HAPPY VALENTINES DAY !

Valentine's Day:
Today is February 14th, and many countries celebrate Valentines Day, and the giving of heart shaped cards telling your loved ones you love them. It's just another way of reminding someone you love them. Mike and I choose to do it without the card and buy the cards and a small non candy present for our Grand Daughters. We just got them each a a Webkinz. It is much better than chocolate, because after ya eat the chocolate you have nothing left. Granted the chocolate is wonderful, silky and sensual, but the flavor is wasted on kids. My favorite things used to be the chocolate covered cherries made by Cella. My new favorite chocolate is made by by Lindt. I love the milk chocolate truffles, and I think they're wonderful. Unfortunately my hips also love them so I don't buy them very often! LOL! I figure maybe 3 or 4 times a year won't hurt too much. At least I hope not, cos I can't give them up. They are so smooth, silky, and so good, that I'm surprised they're not banned! Anyway I want to wish all of you a very Happy Valentine's Day, and I really hope you get to spend it with your sweetheart! I know this is short, so hopefully I'll post again tomorrow evening, so have a great day and see ya soon...

FRIDAY THE 13th!!!!!!

Friday the 13th:
I am not superstitious, but a lot of people are so I hope you had a safe and a good day. We had a beautiful sunny day with a high of 45 degrees, so that was a switch for us. I know that those of you who hate Friday the 13th are glad it is almost over! We actually had a good day. We went to Wal Mart, and I got my paint for the bathroom so I can do that next week. We took Kara to McDonald's for lunch, and we got her a new Webkinz, a mini blue hippo she named Herman. The reason that she got a new Webkinz is that after all the work she did last weekend on her multiplication tables, she got a B+ on her math test. So that was her reward for doing a good job on her test, and learning her multiplication facts. I was very proud of her because she worked hard and saw how much it helps to study. We will work on the rest either tomorrow or Sunday evening. She knows that she won't get a Webkinz for all her tests, but maybe for her grade card if she brings her grades up.

Crocheting:
I started on an afghan today. It is a shell stitch, and is a very fast pattern, that you make long strips and then connect the strips or panels together to make one big afghan. By working in the the strips you only have a short 17 stitch row so it is very fast. It is called Wide Mile-a-Minute, for the reasons I just mentioned above. Just 66 more rows and I'll have one panel finished! LOL! Then I'll only have 4 more panels to make. It gives me something to do with my hands while I'm watching TV or riding in the truck. It also keeps me from biting my nails, so that's a good thing.

New Blanket:
Our new electric blanket arrived by UPS today, and Kara helped me put it on the bed this afternoon. It will be so nice to get into a warm bed again instead of cold sheets! After always having an electric blanket it is a real shock to the system to get into a cold bed. It seems like it takes forever to get the sheets warmed up without one. In the fiver we have an electric mattress pad, and we really prefer the blanket instead of the mattress pad. So eventually we'll get one for the fiver, before we go south next winter if all goes well. We are optimistic that it will this time. At least the queen blankets are a lot cheaper than the king size blankets so we will only have a little over half the cost of the king for the fiver.

I'll close now, because Kara wants some snuggle time, and it is getting kind of late so I better get her to bed or she'll be crabby tomorrow, and so will I if she gets me up really early, so I'll see ya soon...

WINDY NIGHT ( WEDNESDAY) / THURSDAY DAY

Windy Night and Next Day:
Last night and today has been the windiest we have had since Hurricane Ike last September! Luckily we have escaped damage and losing our electricity this time. The lights did flicker a couple of times, but that was all. I was really happy to get up and see that our fiver was still there in the driveway intact, and had no tree limbs on it! Whew!!! The way the wind sounded last night I would have expected tree limbs to be all over the place. We were very lucky and the howling wind has finally died down tonight since it got dark. I hope we haven't lost any roof shingles, so that is one thing Mike will have to check on when he gets up in the morning. I know he is going to enjoy getting up there to check that out! Haha!

Noon:
Mike got home around noon today! It is really good to have him home, even if it's only for two days before he has to go back down on Sunday afternoon. He didn't sleep too well while he was down at his Mom's so he came home and took a nap. I think it was a combination of the heat in the house, and me not being there too. That hasn't happened too often us being apart since we got married. When it does it feels really strange. Even before he retired from the Air Force we were only apart for less than three months when he was on active duty. We were really lucky on that score.

Grand Daughters:
Tonight Autumn and Tehya came over for a few hours so Mom and Dad could go birthday shopping for Tehya, and out to dinner by themselves. After we ate dinner the three of us played bowling on the Wii. Autumn won every game, she was the strike queen of the evening! I didn't do too bad once I got the hang of it but when a seven year old gets five strikes in one game to my two it's not too good. Even five year old Tehya got strikes before I did! I did pick up most of my spares, but I still lost. Must have been because it was my first time on the Wii. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! LOL!! Tehya's 5th Birthday is tomorrow, I can hardly believe she is five now, and ( as I said earlier) was the reason for me babysitting this evening, but the party is on Sunday. Kara will be over tomorrow so she can attend the party on Sunday. The kids are out of school for teacher conferences tomorrow, and then on Monday for President's Day. So they get a four day weekend. Kara will spend the weekend here then, Jamie will pick her up on Monday. So I'll only be lonesome for two days instead of three next week. I'll still be happy when Mike gets back on next Wednesday. I'm going to be off Grandma duty the weekend after this one!

Since I didn't get blown Over the Rainbow to Munchkin Land last nite or today I'll be talkin to ya tomorrow! See ya then...

WIN SOME/ LOOSE SOME

Well this has been a kind of ya win some / ya lose some day for me. First off the paint that I have that I thought would be a match for the tan in the wallpaper doesn't match, and it isn't even close. It turns out that the wallpaper tan is a kind of pinky tan, and the tan I have is more of a brown tan. This isn't the most weighty issue in the world, but it is not gonna look well with the wallpaper. My paint is light enough to use as a primer though, so I can use what I have left for that. I will need to get another gallon of paint with the right color in it now. So I definitely lost on that score. Good thing I only had a half gallon of paint left.

Dishes:
I did find out that I can do the dishes out here in the apartment using dishpans, so I did win on that score. I can carry water for the dishpans from the bathroom which is very close, so that's not a problem. I can certainly do that until Mike gets the kitchen sink hooked up. It was a lot easier than going into the main house to do what few dishes we have, and I didn't have to carry the dishes back and forth either, which was a lot easier. I always put off doing the dishes because of that, cos I hated having to lug everything to the main kitchen. Now I can just do my dishes the old fashion way using the dishpans. I'm still going to have to carry the water from the bathroom, but at least it's close.

Wind:
Boy is it windy here today and tonight! There is all kind of noises outside. They said on the weather channel that winds of 70 mph an hour would not be out of the question with this system. There is a wind advisory until 5 a.m. in the morning. The temperature of 63 degrees is supposed to drop to 34 tonight, and I guess we're very lucky that we're not having thunder storms here tonight. It sounds like it is storming with all the noise of the wind, it's howling and I sure hope we don't have a repeat of what we went through when hurricane Ike blew into town! It really does worry me when the lights flicker now! We were without electricity for 6 days then, and with it getting colder tonight I really don't want to go without electricity again, cos it would be too cold for the birds. Well that's it for me tonight, so let's hope that I don't get blown Somewhere Over the Rainbow, because my dog's name is Dutchess, not Toto!!!! LOL!

STRANGE DAY- MONDAY

Monday:
Yesterday was a strange day. Mike left around 1:oo p.m. to go to his Mom's and I stayed home. I could not go because of Miss Kitty. I only spent 2 days there last time and suffered for 4 days with my allergies. I was not willing to go through that again, and my dog Dutchess would have had a huge fit. I have to get in touch with my doctor and see if I can get allergy shots set up, because my not going makes it harder on Mike. His Mom was so upset that she cried when he got there on Monday. She just can't understand why she can't stay home alone at 84 years old. Unfortunately with her having Alzheimer's she can't even remember to take her medications without someone reminding her. Also with all the break ins that have been going on where she lives, targeting older people it's just not safe for her to live alone anymore. So that's another reason going against her living alone. I felt bad for Mike when he called me and told me how she reacted when he got there, and I also felt sorry for her too! It really felt strange staying behind and not going with Mike. We're not used to being apart for very long. He will be comming home either Thursday afternoon or Friday morning. Then he has to go back down to his Mom's again on Sunday afternoon until his brother, David get's down there on Wednesday afternoon, and then He won't have to go down until April, except to visit every couple of weeks, and I can go then as long as I only stay a few hours, and then change my clothes, bag them, and put them in the truck. Then I have to shower, and wash my hair as soon as I get back to my Mom's house. That's the only thing I can think of until I can get allergy shots started.

Jobs:
There are a few things that I want to get done while Mike is at his Mom's. I want to paint the wall in the bathroom, then when he comes home he can put the rest of the beadboard in the bathroom, then I can get another gallon of paint to finish the walls. After he comes back from his next trip I hope I will be able to get the tile on the floor. Then the whole bathroom will be done except for the washer and dryer. I have other things to sort through and and move around into their permanent places. Slowly I will get through all the boxes and find more floor space in our bedroom as the boxes disappear. That is my goal through the rest of the winter, and then it will be time to take off in our fiver and have some much needed fun somewhere over any rainbow we can find. See ya tomorrow!

KARA, MULTIPLICATION TABLES AND COOKIES

Kara:
Yesterday, Kara and I had a good day. We did some coloring, with the new crayons that I bought on Thursday, since I couldn't find my crayons that I keep here for the Grand Kids. Then before we went to bed wouldn't ya know, I found the old crayons at the end of the bed in a plastic bag with some more coloring books! The old saying works, if ya can't find something, go buy another one of what ya lost and then, right after ya open the package and can't take it back, then ya find the old one! Another $5.00 bites the dust! LOL! You can't just buy a small package, it has to be a big package, then ya find the other big container that ya bought, cos ya couldn't find the one ya bought before that! LOL! It's a vicious cycle, anyway we now have lots of crayons, and we colored some pictures together. Haha!

Multiplication Tables:
Kara had homework to do this weekend, so we worked on her multiplication tables, because she has a test on them Monday. She evidently was absent when they started on them in her class so she didn't know how to do them. We got all the way through the 7's done. Which is where she is supposed to be, so now she is up to date with the rest of the class. She did a good job! After dinner as a reward for working so hard we made her favorite chocolate chip cookies, and some white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies for Papa! They were just the kind that are in the dairy case, but she enjoyed putting them on the pan and putting them in the convection oven. Then after they cooled she took them off the pan and put them on the plates. I was even able to sneak some multiplication problems in on her using the cookies! Lol! They turned out pretty good!

Today:
We spent some time redoing some of her papers just to make sure she has the concept down pat on how to do them, and she did great! Then about 3:30 p.m. we loaded up her things and took her to the place that Jamie works so he could take her home, instead of making the trip out to our house after he got off work. After picking up a few groceries that we forgot the other day, and a couple of crochet hooks for me we came home. I needed the crochet hooks because I couldn't get to the ones in the fiver. With the slides closed I couldn't open the doors to the cabinet that they were in. We didn't want to open the slides, and get water on the seals of the slides just for a few crochet hooks. Since it has been so warm, well not too warm 50's here, but we'll take it! Everything is still dripping from melting snow and ice so that is why the seals would have gotten wet. If we were going to leave the slides open it wouldn't have been a problem, but we have more room in the drive with them closed, and we didn't want the water to freeze when it got cold again and maybe damage the seals. Needless to say I now have a set of crochet hooks for the house, and the fiver. Oh well it works for me! LOL!! Well that brings us up to date now on how we spent the weekend, so we'll see what tomorrow brings. Maybe a rainbow... Somewhere