Now, did I mention our lot is almost 1 acre? yes, we have almost one acre of land... Now, even if I wasn't the mom of 5 children who do need some attention every now and then, I couldn't fathom spending day and night watering my lawn. Not to mention, you can't water at night up here because a really bad mold/fungus thing grows since the air gets so much cooler at night, so we watered like crazy on Saturday and then did a major rain dance all afternoon and fortunately the rain god was on our side, because it rained until yesterday afternoon... good and soaked you would think, right? Nah. It's already drying out where the sun is hitting it this morning. So... do I water? No I can't because yesterday afternoon the air conditioning dude called and said they would like to install the air conditioner... (remember, some things don't come standard, don't even get me started on the garage door opener we worked out and they installed and now it sounds like it's going to explode...)
So the air dude comes this morning and says he's going to buy some supplies and it will take a few hours to install. Great. Little G has an eye doctor appointment at 12:45. Not looking like they're going to be done before that, so I have to leave my house OPEN TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC, while I run her to the eye doctor... oh well. At least we prepared the general public for the open house by leaving the garage door open ALL NIGHT LONG...
I never admitted I was a genius.
I'll try to get some pictures of the yard and the air dude. Not really sure that's going to happen this time, sometimes it is the thought that counts though, right?
Have a blessed Tuesday.
Anyway, I swore to myself I wouldn't digress, but you're used to it, so oh well!
Last Thursday while we were in Canada for the day, the builder of our home sent his brother and his Kabota tractor (if you know us, you would know that Ricky once had a Kabota tractor once upon a time and he drooled all morning before we left, poor boy) and a few teenage boys to level our yard. Our yard looked like a dump before they leveled it, and they did a decent job of leveling it, although if grass does grow through all the boulders they left, I'll be surprised. But it's leveled and then Friday morning a big truck came to hydro seed the yard. That was one of the "deals" we worked out with the builder. Seems there's a lot of goofy things that don't just "COME" with a new build, one being a yard and landscaping. That being said, anyone who knows of a good landscaper who lives in New York, please send me their name. So the hydro seeder dude came and had this fire hose that literally sprayed the yard green with water and some super fast growing seed that supposedly comes in much quicker than by doing the old fashioned way...here's the catch-one, Ricky and I have to water the lawn and supposedly it's not supposed to dry out, well, minus the last two days of rain, this is going to be tough. You see, the stuff dries really fast and when we watered it on Saturday, it dried within a few hours. Now, did I mention our lot is almost 1 acre? yes, we have almost one acre of land... Now, even if I wasn't the mom of 5 children who do need some attention every now and then, I couldn't fathom spending day and night watering my lawn. Not to mention, you can't water at night up here because a really bad mold/fungus thing grows since the air gets so much cooler at night, so we watered like crazy on Saturday and then did a major rain dance all afternoon and fortunately the rain god was on our side, because it rained until yesterday afternoon... good and soaked you would think, right? Nah. It's already drying out where the sun is hitting it this morning. So... do I water? No I can't because yesterday afternoon the air conditioning dude called and said they would like to install the air conditioner... (remember, some things don't come standard, don't even get me started on the garage door opener we worked out and they installed and now it sounds like it's going to explode...)
So the air dude comes this morning and says he's going to buy some supplies and it will take a few hours to install. Great. Little G has an eye doctor appointment at 12:45. Not looking like they're going to be done before that, so I have to leave my house OPEN TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC, while I run her to the eye doctor... oh well. At least we prepared the general public for the open house by leaving the garage door open ALL NIGHT LONG...
I never admitted I was a genius.
I'll try to get some pictures of the yard and the air dude. Not really sure that's going to happen this time, sometimes it is the thought that counts though, right?
Have a blessed Tuesday.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Total Exhaustion
Whew. I can't tell you how completely exhausted I am today. What on EARTH am I going to do this summer? I need to get in kid shape soon, or come June 22nd, we're all in trouble.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Pictures of Canada!
Driving over into Canada on the Rainbow Bridge. Look, construction! Even in Canada... :)
At least a few of them were excited about the trip... Poor Marebear has had a busy week.
The Maid of the Mist goes right up the humongous Canadian falls. They were magnificent. What a majestic sight.
The kids pose in front of the Canadian Falls. (AKA, Horseshoe Falls...)
Another glorious view of the Horseshoe Falls. Just doesn't do the real thing justice.
The American Falls. Smaller, but just as gorgeous.
The kids and Ricky on an observation deck overlooking the Canadian side of the falls.
What would a trip be without my usual self portrait?
Canada!
OK-I know I haven't posted the pictures yet, but remember how I only use the upstairs for bathing and sleeping? Well, I left the camara up there when we got back from Canada and I haven't had the energy to get back up there tonight. So you'll just have to invision in your mind our fantastic trip to another country.
First, let me tell you how difficult a man who is allowed to legally (and my own personal opinion should be the only one allowed to) carry a firearms come to terms with leaving the country. I can't tell you why he can't carry his weapon into other countries, something about the Geneva convention, or the something or other, who cares, but the point of the matter is, he first has to fill out apparently all kinds of paper work before he leaves the country, and then of course, he can not travel with his gun. This distresses him terribly and not because he thinks anything bad is going to happen, but because he and "his little friend" have become quite close in the last 14 years. He's only left it two other times that I can recall in our marriage and the first was our "quick trip" to the Bahamas back in 1997, and the second was his three week "training" in Israel in 2007. I just realized he only leaves it every 10 years. No wonder today was so hard. Poor baby.
So. Once we got past the "little friend" having to stay here, we ventured to the Rainbow Bridge to cross over into Canada.
It was a pretty easy trek despite some of the horror stories we've heard from the natives here. They basically checked mine and Ricky's passports, and then had each child wave to them when they called their names out from the birth certificates. Like we would be trying to bring any extra with us.... please...
We got over there and paid a million dollars to enter the country, (just kidding, only 3.25, but still, are you kidding?) Then we paid 14 dollars to park, (oh, and did I mention we have toll bridges in NY? yea, already threw down a dollar for that toll in NY, too) This trip is starting to cost us a bundle and we haven't anything to show for it! 20.00 and NO SOUVENIOR???? Oh, maybe a map to keep.
So we had a picnic lunch at the car and were misted on by the Horseshoe Falls, (canadian side) and the kids thought that was great. They had an absolute ball. We walked up and down the side of the gorge and took all kinds of pictures and oohhed and awed over how loud and majestic the falls are on both sides. I will have to say, I know it might look more incredible from the Canadian side, but just looking at the Falls themselves is amazing. Whether you believed God created the earth, or not, something with great intelligence created that monstrousity of a water fall and the design is just breathtaking. I choose to give credit to the All Powerful One. It was beyond words to explain the beauty. Unbelievable.
We spent several hours walking around until Little ME couldn't stand it anymore and decided to give her best performance on our walk back to the car. She didn't want in her stroller and she didn't want to be held and she certainly didn't want to walk. And ONE of us, not mentioning any names, but his initials are RLB, forgot her blankie. Seriously in trouble now. So we hurried as fast as we could to the van to get blankie and snacks and decided to drive around Canada. I'll post the pics and let you enjoy the sites. I will be taking the kids back to Canada (by myself, mind you!) After they get out of school to go to the Butterfly Conservatory. It's on this gorgeous Nature conservation that is just amazing. North of the falls. Can't wait!
And of course when we re-entered the country, the customs officer and Ricky hit if off because he asked what brought us from Arkansas to NY (kids BC have State of Arkansas on them, duh, didn't get it at first either), and we found out he lives in the same town we do and apparently quite a few of the Customs officers live there. Must be a good place!
Have a beautiful, peacefilled, God loving Friday! I know I will!
First, let me tell you how difficult a man who is allowed to legally (and my own personal opinion should be the only one allowed to) carry a firearms come to terms with leaving the country. I can't tell you why he can't carry his weapon into other countries, something about the Geneva convention, or the something or other, who cares, but the point of the matter is, he first has to fill out apparently all kinds of paper work before he leaves the country, and then of course, he can not travel with his gun. This distresses him terribly and not because he thinks anything bad is going to happen, but because he and "his little friend" have become quite close in the last 14 years. He's only left it two other times that I can recall in our marriage and the first was our "quick trip" to the Bahamas back in 1997, and the second was his three week "training" in Israel in 2007. I just realized he only leaves it every 10 years. No wonder today was so hard. Poor baby.
So. Once we got past the "little friend" having to stay here, we ventured to the Rainbow Bridge to cross over into Canada.
It was a pretty easy trek despite some of the horror stories we've heard from the natives here. They basically checked mine and Ricky's passports, and then had each child wave to them when they called their names out from the birth certificates. Like we would be trying to bring any extra with us.... please...
We got over there and paid a million dollars to enter the country, (just kidding, only 3.25, but still, are you kidding?) Then we paid 14 dollars to park, (oh, and did I mention we have toll bridges in NY? yea, already threw down a dollar for that toll in NY, too) This trip is starting to cost us a bundle and we haven't anything to show for it! 20.00 and NO SOUVENIOR???? Oh, maybe a map to keep.
So we had a picnic lunch at the car and were misted on by the Horseshoe Falls, (canadian side) and the kids thought that was great. They had an absolute ball. We walked up and down the side of the gorge and took all kinds of pictures and oohhed and awed over how loud and majestic the falls are on both sides. I will have to say, I know it might look more incredible from the Canadian side, but just looking at the Falls themselves is amazing. Whether you believed God created the earth, or not, something with great intelligence created that monstrousity of a water fall and the design is just breathtaking. I choose to give credit to the All Powerful One. It was beyond words to explain the beauty. Unbelievable.
We spent several hours walking around until Little ME couldn't stand it anymore and decided to give her best performance on our walk back to the car. She didn't want in her stroller and she didn't want to be held and she certainly didn't want to walk. And ONE of us, not mentioning any names, but his initials are RLB, forgot her blankie. Seriously in trouble now. So we hurried as fast as we could to the van to get blankie and snacks and decided to drive around Canada. I'll post the pics and let you enjoy the sites. I will be taking the kids back to Canada (by myself, mind you!) After they get out of school to go to the Butterfly Conservatory. It's on this gorgeous Nature conservation that is just amazing. North of the falls. Can't wait!
And of course when we re-entered the country, the customs officer and Ricky hit if off because he asked what brought us from Arkansas to NY (kids BC have State of Arkansas on them, duh, didn't get it at first either), and we found out he lives in the same town we do and apparently quite a few of the Customs officers live there. Must be a good place!
Have a beautiful, peacefilled, God loving Friday! I know I will!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Buffalo Zoo and Niagara Power Vista
Wow! Spring break has been a lot of fun so far and soooo beautiful! Temperatures in the upper 50's lower 60's, blue skies, Lake Erie cools things down in the evening so there is always a nice breeze blowing. It's been great. I sometimes catch myself actually enjoying it here! *wink*wink*
Monday we did a little shopping for daddylonglegs G. I swear, if I could invent a type of clothing that could fit around that tiny waist and still be appropriate in length, I know I could be a millionaire! Besides that, just weeding through the totally inappropriate CRAP they make for young girls now just blows my gasket. Come on people, do you really wonder what's wrong with our world today when we're dressing 5-10 year olds like girls you see on the street corners? It's really disgusting. I'm probably one of the last of the archaic moms who refuses to let her daughters show their bellies with bathing suits, either. Try finding a one piece that doesn't show more skin than the tankinis these days. It's all very stressful for a mom of four future teen girls. Good grief, but shocker...i'm digressing. I do that a lot. Must be one of my character flaws.
Monday we did a little shopping for daddylonglegs G. I swear, if I could invent a type of clothing that could fit around that tiny waist and still be appropriate in length, I know I could be a millionaire! Besides that, just weeding through the totally inappropriate CRAP they make for young girls now just blows my gasket. Come on people, do you really wonder what's wrong with our world today when we're dressing 5-10 year olds like girls you see on the street corners? It's really disgusting. I'm probably one of the last of the archaic moms who refuses to let her daughters show their bellies with bathing suits, either. Try finding a one piece that doesn't show more skin than the tankinis these days. It's all very stressful for a mom of four future teen girls. Good grief, but shocker...i'm digressing. I do that a lot. Must be one of my character flaws.
Shopping and the library on Monday. Check.
Tuesday, we headed to the Buffalo Zoo. Bought a family pass, c-h-e-a-p! I think we can get into all kinds of zoos for free, maybe even the Knoxville zoo, too. But I also hear that the zoo in Toronto is amazing and we can get in half price there. Nice. That will be fun.
The zoo was adorable. They have all kinds of animals and it's just small enough, (half if not, 3/4 smaller then the Kville zoo) that we were there for about 3-4 hours, had a picnic lunch and saw everything and had enough time to hit the Dairy Queen for their buy one get a second blizzard for .25. I love deals. We even had a guest join us, the wonderful daughter of the mom who gave us the gift of a date night last Saturday wanted to come, too! Her name is Eileen, and she's just finishing up college and my kids LOVE her! She went with us and was a HUGE help, not to mention, a really great person to listen to crazy ole me talk her head off. I know, you probably find that incredibly shocking that I could talk someone's ear off... She probably wished she hadn't volunteered to go, but I sure was glad she did!
Today, we met up with one of our RELATIVES! Yes you heard me correctly, for the first time in almost 14 years, we actually live about an hour away from someone we're related too. Now, I'll try to explain how we're related, but don't get upset if I lose you, cause I get lost all the time. Her husband is my father in law's cousin. Her husband's mom and Ricky's grandmother were sisters, I believe? Anyway, she's awesome, too. She has four children, all grown, and my kids all call her Grandma Lori. They LOVE HER! Her husband works out of town during the week, so we haven't met Grandpa yet, but if he's anything like Grandma Lori, they'll love him, too!
Anyway, she met up with us in the eastern part of Amherst and drove up to the Niagara Power Vista. This HUMONGOUS (that just looks completely misspelled, oh to have a proofreader for this laborious job of blogging....) power plant that pretty much powers the ENTIRE STATE OF NEW YORK! It was awesome. It's has a free little museum type center that basically shows you how it started and gives you some history and teaches you about electricity. The entire building of the place is unbelievable, what a history lesson to research if you've got time. Some impressive massive amounts of money, (built in the 1960's and cost something like 700 million dollars at the time?????) Anyway, it was very cool and I would love to go into detail on how it came to be and how there are tunnels under the Niagara Falls area from right before the Niagara Falls themselves, that go underground all the way to the power plant to another gargantuan (yea, I made that up) reservoir that actually circulates the water into the electricity twice! It's so massive, I can not even begin to give it the credit it deserves. Google it some time. It's unreal. I'll hopefully post pictures on another post when I get them downloaded. Be patient, grasshopper. One thing at a time. I am the old woman who lived in a shoe, remember?
So we had a picnic lunch, Grandma Lori arranged for a personal classroom demonstration of how electrons travel and the kids got to touch that ball that makes their hair stick up, and we stood on the observation deck out over the massive dams on both sides, Canada and the US, we waved to tiny little dots of people on the Canadian side! How cool is that? Then when we were finished we headed to her house in Youngtown, that is right on Lake Ontario. Very cute little neighborhood that was originally built for the construction workers of the power plant. Really cute, very quiet and soooo peaceful. If it wasn't such a long commute for Ricky, I might definitely have suggested living there, but I'm selfish with my Ricky... :)
So now it's 10:00pm and the kids were all whiney and crabby from sheer exhaustion, but it sounds like the last of the whiners has finally collapsed and is asleep. I'm talking about Ricky on the couch of course!
Tomorrow we have plans to venture to another country and see the falls from the Canadian side. They (you know, THOSE people) say the falls look even better from the Canadian side, so we'll see. It looked pretty darn impressive back in September when I first came up here from the American side, so I can't imagine! But I'll let you know!
Alrite that's it for now. I'll download some pictures soon, but for now, I must get some sleep. Have a very blessed Thursday!
Monday, April 19, 2010
Date Night
January 6, 2010. That is the last time Ricky and I went on a date. It was with some really good friends of ours who took us to dinner to a great little Italian restaurant in Fayetteville. It was bitter sweet because one, we had just started doing things with this couple and really enjoyed their company, but also because this would be the last time we would be able to use our disposal of babysitters! And we had collected quite a good stash of babysitters! There were at least 4 girls I could call and depending on the time of the year, 2 more who would be home from college! That's six girls to choose from!
Anyway, our date occured earlier than I ever imagined! April 17th! And I have to say the way it came to be is almost divine. You may want to stop reading here if you don't believe in Divine Intervention.
We found our church when we did our 10 day house hunt trip in December. We didn't know if we could join it because it was in another town! (where we lived in Little Rock, there were zones for where you lived to where you would go to church. Kind of to cut down on all the Jones' going to the new church down the road and bypassing their old dilapidated (might be spelled wrong) church.) Follow me? OK. Anyway, we found out that we could join and signed the kids up for religious ed and started attending every weekend. Anyhoo, the first weekend we were there we met this family. They were an older couple with two older married children, one in college and one in high school. Super nice family. The mom, wrote me a little note the next weekend and offered her and her college daughter a free night of babysitting. I couldn't believe it. They were so sweet! We got to know them over the next few weeks and during Holy Week, saw them a lot, I should say, they saw us a lot, and my kids absolutely loved them. I was worried they would retract their offer, but it still stood. We settled on this past Saturday.
Ricky and I went to this street called, Hertel street which is in the very Italian part of Buffalo. There were all kinds of authentic Italian restaurants and we settled on the little cute one that was pretty good! I love me some Bruishetta. I'm sure I'm not spelling that right. But it's the best Italian appetizer to me!
We had a nice dinner and went to one of the Malls and walked off all the food that wasn't sitting quite well with me, I think I've gotten to where two sticks of butter in my alfredo sauce is my limit...this one might have had 3. Not good.
So once my belly had settled, we went for dessert. And of course, I'm almost embarrassed to say where, because I honestly thought Cold Stone would be too rough on my stomach and I would have insisted on eating the entire dish, so settled for some ice cream from - are you ready? Yes, Friendly's. Don't get me wrong, I like Friendly's, in a Shoney's kind of way, but Friendly's on a Saturday night pulls out all kinds of locals. It reminded me of Perkins in Johnson City, Tennessee We would head there after closing down all the bars, HA!, on the weekend, and it was usually one or two in the morning, and there was this bar underneath Perkins called the Crow's Nest. Yea, that was the type of people who went to it, too. Ricky can tell you about that bar. HA! Anyway, this past Saturday, we saw some Crow's Nesters. :)
Our date was fun. I will treasure it until the next unknown one. I will hopefully have a picture of Ricky and I to post with this that our friends took of us before we left our house!
Have a great week. It's spring break. I"ll try to bring my camera everywhere we go this week.
God bless.
Anyway, our date occured earlier than I ever imagined! April 17th! And I have to say the way it came to be is almost divine. You may want to stop reading here if you don't believe in Divine Intervention.
We found our church when we did our 10 day house hunt trip in December. We didn't know if we could join it because it was in another town! (where we lived in Little Rock, there were zones for where you lived to where you would go to church. Kind of to cut down on all the Jones' going to the new church down the road and bypassing their old dilapidated (might be spelled wrong) church.) Follow me? OK. Anyway, we found out that we could join and signed the kids up for religious ed and started attending every weekend. Anyhoo, the first weekend we were there we met this family. They were an older couple with two older married children, one in college and one in high school. Super nice family. The mom, wrote me a little note the next weekend and offered her and her college daughter a free night of babysitting. I couldn't believe it. They were so sweet! We got to know them over the next few weeks and during Holy Week, saw them a lot, I should say, they saw us a lot, and my kids absolutely loved them. I was worried they would retract their offer, but it still stood. We settled on this past Saturday.
Ricky and I went to this street called, Hertel street which is in the very Italian part of Buffalo. There were all kinds of authentic Italian restaurants and we settled on the little cute one that was pretty good! I love me some Bruishetta. I'm sure I'm not spelling that right. But it's the best Italian appetizer to me!
We had a nice dinner and went to one of the Malls and walked off all the food that wasn't sitting quite well with me, I think I've gotten to where two sticks of butter in my alfredo sauce is my limit...this one might have had 3. Not good.
So once my belly had settled, we went for dessert. And of course, I'm almost embarrassed to say where, because I honestly thought Cold Stone would be too rough on my stomach and I would have insisted on eating the entire dish, so settled for some ice cream from - are you ready? Yes, Friendly's. Don't get me wrong, I like Friendly's, in a Shoney's kind of way, but Friendly's on a Saturday night pulls out all kinds of locals. It reminded me of Perkins in Johnson City, Tennessee We would head there after closing down all the bars, HA!, on the weekend, and it was usually one or two in the morning, and there was this bar underneath Perkins called the Crow's Nest. Yea, that was the type of people who went to it, too. Ricky can tell you about that bar. HA! Anyway, this past Saturday, we saw some Crow's Nesters. :)
Our date was fun. I will treasure it until the next unknown one. I will hopefully have a picture of Ricky and I to post with this that our friends took of us before we left our house!
Have a great week. It's spring break. I"ll try to bring my camera everywhere we go this week.
God bless.
The first picture Ricky wouldn't smile, so she made him smile with his teeth. He's so cute when he smiles!
Friday, April 16, 2010
Not the winning ticket
Ok, we didn't win the lottery. *sniff* *sniff*. But it was our first try. It's up to 220 million. Could we not use some of that to get NY out of debt? That's a poop pot load of money. Did you like that? I made it up. Even if you consider taking half out for taxes (ironic isn't it?), it's still a poop pot load of money.
Package!
Hello my blogger family. I hope you have had a fabulous Friday so far. I know I have. I am sitting down to the computer after exhausting myself from this morning! I got three of the munchkins off to school and fed and watered to the two smaller munchkins and started getting things together for dinner. heehee! I am SO SO SO excited to make dinner today because of two reasons. 1) it's homemade spaghetti sauce (I'm talking the Italian secret spaghetti sauce here, recipe from my mother in law who is 100% Italian! yummmmmm) Plus I'm adding some cheese ravioli to it this afternoon. and 2) I'm using my first package of the 300 pounds of beef we brought home Wednesday night!
I highly recommend buying organic beef. I'm not one of those complete fruit and nuts because I will eat candy and ice cream and chocolate, but I do LOVE LOVE LOVE my organic cow. We started getting organic cow shortly after having Grace and reading all the wonderful things they put into red meat (well, any meat really) when we were in Fayetteville. We had this really great place in Missouri that was about 45 minutes away that only accepted beef from certified organic farmers. They packaged it up for us in the increments of beef we wanted, like 50% ground beef, 20% roasts, steaks, etc, etc. They've been doing this a long time, so most often we said, the usual please!
Anyway, we used to split the cow with various friends and so forth, but we would run out of meat much faster then they would (and we don't really eat a LOT of red meat, but we do get about 1 serving a week, which according to RealAge.com is just fine!). So we started ordering half a cow and it lasted a fair amount of time.
Well, we moved up here and had to buy store bought meat for the first few months and in fact, I almost stopped buying it completely because let me tell you, there is nothing like fresh meat that has literally come off the field, slaughtered and processed and brought to your house within a week. It's the freshest tasting meat you'll ever eat, unless you find a restaurant that has a cow pasture out back... Anyway, we found a farm right here in Western New York, a little less then an hour from our house and they send the cattle off to be processed (to a nearby USDA meat processor) but include it in the cost of the cow and it's all organic, too. Now before you go fufu on me, and say, but those cows need their meds. or they'll go mad! These cows are vaccinated and given vitamins, but they are not forced to eat certain cheap grains, they are NOT given ANY growth hormones, and they are free to roam around on their HUGE land! Ricky said they had a gorgeous farm and I can see why, the meat ain't cheap. But the taste and the health reasons alone, balance the cost out just fine and now as I said before, there are 300 pounds of a cow in my freezer down in the basement. yummmm....
So my sauce got to stewing on the stove, I cleaned the kitchen, mopped, and vacuumed the entire house. I finished all the kids laundry, which if laundry can be a cinch, it is now that I own a really cool washer and dryer that are those side loading, high energy efficient machines? I can put a TON of laundry in the washer and by lunch I'm done with a weeks worth of kid clothing! Awesome. Not to mention, I'm helping to save the environment.
So the two smallest munchkins and I ate lunch and now they are resting comfortably with little G reading Marebear a story as she falls asleep.
So, to discuss my title! I got a package in the mail yesterday!! I LOVE getting mail. It completely makes my day. Sometimes I order stuff from Amazon, just to get a package. Just kidding. I don't really. But this package came from Amazon and it contained my two NEWEST books that I can hardly wait to read!
The first one is another great book from Scott Hahn titled, "Reasons to Believe, How to understand, explain, and defend the Catholic faith." I've heard a lot of great reviews over that one and I've read a lot of his books. He was a protestant preacher who found the Catholic church to be very biblical (shock!). He's a great teacher of the faith. If you ever want to learn more, I would highly recommend his book (cowritten with his wife, Kimberly) titled "Rome Sweet Home." Anyway, I can't wait to tackle that one.
My second book is called "Fatherless" by Brian J. Gail and if you've ever read any of the Harry Potter, or Twilight books, it's just as thick as those! Yikes! But it's a brand new Catholic novel just released rather recently that i've read bits and pieces of in reviews and it looks incredible. I'm diving into that one as soon as I finish this blog! I'll keep you posted on what I think. I know you'll wait with baited breathe.
Well, that's it for today. I might try to take some pictures of the cow in the freezer downstairs if I remember. So don't hold your breathe for that one.
God bless you today! OH! BTW- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, POPE BENEDICT!!! WE LOVE YOU! WE THINK YOU ARE DOING WONDERFUL THINGS FOR OUR CHURCH DESPITE WHAT THE MEDIA WANTS THE REST OF THE WORLD TO BELIEVE. WE KNOW THE TRUTH. THANK YOU!
I highly recommend buying organic beef. I'm not one of those complete fruit and nuts because I will eat candy and ice cream and chocolate, but I do LOVE LOVE LOVE my organic cow. We started getting organic cow shortly after having Grace and reading all the wonderful things they put into red meat (well, any meat really) when we were in Fayetteville. We had this really great place in Missouri that was about 45 minutes away that only accepted beef from certified organic farmers. They packaged it up for us in the increments of beef we wanted, like 50% ground beef, 20% roasts, steaks, etc, etc. They've been doing this a long time, so most often we said, the usual please!
Anyway, we used to split the cow with various friends and so forth, but we would run out of meat much faster then they would (and we don't really eat a LOT of red meat, but we do get about 1 serving a week, which according to RealAge.com is just fine!). So we started ordering half a cow and it lasted a fair amount of time.
Well, we moved up here and had to buy store bought meat for the first few months and in fact, I almost stopped buying it completely because let me tell you, there is nothing like fresh meat that has literally come off the field, slaughtered and processed and brought to your house within a week. It's the freshest tasting meat you'll ever eat, unless you find a restaurant that has a cow pasture out back... Anyway, we found a farm right here in Western New York, a little less then an hour from our house and they send the cattle off to be processed (to a nearby USDA meat processor) but include it in the cost of the cow and it's all organic, too. Now before you go fufu on me, and say, but those cows need their meds. or they'll go mad! These cows are vaccinated and given vitamins, but they are not forced to eat certain cheap grains, they are NOT given ANY growth hormones, and they are free to roam around on their HUGE land! Ricky said they had a gorgeous farm and I can see why, the meat ain't cheap. But the taste and the health reasons alone, balance the cost out just fine and now as I said before, there are 300 pounds of a cow in my freezer down in the basement. yummmm....
So my sauce got to stewing on the stove, I cleaned the kitchen, mopped, and vacuumed the entire house. I finished all the kids laundry, which if laundry can be a cinch, it is now that I own a really cool washer and dryer that are those side loading, high energy efficient machines? I can put a TON of laundry in the washer and by lunch I'm done with a weeks worth of kid clothing! Awesome. Not to mention, I'm helping to save the environment.
So the two smallest munchkins and I ate lunch and now they are resting comfortably with little G reading Marebear a story as she falls asleep.
So, to discuss my title! I got a package in the mail yesterday!! I LOVE getting mail. It completely makes my day. Sometimes I order stuff from Amazon, just to get a package. Just kidding. I don't really. But this package came from Amazon and it contained my two NEWEST books that I can hardly wait to read!
The first one is another great book from Scott Hahn titled, "Reasons to Believe, How to understand, explain, and defend the Catholic faith." I've heard a lot of great reviews over that one and I've read a lot of his books. He was a protestant preacher who found the Catholic church to be very biblical (shock!). He's a great teacher of the faith. If you ever want to learn more, I would highly recommend his book (cowritten with his wife, Kimberly) titled "Rome Sweet Home." Anyway, I can't wait to tackle that one.
My second book is called "Fatherless" by Brian J. Gail and if you've ever read any of the Harry Potter, or Twilight books, it's just as thick as those! Yikes! But it's a brand new Catholic novel just released rather recently that i've read bits and pieces of in reviews and it looks incredible. I'm diving into that one as soon as I finish this blog! I'll keep you posted on what I think. I know you'll wait with baited breathe.
Well, that's it for today. I might try to take some pictures of the cow in the freezer downstairs if I remember. So don't hold your breathe for that one.
God bless you today! OH! BTW- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, POPE BENEDICT!!! WE LOVE YOU! WE THINK YOU ARE DOING WONDERFUL THINGS FOR OUR CHURCH DESPITE WHAT THE MEDIA WANTS THE REST OF THE WORLD TO BELIEVE. WE KNOW THE TRUTH. THANK YOU!
Thursday, April 15, 2010
The Bus Stop and then some...
Ok, to give you a little bit of history. Big G started Kindergarten at a Catholic school, so did JT and so did Em. Matter of fact, I taught at the Catholic school they attended for two years before having Marebear and retiring from the teaching scene permanently. (I think my next career is Target, but that's another blog.) Anyway, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Catholic schools and would love, love, love to keep them in Catholic schools even up here, but Ricky and chose (on purpose all you doubters) to have a large family and just rely on one income. So with that, spending 5-8,000 a year on Catholic schools is just not feasible. Especially in the great tax state of NY where we spend 8,000 a year in property taxes. (BTW-that's is no exaggeration, it's actually 770 dollars a month on top of our mortgage.) But I can dream about winning the lottery one day We did buy our first NY lottery ticket this week, fingers are crossed.
Anyway, I'm getting off track, as I so rarely do *wink wink*.
So the first three years of school life I spent driving the kids to school and picking them up (or bringing them home when I worked). It was nice because they were with me so much. When I taught, it was great because I had eyes all over the building. Even after Marebear was born, they went that last year and I knew all the teachers, so the eyes were still there. Whenever any of my kids did anything, I knew it! (without the chain of tattle telling to back it up!)
Well, this past fall, we decided to enroll them in the Fayetteville public schools. Now, don't get me wrong, the Fayar public schools are awesome, that's not why I was sending my kids to Catholic schools. I wanted the kids to be reinforced at school with what we were doing at home... follow that?
So they went to Butterfield Trail Elementary and the very cool thing about that was they walked to school! It was a rule in the school system that unless you had some written excuse (which I'm sure in this culture of LAZINESS would have been easy to do) if you lived within two miles of the school you attended, you had to provide your own transportation. Awesome! The kids and I both loved it and it allowed us to further our learning on making the kids aware of all the dangers of "bad people." For you micro manangers out there having a mini stroke because I did not walk with them, I could post some stats on the % of children abducted while walking to and from school, but I will only say this, read some John Rosemond, he'll cure you of your micro managing child fears...
I digress again...
ANYWAY!!! Here in Lancaster, the school systems actually encourage you to ride the bus and not to drop the kids off. Less traffic, etc. Big G goes to a school that has over 1700 kids in it, so you can imagine the traffic at her school alone. JT and Em go to the Elementary school (K-3) and it's quite large, too.
So we send them out to the bus stop, which they LOVE, I am not so in love with it, but it's part of my letting my little birds out of the nest to test their wings program. They are doing great, the jury is still out for me...
Well, it's Thursday and it's going to be 71 degrees and beautiful today. I'm going to do a little body pump and head outside for a walk. Have a very blessed day.
The first picture is the actual view I have of the bus stop. As you can see, it's not very far, so the burning rays of fire I shoot, should be fairly effective.
Anyway, I'm getting off track, as I so rarely do *wink wink*.
So the first three years of school life I spent driving the kids to school and picking them up (or bringing them home when I worked). It was nice because they were with me so much. When I taught, it was great because I had eyes all over the building. Even after Marebear was born, they went that last year and I knew all the teachers, so the eyes were still there. Whenever any of my kids did anything, I knew it! (without the chain of tattle telling to back it up!)
Well, this past fall, we decided to enroll them in the Fayetteville public schools. Now, don't get me wrong, the Fayar public schools are awesome, that's not why I was sending my kids to Catholic schools. I wanted the kids to be reinforced at school with what we were doing at home... follow that?
So they went to Butterfield Trail Elementary and the very cool thing about that was they walked to school! It was a rule in the school system that unless you had some written excuse (which I'm sure in this culture of LAZINESS would have been easy to do) if you lived within two miles of the school you attended, you had to provide your own transportation. Awesome! The kids and I both loved it and it allowed us to further our learning on making the kids aware of all the dangers of "bad people." For you micro manangers out there having a mini stroke because I did not walk with them, I could post some stats on the % of children abducted while walking to and from school, but I will only say this, read some John Rosemond, he'll cure you of your micro managing child fears...
I digress again...
ANYWAY!!! Here in Lancaster, the school systems actually encourage you to ride the bus and not to drop the kids off. Less traffic, etc. Big G goes to a school that has over 1700 kids in it, so you can imagine the traffic at her school alone. JT and Em go to the Elementary school (K-3) and it's quite large, too.
So we send them out to the bus stop, which they LOVE, I am not so in love with it, but it's part of my letting my little birds out of the nest to test their wings program. They are doing great, the jury is still out for me...
So I am including some pictures I took this morning of them at their bus stop. They are funny. I swear, I need a shock collar for JT because that little nincompoop was at the bus stop with all the kids and several parents (You guessed it - micro managers) tossing his silly putty he obtained from a SWAP thing in class yesterday (remind me to have a talk with his teacher about that) and then throwing the nasty blob at the other kids at the bus stop. And let me tell you, shooting xray fire at him from my eyes at my house does not phase him... the other children would absolutely be shocked and feel the flames, but him? He's got some anti-parent shield on his body that completely deflects the rays. I will have to do something about that. And you know, being the parent of five very busy children, if I don't write down right now what he did, I will forget to discuss (that's putting it nicely) the problem with him this afternoon when he returns home. Then tomorrow when I am watching him from the office window of my home, he will again be engaging in silly putty wars with the poor victims at the bus stop and I will kick myself for forgetting. Am I the only one who does this? Sometimes I think I must be.
The first picture is the actual view I have of the bus stop. As you can see, it's not very far, so the burning rays of fire I shoot, should be fairly effective.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Officer Buckle
Have you ever read that children's story about Officer Buckle? There is a little girl in the story who loves Officer Buckle and all the safety tips and in fact, she wears a helmet all the time, which actually wound up saving her in the story... You should find the book, it's really cute. I would run upstairs and try to find it for you, but I'm not. Too lazy. I only venture up there for necessary things, like bathing and sleeping.
Anyway, long story short, here is a photo of the little girl in the story, or maybe a picture of what she looked like when she was young.
Marebare will walk around the house with her helmet on all day long. It's absolutely hysterical. Maybe she's trying to tell me something.
Anyway, long story short, here is a photo of the little girl in the story, or maybe a picture of what she looked like when she was young.
Marebare will walk around the house with her helmet on all day long. It's absolutely hysterical. Maybe she's trying to tell me something.
Going to do this again...
I'm BACK... I'm going to try and do this again. Really, the first and only reason I blogged was to keep my family in touch with us without them feeling terribly sad that they never come and visit... (hint hint) but then they never checked it, and every time I asked, it was always, oh yeah, I forgot about that...
So forget it. Now I blog to keep sanity and maybe keep an online journal. With that being said, I love comments, but if you feel it necessary to demoralize any of my thoughts/concerns/dreams/etc, please keep in mind, this is my journal and you are free to contradict anything I say, IN YOUR OWN BLOG... stay kindly away from mine...
Alritey then. We've been in Buffalo, NY for about three months now and minus the terribly depressing feeling of knowing no one personally, it's really a neat area of the country. It's beautiful actually, and I feel a homey kind of feeling. Yea, that's a pathetic description, but my publicist is out to lunch.
speaking of LUNCH. Took Gi and Marebare to Friendly's today... Those of you from the south (ie Little Rock) can compare it to a Purple Cow, those of you from the south (ie Tennessee) can compare it to a Shoney's with an ice cream bar inside, which by the way, if I wasn't on a strict, no ice cream, bad dessert diet, due to the fact I can not do any cardio exercises yet because my cycling bike ordered 3 months ago is still in Limbo somewhere, I would absolutely LOVE the dessert there! There was a dessert called, well, I can't remember the name, but it had peanut butter, hot fudge, Reese cups, vanilla ice cream and brownies in it... HOLY COW! Talk about a mind boggling dessert... it looked to die for! But Gi settled on a healthy scoop of mint chocolate chip on a cone, and let me tell you, it was divine, too.... (hehe, she got "tired" of eating it and wanted to get down to the cone part--her favorite, yea, I made the sacrifice...)
So we're here. At least for 3 years. Who knows, we may stay longer. All I know is that NY needs to fix it's tax system in order for us to retire here, it's WACKED... the funny thing is, every one here in WNY says it's all NYC and Albany's fault! Ricky thinks NYC should declare itself a state, and then the tax problem would be eliminated. I love him, he's sooooo smart with numbers, (he's an accountant ya know-really, he is!!) And he taught me all about NY's screwed up system... maybe he should run for Governor... NOT.
Well, that's about it for today. I might try to post some pictures, if I can remember to. I did get on here to email a friend back in AR, but totally forgot to do that... Sorry Cincy!
God bless you today. It's glorious on the second week of Easter...
So forget it. Now I blog to keep sanity and maybe keep an online journal. With that being said, I love comments, but if you feel it necessary to demoralize any of my thoughts/concerns/dreams/etc, please keep in mind, this is my journal and you are free to contradict anything I say, IN YOUR OWN BLOG... stay kindly away from mine...
Alritey then. We've been in Buffalo, NY for about three months now and minus the terribly depressing feeling of knowing no one personally, it's really a neat area of the country. It's beautiful actually, and I feel a homey kind of feeling. Yea, that's a pathetic description, but my publicist is out to lunch.
speaking of LUNCH. Took Gi and Marebare to Friendly's today... Those of you from the south (ie Little Rock) can compare it to a Purple Cow, those of you from the south (ie Tennessee) can compare it to a Shoney's with an ice cream bar inside, which by the way, if I wasn't on a strict, no ice cream, bad dessert diet, due to the fact I can not do any cardio exercises yet because my cycling bike ordered 3 months ago is still in Limbo somewhere, I would absolutely LOVE the dessert there! There was a dessert called, well, I can't remember the name, but it had peanut butter, hot fudge, Reese cups, vanilla ice cream and brownies in it... HOLY COW! Talk about a mind boggling dessert... it looked to die for! But Gi settled on a healthy scoop of mint chocolate chip on a cone, and let me tell you, it was divine, too.... (hehe, she got "tired" of eating it and wanted to get down to the cone part--her favorite, yea, I made the sacrifice...)
So we're here. At least for 3 years. Who knows, we may stay longer. All I know is that NY needs to fix it's tax system in order for us to retire here, it's WACKED... the funny thing is, every one here in WNY says it's all NYC and Albany's fault! Ricky thinks NYC should declare itself a state, and then the tax problem would be eliminated. I love him, he's sooooo smart with numbers, (he's an accountant ya know-really, he is!!) And he taught me all about NY's screwed up system... maybe he should run for Governor... NOT.
Well, that's about it for today. I might try to post some pictures, if I can remember to. I did get on here to email a friend back in AR, but totally forgot to do that... Sorry Cincy!
God bless you today. It's glorious on the second week of Easter...
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