House in order -- CHECK
Snacks planned -- CHECK
Meal planned -- CHECK
Food purchased for snacks & meal -- CHECK
I am relaxing this evening & looking forward to spending time with friends. I need that down time after the last couple days! Boy, they were stressful!!
This morning my brother & nephew were involved in a six snowmobile accident. One of their friends died & one is hospitalized. My brother & nephew are both OK -- thank God! My heart goes out to the families of the man who died and the one who remains hospitalized.
Today started like any other day, but certainly did not end that way! There was a STABBING at Olivia's school. It boggles my mind to think that something like that can happen here, but we all know deep down it can happen anywhere.
There are still a lot of unanswered questions. I am sure as the day goes on we will hear more.
We are having friends over to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday night so I have busied myself with getting the house in tip top shape! A few things (cleaning the glass on our framed prints & photos, for one) have gone on the back burner the last few months. I also spent Sunday afternoon rearranging the living room to make TV viewing easier and love the way it is now. Don't know why I didn't put it that way sooner!
Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint you can on it. ~ Danny Kaye
January 26 must be a good day for me to begin something!
Five years ago today I changed my eating habits. More than half the weight has crept back on! I am still eating healthy (most of the time), but had kind of stopped "moving" in the couple months. I did maintain the loss of 6 lbs from the fall.
That brings me to what I started doing today! I started "moving" again! I went to a local indoor pool and swam a little over 1/2 a mile! It felt so good to be back in the pool again. I don't think I have swam since the triathlon! YIKES!
View camera class started today! This class is going to be fun, but it is going to be a beast. The camera is WAY different than an SLR, the teacher is TOUGH, and we have to do BOOK REPORTS on each week's assigned reading from the text books.
Wish me luck -- I think I will need it! :)
Today was the last day of the first semester of Olivia's sophomore year. I cannot believe she is half way through the year already. Some days I don't feel much older than a sophomore! Then there are other days...lol!!
Even sophomores aren't too old for art projects. Well, not when they have an art class any way...lol!!
Our family room furniture has seen better days.
We would like to replace it eventually, but would like to hold off for a while. That means the search begins to find slipcovers that will get us through maybe a year or so with this furniture.
I don't want to have to completely redecorate the entire room so that means finding one in our current color scheme in that area of the house. Blue, green, yellow. I'm pretty sure I won't find a shade of green or yellow that would work, but I have seen a blue out there that will. The challenge is going to be finding it in the right fit/style for our pieces.
Wish me luck!!
I believe this remains the same...
The President is the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think. James A. Garfield (20th President of the United States)
There will be no pictures of Bob & I in our gala threads this year. We decided to skip it and spent the evening with a friend. We decided we would rather spend time with friends than making small talk with acquaintances. Bob spends so many hours at work with these people, and you know the talk would have turned to work. It was nice for him to have time away from that.
I am keeping the dress since it was a great deal, and I will be able to wear for other occasions since it isn't as dressy as previous dresses had been.
I'm not going to promise "change" or lower taxes (LOL), but I will promise being very grateful for your vote.
Voting is now open for the photo contest. Vote for your favorite (hopefully, it's mine...lol) at Write from Karen. Voting is open until Jan 21 @ 11AM central.
This is a "repost" of an image I took after one of our many snowstorms in December 2007. It's among my favorites of the winter pictures I have taken. Because it is a favorite I decided to enter it in a winter-themed contest at Write from Karen.
“Whether the weather be fine, Whether the weather be not, Whether the weather be cold, Whether the weather be hot, We'll weather the weather, Whatever the whether, Whether we like it or not”
Hope everyone is safe & warm as much of the country has below normal temps.
Today's high: -2 with wind chills of -25 to -35 all day. There was no school and will be no school again tomorrow. The cold spell will break on Saturday when we will welcome 20+ degress and more SNOW! Woohoo! You don't have to shovel cold, but I would still much rather have snow than this subzero weather any day
It is 6 degrees out at the moment -- heading down to TWENTY BELOW tonight with wind chills approaching 40 below! Tomorrow we will not break 0, and it will be even colder tomorrow night. Over 550 schools have already canceled classes for tomorrow & Olivia's school is one of those! Woohoo! I think I might be more excited about that than she is.
My house & blog have now had all traces of Christmas decorations removed from them. I love the season and the Reason for the season, but it is always nice to have things looking "normal" again.
Going out of dinner with the girls tonight. Tomorrow is my friend Erin's birthday & we are going out to celebrate! Good food + good friends = good times! :)
It's that time of year once again -- yes, time to find a dress for the Winter Gala. This year's gala is not black tie as it has been the past three years. It is cocktail instead. That doesn't mean much difference for me, but it means no tux for Bob.
I went out today & found one in about an hour. I tried on at least 30 and ended up with the second one I tried on! :D Can't really explain why I tried on so many. I even tried styles I wouldn't normally choose. I guess I was in the mood for torture...lol!!
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It's made of matte jersey so not nearly as dressy as previous gala dresses..jpg)
Beading detail on straps at neckline.About three weeks ago I came home from running errands, and Boomer was favoring his right back leg. Sometimes he would put no weight on it at all, but other times he walked with a slight limp. I called the vet, and they said to watch him for a day or so and if there was no improvement they should see him. He was fine probably less than 24 hours later.
A little over a week after that I noticed a small round sore the same leg near his foot. He has had hot spots before, and I figured that's what it was again. I treated it with the stuff our vet recommended for when he has one flare up. It showed some improvement until last week -- when he started licking & chewing at it more. It was worsening by the day so today I took him to the vet.
They took x-rays to make sure there was nothing going on in the bone -- all clear. They took some cells from the area (there is a lump there) to check for cancer -- all clear. They think he may have had some sort of minor injury like a bruise or sprain that he made worse with the frequent licking & chewing.
He is now has an oral antibiotic, a topical antibiotic/steroid, and this...
As you can tell from the picture, he's not very happy about the "Elizabethan collar"!
I have joined the Project 365 craze which means I will be taking pictures every single day for the next 365 days and will post at least one on prizedpixels.blogspot.com.
I think this will be a fun way to keep track of what happened throughout the year. Not just the milestones & out of the ordinary events, but also the day-to-day things we tend to easily forget. I also know that the only way to get better at taking pictures is to do it! :)
Hope you enjoy the photos as much as I will taking & sharing them!
I am working on "deChristmasing" the house. The real tree is undecorated and standing outside near the front door. I need to take it out of the stand and get it out to the road so the city mulchers can take care of it.
I also cleaned out our refrigerator this afternoon. If I didn't know any better I would think that baby was brand new from the looks of the inside. I must keep on top of wiping it out better than I think.
I have also been busy at work on my new project for 2009. It is called Project 365, and you guessed it that means I will take at least one picture a day to share with all of you. I am starting a new blog just for those images. I may add a word or two with the images, but for the most part it will just be an image I took that day. Not only will it be a quick way for me to look back on my year, but also (hopefully) improve my photography skills. That blog will be called Prized Pixels, and can be found at prizedpixels.blogspot.com. It will go "live" tomorrow sometime - I am still making a few tweaks and adding images from the first four days of the year. I will, of course, continue to write here!
I will unveil my new project on Monday! I am so excited about it that I will give you this one big hint: It involves photography!
Not the way we wanted to start the new year! Our refrigerator is not cooling. It has been emptied, unplugged and we are now living out of a cooler while we wait for a service on Monday! The freezer was still working, but we moved everything down to the large up right freezer. I plan to spend some time Sunday giving it a thorough cleaning! We had to throw out a lot of stuff -- there goes my stockpile! :(
