Say bye to fall

          

This picture is the street in front of my house.  It was taken this fall, the across the street neighbor's tree is the one with all the leaves that blow (along with everyone else's) into my yard.  Mark's lucky he has a leave blower, plus I leave  a lot of them on my plant beds, so we had an easy time with all these leaves.  Which I don't mind, my old neighborhood has many stately, lovely old elms and maples that grace us with their beauty. 

Now the trees are bare and it's cold.  Very cold, 20 degrees cold with biting wind.  The forecast is for around an inch of snow tonight.  Today being the last day of November I know that tomorrow will be the beginning of a landslide of activity.  Parties, concerts, our town's annual Christmas Walks, gift buying...This time of year always goes so fast for we as adults.  We have to deal with all the stores, the rush the hustle and bustle.   For kids it's magic....I am blessed to witness the excitement of the little kids who still believe in Santa Claus.  They grow more excited daily.  Today one of my little ones, whom I had last year also, lost her tooth, she was so excited.  A 5th grader did all he could to not spill the beans about the tooth fairy.  It's magic.  It's magic being young and still believing in fairies and Santa.

I am lucky that my two little ones will be experiencing that magic also, Santa hasn't been at my house in a long time.  Sure I did all I could to encourage Liz to keep believing ...I think she was almost in Junior High before she actually officially gave into the truth.  This is a magic time of year, even as adults we should try hard to be a little bit nicer, a little bit kinder, a little bit more generous not with just our money, but our words, our deeds...then the Spirit of the Season will shine....at least for a little while.

                                       

I guess nearly getting into an accident yesterday in my school bus made me take a step back.  I nearly hit a car that turned suddenly in front of me.  Fortunately the person behind me stopped too, and didn't rear end me.  Everyday I have to watch traffic, think for others and predict their driving skills, this one I didn't even see coming, he turned that quickly.  Made me count my blessing...made me realize, again, that one simple act can effect another, in a major way.  Thank God it didn't happen, thank God I didn't hit him.

I had nightmares all night last night.  These things really stir up your imagination.  I am the type that works out some of my life in my dream world.  I am doing ok today.  Just a little edgy still, but I'll be ok.  I don't have my midday today, but I am going to a nearby College to pick up a group before my afternoon run.  Loads of traffic, but I will leave early and do as I always do, the job I was trained so well to do.

Mark and I are taking Jim and Tim to the Blackhawks game tonight.  Jim's birthday is today and Tim's is in February.  What a great place to blow off some steam!!  Nothing like a group of grown men knocking the snot out of each other over a little round puck.

Gotta love it!  Have a great day my friends and thanks for listening, I feel much better!  :)

Shhhh babies sleeping!

The boys are here!  We picked them up today and took them to  a Children's Muesum.  Very interactive and fun.  It was awesome.

My Thanksgiving was nice and quiet and did involve lots of pie.  We cooked, we watched the parades, I took a nap and went to see RENT with Liz in the evening with Mike, and her friends.

Oh and I got this news...I am going to be a grandma...again!  Tracey is going to have #3 sometime next summer.  I need a bigger car....

Gotta go...Kota needs to be put to bed.

 

BUT YIPEEE!!  More babies!!

Happy Thanksgiving

                               

 

One of the things I am thankful for this year is YOU ALL!

Thanks for letting me be part of your life!

Enjoy the holiday!!

I love you!! 

I am free!

                                  

Thanksgiving 8000 calorie poem

May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
have nary a lump.
May your yams be delicious
and your pies take the prize,
and may your Thanksgiving dinner
stay off your thighs!
-Unknown

Whoo hooo!  I am free!  Gotta love a school district job!  I am off until Monday morning!

I am going to spend my days baking, cooking and EATING!  Although I do have to go to the dentist and get a crown tomorrow.  Thank God for pain pills and pie!

Our party on Saturday went great.  The pizza place is a family style place with a big fire place, with games that the kids can play.  I gave Jacob a 5 for the change machine and 20 dollars of quarters came pouring out.  Wow was Grandma popular that night!

The kids were grateful and even thanked us for taking the pressure off them.  Hopefully they will start their own traditions for their new families.  And as for me I get to cook all my favorites for Turkey day.  My kids will be over so it will be fun filled day of eating and of course Football.  Hmmmmm pie!

 

pre thanksgiving bash

 

Mark and I have decided to save all our children the pain of trying to figure out whose house to go to for Thanksgiving.  We are having tonight a Pre-Thanksgiving bash at a local Pizza Place.   And it's NOT Chuck-e-cheese!  All the kids (8), their spouses and girlfriends/boyfriends are invited.  Plus my grandsons, Oh yeah, Dakota is walking!! and he won't be one until December 21st!  The fun begins!!  :)

Fun should be have by all!  you know me there will be pictures!

 

ENJOY!

AOL, J-land changes and the $500 cat

 

Wow!  People in J-land are in an uproar...I have been getting alerts all day of people moving their journals, cursing out AOL, their journal alerts stating they are now private...etc.   I am really only close to maybe 10 j-land people that I regularly read, comment and have formed a nice friendship with.  Some of these folks I even would consider friends and if I met them on the street I would gladly share lunch with them.  The rest I think are interesting, they may have a different perceptive on life, or they may have some cool things to write about.  

I have what you would call a pretty normal life, been married twice, have kids, stepkids, grandkids a job and a husband I care for and put a lot of my time and effort into, oh yeah A LOT of effort into.  I have a rather colorful past, one I learned much from and try not to repeat.  Most of my children are grown and don't need me as much as they used to.  Good friendships are hard to find in this world.  I lost my mother who was my rock, my only other really close friend is my husband.  I have a few casual friends at work, but no one I really like to hang with.  I am pretty much a loner and while I can dish out advice I really don't like to take it, I know this about myself and accept it.  I have gone to this medium, the internet for many reasons, to express myself, meet people and just to hang out.  I have met some really awesome, inspiring people here.

Now it seems so many are bolting to other areas of computer land (is there such a place?).  I am pretty lazy that is why I keep AOL.  It's easy for my husband to use, and I like  how easy the browser is.  NOW if some of my friends go to parts unknown I will be very sad.  Change is difficult, ads are a fact, and really J-land isn't ours, we pay for it, what in life do we truly own? 

So that's my two cents.  I am not going anywhere, I can deal with the stupid ad at the top of my Journal, now when they put an ad on my kid or my cat, (maybe I should have thought of that as a way to raise money to pay for his hospital bill), THEN I am screaming, but not for this...life too short to get upset over this.  Plus they added spell check my spelling sucks!

 

THE cat and THE Kid!

 

I have a boring life

I was thinking about what to write today and realize I lead a pretty boring life...well, lately it's boring.  THANK GOD!  I like boring...

In my youth I liked excitement, I used to look for it, now I like boring.  Give me a warm autumn day, a two year old and a big back yard and I can find all sorts of things to do.  Give me my husband, a windy Sunday afternoon and our pickup truck and I can find all sorts of sites to see.  Or give me a 17 year old teenager, a good pair of shoes and a neighborhood and we'll find all sorts of things to talk about.  In my past I would have called all that boring....boring...boring!

My past has been filled with one crisis after another, some I created some not.  Now things are calm, every day I do what I call the utmost act of spiritual grace...I get up thank God I am alive, go to work, do a good job and come home and take care of my family.  Some look for more out of life, some want big cars, big houses and big vacations.  Me?  It's all about appreciating what I have...life is short kids, and sometimes you just have to step back, breath in the boredom and realize that life is pretty darn good!

 

Have an awesome day!

 

I hate aol!

I had this really interesting entry all written up and of course it wouldn't save!  I am going to learn to type elsewhere and paste it here!  UGH! 

Here's Mike and Liz from his visit from school last month.  He's not using a barber these days, but hey he's a college kid now!

He'll be home next weekend so the house will be filled with the joy of my teenage daughter smiles again.  Actually she has snapped out of her funk.  I knew when she went back to drama she'd have a place to channel her 'feelings'.  Sorry feelings always freak me out, so I am not as helpful as her drama-mates.

She is doing well in school and I thinks she is actually trying this year.  She's the type that just getting by means C's and I expect more out of her.  So she took my threat of taking away her social life to heart and got a B+ in here dreaded Math class.  A's in everything else.  She's just not "into" math and her Math teacher is awful (her words) so she did poorly last year and had to take two math classes this year.  Actually most of the district did poorly so our Math program screams out for a revamping.  But no excuses for being lazy, do the work, ask for help and she'll be fine.

Anyway this week was long, my school bus kids were awful and we are reaching a turning point...it's shape up or I get mean... which means assigned seats and write ups....actually I had to write up a kindergartener, the little booger was pulling his pants down and singing about kissing people in the dark.  Hmmmmm I wonder what's going on at home?  So now he has a prime seat behind me all alone with my Early childhood kids car seat.  That should keep him out of trouble.

The world is a weird place, I am hoping my kids do a better job raising their kids.

Anyway, I am going back to enjoy my weekend!  Have a good one!

A nice quiet sunday

My 21 year old son, Eric came over for a visit. I love that kid he is so much like his mother it's sometimes frightening. But mostly he's got my good qualities. He brought Tina, his girlfriend, and we all had a nice visit. Since the kid is an assistant manager at Menards I dropped some hints about my Christmas gift. He works at the best store, I love all the yard stuff. Over the years he along with his brother and sister have gotten me the pond, a yard bench and a birdbath.  My hint was for some yard lights as mine are very old and not all working.

My son Tim and son, Eric this past summer at the Prairiefest Parade

The rest of the day I just hung out, did some laundry, normal stuff. My ritual of napping during all the boring sports my husband watches.  I try not to complain, afterall it's his only day off, plus he's won 2 football pools at work. 

Last night we missed a pretty big storm, it skipped Illinois and did some pretty heavy duty damage in Indiana. I am used to bad storms, they used to freak me out when I was a kid, but then everything freaked me out back then. As I've grown older I lived through a lot, so I guess I am less fearful. I think I've done a good job of passing that freeless attitude on to my kids & stepkids. At least I hope so, of course there is a difference between fearlessness and stupidity, and that usually comes with age---where you gain something called wisdom. I guess I'll get to the wisdom stage someday, maybe when I finally grow up.

Also, Dale my youngest stepson has been calling my husband. He lived with us for a year from November 2003 to November 2004, he's 19 now and after he moved back home with his mother he basically went to school which should have been his Senior year and did nothing, earned straight F's and did not graduate. His mother got what she wanted but you don't always like what get and she is tired of the way he acts. So much so she wants him out again. Hopefully he'll get his GED so he can get a job and support himself. One can always hope, right?

So that's my day, it's back to work tomorrow, we have two full weeks then Thanksgiving week will be here, and we only go two 5 hour days that week.  Gotta love the public school system just when you get totally frustrated with your job they give you a day off to recover.

I guess nobody would do our job if they didn't bribe us with days off for good behavior! :)

I am the type of person who has learned over the years that it's part of life to make mistakes. Mistakes are to be learned from, sometimes you may have to repeat the lesson, but for me I try and learn the first time. Mark and I gave up on our trucking business a year ago this past June. We are so blessed to have the jobs we have and have worked very hard to go above and behind the norm to get rid of our past debt. We sold our truck in June, which was huge. My main goals have been to take each bill and work my way from there. We try hard not to spend money needlessly, I've learned that through hard work comes rewards. Mark's job is seasonal, they usually stop work in January until March, last year he had to take a tempory job in February,. The company often had him drive illegal, he worked way too many hours, down dangerous highways, where it was not uncommon for a trucker to fall asleep at the wheel and plow into unsuspecting other drivers. We really don't want him to take this job this year. The money just isn't worth it. Besides, he does qualify for unemployment this year. I have been trying super hard to get the important bills like my house, my utitilties, my cars ahead, extra work at my job, Mark not having any rain days (which mean no pay) have really helped out. I've really tried to stay in an attitude of being grateful, being thankful and just plan being positive. Things have been going merrily along...then on Wednesday of this week I get a nice yellow envelope in the mail. It's from the state, and I can tell it's a check...usually these checks are money collect on my behalf from back child support, my daughter's father has never willing paid a cent, my order is form 1989 and for only $45/week, at one time he was $10,000.00 behind. Anyway, this check was not little it was quite large and put it this way...we will be ok this winter. I still want my husband to find something to do over the winter as he will drive me nuts if he's home, but we will now be able to stay ahead of the bill paying. My daughter also has a choir trip to Florida over spring break that needs to be paid for, she will need clothes and spending money. I have to remember that it is her father's responsiblity to contribute to the household, not just to her fun. Anyway, I am excited about the holidays now,my grandkids will be old enough to understand Santa, the lights, and the snow. I already did some shopping yesterday, the Osh Gosh store at the Mall is closing and I got each grandson a flannel shirt and lined pants. They were half price and are just so darn cute! I love the fact that I have kids now that will be thrilled with the magic of the Holiday season. Wow! Thanksgiving is starting to sneak up too! On that note, I am going to do some housework. Have an awesome weekend!