It's still snowing...

It's still snowing here. It did stop for about an hour today, when it turned into a light rain, but it's back to snow again now. Luckily, it's warmish though, so it's not accumulating at all on the roads and sidewalks. There's about an inch or so on the ground. I can live with that. LOL!

Grace had a 2-hour delay for school this morning, which she loved, but was pissed school wasn't canceled. LOL! God, I remember being a kid and how excited I'd get when school was closed for a snow day. Poor kid. LOL!

I took some pictures at the bus stop this morning.

Holy crap...

I've sucked at this blogging thing lately. Sorry guys. I've just been so obsessed busy with Photoshop, editing photos, trying to make our Christmas cards, and working on some stuff for other people lately, that blogging kind of got bumped down the To Do list. I woke up this morning to find that it was snowing. I wasn't quite ready for snow (although I should be at this time of year and considering where we live), but it kind of shocked me. Not necessarily in a bad way, because it totally put me in the mood for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it surprised me all the same.

Hunting season officially starts tomorrow. For the next three weeks, I will be a hunting widow. Steve will wake up around 3:30 AM and drive to wherever he decides to hunt for the day. Then he'll wander into the house around 7:00 or 8:00 every night, and will proceed to eat something small, pack his lunch for the next day, and then wander upstairs bleary-eyed so he can go to bed and do it all over again the next day. I hated hunting season when the girls were infants, screaming in their reflux-induced pain. I remember pacing back and forth with a screaming child, desperately trying to get them to sleep, and being pissed off that when Steve finally walked in, he pretty much went right upstairs to bed.

But these days, I kind of like it. I adore Steve to no end, but it's nice not having to cook three-course meals for the family. And he's in the best mood ever during hunting season, so that's cool too. The man works his ass off all year long. I truly don't know how he does it. So if he wants to take three weeks off to forget about work and his business and the everyday stresses of life, then more power to him. If anyone deserves it, he does.

But to catch you up on the last week or so of our lives...

* My sister has officially moved into my parents' house with her 5 pets.

* I'm seriously contemplating getting Grace a puppy, and although I don't think it will happen, those of you that know me well know what a HUGE thing that is for me to even consider.

* I just picked up a brief freelancing assignment proofreading crossword puzzles. How friggin' COOL is that? So sorry Facebook friends that I haven't been taking my turn in Scrabulous lately, but this other crossword puzzle gig pays me money and stuff, so I'm afraid you lose out over them.

* I've decided I'm dying. There's no rhyme or reason behind it. I just figured I am.

* I decided that drama is not my friend. I don't like drama. I don't "do" drama. And if you're one of those people that thrives on drama, then I'm afraid we can't be friends.

* That same sentence above, but substitute "drama" with "catty, arrogant, self-righteous bitchiness".

* I was informed today that it would be greatly appreciated if I would prepare pierogies and beef stew for Thanksgiving at my mom's house this year. Huh? Pierogies? Beef stew? For Thanksgiving? Now don't get me wrong, because I HATE turkey and traditional Thanksgiving food, so I'm all for pierogies and beef stew on Turkey Day. But well, it's just an odd combination and one I would've appreciated knowing a few days ago (or today, right before I went to the grocery store) so I could've bought the stuff and had it here for Wednesday night when I'll chuck it all in my crockpots. LOL!

So anyway, I need to head up to bed myself right now, but here are a few pictures from today. Two of Hannah preparing to head outside into the snow (which never really did accumulate until much later) and then actually outside. And there's one of Grace being, well, Grace. God, I love that kid. LOL! I'll try to blog more this week. :)

That's My Girl!

So, I had Grace's parent/teacher conference last night. Leading it up to it, Grace kept saying she was going to be grounded, confessing all of the times she'd gotten in trouble in school, etc. It was kind of funny actually, but there was a party that was getting a bit nervous. I was like, "What the hell? Do I have a problem child on my hands here and not know it or what?" LOL!

So I head over to the school at 5:00. Steve had every intention of coming too, but the floor he poured yesterday wouldn't set up and he wouldn't make it home in time. No big deal. So anyway, as soon as I sit down, Grace's teacher tells me that Grace is doing great. Whew. HUGE sigh of relief. LOL! She said that Grace had a bit of a rough transition in the beginning of the year, but that about a month ago, everything just "clicked" and she finally "got it." She's been doing great in math (and got an A! WOOHOO!). And that in Language (i.e., reading, writing, etc.) she missed an "A" by one point, but that in the past few weeks, she had seen Grace's reading improve immensely and that she's pretty sure Grace will get an "A" on her next report card.

There's one section of the report card that has skills like Cooperates, Works Well with Others, etc. The teacher said she only had three or four students that got all "+'s" in those and that Grace was one of them. And that Grace had become one of her best students. That's my girl! We're so proud of her.

It was funny though, because when I went to pick her up at my mom's house afterwards, she ran into one of the bedrooms and hid because she thought she was going to be grounded. LOL! Now where she got this idea is anybody's guess, but I suppose it's good to know that she at least worries what we think of her performance in school, right? LOL! The kid kills me.

(Oh, and P.S., in that photo over there... that address on the back of the carriage seat is NOT the town I live in. So trying to stalk me is useless. Mwaahaahaaa!)

WWC Photos

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm late. Better late than never, right? LOL! So here are my photos for the Weekly Word Challenge. This week's words were OLD and BLUE.

 

An OLD barn...

 

Hannah and her BLUE eyes. EVERYONE comments on those eyes...

Answering Mamatulip's Questions...

OK girl. I'm going to answer your questions about digital scrapbooking. First of all, I definitely print out my layouts. Basically, I have scrapbooks just like a traditional paper scrapper would. There are a few ways you can do this. I do two things.

The first way I do it is to print out the layouts at home and slide them into an album. I bought an 8" x 8" album at WalMart for like $7.00, but you can get REALLY cool ones in all different sizes. I scrap my layouts to be 12" x 12" (because that's the size of the digital scrapbooking "papers"), but since I want to print them at home and only have a standard printer, I reduce the entire image to 8" x 8" and just slide them into the album. I print them on regular ol' 8.5"x11" photo paper and then just trim them down to 8x8. A bunch of online photo websites are now printing layouts out for you, so if you don't want to/can't print them yourself at home, you just pay these places per layout, the same way you would if you were ordering normal 4"x6" photos.

So anyway here's a layout, printed on my printer at home and trimmed down:

 

Then I just slide them into my album, which is just like any other photo album, except it's square:

 

So I have some albums all filled like this with layouts I printed at home:

 

The other thing I do, usually for gifts for Christmas and stuff, is get them printed into actual bound books at Shutterfly. Shutterfly totally caters to the digital scrapbooker these days and has templates and everything to make sure your layouts aren't cut off around the edges when they print full bleed pages (pages where your images go all the way to the edge). They print them in all different sizes including 12"x12", 8"x8" and 6"x6".

For example, I made one for Steve for Father's Day this year. Here's the front cover. I scrapped the cover (and back cover and spine) and then uploaded them to Shutterfly the same way I would upload my normal photos. This looks and feels just like a real hardcover book.

 

And here are two shots of the inside. The pages look and feel just like a regular coffee table book would feel. Everyone I've given these to LOVES them and I really need to get my ass in gear and start uploading to Shutterfly for the grandparents' Christmas gifts this year. LOL!

So basically, there are a bunch of ways you can get them printed out so you can actually look at them when you're not on your computer. LOL! But yes, I also scrap my desktop backgrounds. LOL! You can also scrap layouts to use in calendars (at Shutterfly and many other places), and some people have their layouts printed out (or print them at home) and then frame them and hang them on the wall. What I like about it compared to traditional scrapbooking is that I can scrap a layout and then print it out as many times as I want to for gifts and such. I could make a bazillion albums if I wanted to, ya know? Plus, I can go back in later and change anything I decide I don't like, etc. Oh yeah, and there's the fact that I don't have to drag out glue, scissors, paper cutters, rulers, etc. like I used to have to do when I did paper scrapping. What a royal pain in the ass. LOL!

So anyway, there's the scoop. Everything you wanted to know and more. Aren't you glad you asked? ;)

Some layouts...

What I've been doing the past few days to keep my mind off other stuff.

Much better today...

My sister's situation isn't really any better, but I am. I finally got some stuff done today. And I kind of decided I need to seperate myself from the situation. Not that I'm not here for my sister, or that I won't help her. Just that I can't let myself get caught up in the drama. I have a family and a house to take care of, and I have my problems and issues to deal with. So I'm wiping my hands as clean from the situation as I can without being a bitchy, horrible sister.

So enough about that crap. LOL! I'm off to start dinner now (chicken fajitas... Mmmm....). Then I'll snuggle with my kids, help Grace with her homework, and settle in for some "House" and "Cane" viewing pleasure. Sweet.

The one good thing about recent situations is that I haven't felt like doing anything productive, so I've gotten a shitload of scrapbooking done. I'll post some of my layouts later after I upload them to Flickr. It's that time of year now and the requests from friends for collages and Christmas cards are starting to come in, so I'll have that to take my mind off things. Thanks again everybody!

Thank You (and other stuff...)!

I just wanted to take a few minutes and thank those of you that commented here or emailed me with sympathy about my cat, teeth, sister, brother, etc. It really does mean a lot to me and I truly, truly appreciate it.

But it hasn't gotten any better around here. In fact, it's gotten worse... Well, not in terms of my toothache, because that's gotten a slight bit better... And not in terms of my brother because I haven't had any sort of contact with him since Friday, so I don't know if that whole thing is better or worse... And not in terms of my PMS, because that ol' visitor has come and gone for the month.

But in terms of my sister? Yeah. Worse. Way, WAY worse. And I'm not getting into details right now. Not because I'm being secretive and mysterious. Just because if I have to type it all out again for the 5th or 6th time today, I swear to god, I'll blow my brains out. (I may blow my brains out anyway, but if I do, rest assured it's not because I typed out my whole "sister drama" again.)

Anyway, I'm OK, but I just wanted to take a second to say thanks to you all. You're all very sweet and I appreciate the concern for me. I'll be back again soon, and hopefully, I'll be my usual, chipper self (LOL!). It may take another day or two though. :)

What are the fucking odds?

Seriously. I feel like I'm living in the twilight zone today. I'm so very sorry I haven't blogged lately, but it's been one hell of a week. But anyway, back to this odds thing. Without getting into detail (because I'm tired and ready for bed), I had to put our other cat, Cooter, to sleep today. I swear to god, I didn't even know he was sick until the middle of the night last night when he started wailing and crying from midnight until the morning. He woke all of us up and kept us up half the night. I took him to the vet this morning and he was severely jaundiced (indicating liver failure) and the vet could feel "a huge mass" in his stomach. It was painfully obvious he was in pain and had something wrong with him that wasn't fixable, so I agreed to send him to a better place. But it was kind of a shock since we had no clue anything was even wrong until less than 24 hours ago.

Anyway, so I get home from the vet and send an email to my brother and sister telling them about Cooter just to let them know. My brother emails back saying he just put his cat to sleep this morning too. He's devastated. Absolutely devastated. But seriously, what are the odds that my older sibling and I would have to put our cats to sleep on the exact same day, within an hour or two of each other? That's just fucking creepy, and I don't care what any of you say. It has to be a curse or something. Which one of you out there is performing hocus pocus on my family? Because it's rude and I want it to stop.

Oh, and my sister is here right now, sleeping on my couch with two VERY large horses dogs lying next to her on the floor. Why you ask? Oh, because my BIL that she's divorcing is apparently a fucking psycho lately and we didn't think it was safe for her to stay at her house tonight. (Like seriously not safe.) Since Grace and Hannah are sleeping over at my parents' house tonight (and Hannah's terrified of dogs), and my sister only lives about a mile down the street from me, it made more sense for her to come here tonight than go to our mom and dad's house. So here I am, the self-proclaimed non-lover of canines, with two gigantic German Shepherds on my living room floor, a sister who needs to wake the fuck up and realize that it's time to pull out the can of whoop ass sleeping on my sofa, and a brother who has been sobbing all day because his best feline buddy is now "in a better place".

Never mind that I also put my own cat to sleep today, leaving us completely petless for the first time in over 12 years.

And that I went from having 2 cats to having no cats within 2 months.

And that I have a friggin' toothache that would send a grown man to his knees, but  that I'm ignoring because I don't have dental insurance and because the last time I went to the dentist he seriously wanted to pull out all of my upper teeth and give me a full set of dentures, which I guarantee you is going to happen in the next few years, but that I don't want to deal with right now.

And that I'm flat broke.

Oh, and that I have my period.

Yup. Life is big fat bowl of cherries right now, lemme tell ya.

Is it 2008 yet? Because I'm really looking forward to 2008.

Best Halloween Costume on Kids EVER...

So this morning, immediately after putting Grace on the bus, I had to shower and drive 30 miles to Hannah's daycare to watch a 10-minute "Costume Parade" of the kids in the daycare parading around the playground all dressed up. It's very cute, but totally not worth the 30 minute drive. However, I did it all the years for Grace, so I'd feel bad if I didn't show up.

Anyway, there was one of set of girl twins there, I'm guessing around 2-years-old. Oh... my... god... Best costumes EVER! They were supposed to be Oompa Loompas from Willy Wonka. I don't know the last time I laughed so hard. The mom happened to be standing next to me and said that she had originally planned on putting orange paint on their faces too, but once she realized she couldn't even wash the makeup off her hand, putting on the girls' faces probably wasn't the smartest thing to do.

Anyway, I snapped a few pictures, but since I don't know the mom from Eve, I figured I should block out the twins faces a bit. But seriously... isn't this HILARIOUS?!?! LOL!

The mom even had some blue and green hairspray on top of their heads. Totally made me laugh out loud.

Anyway, I'm now heading to my second "Costume Parade" of the day, around the corner at Grace's school. Then I'm coming home, soon to followed by the girls and Steve, and we'll eat and head back to the school for the Halloween dance they're having tonight for families. I am TOTALLY not looking forward to it for many reasons, but the girls are excited, so I've decided to fake it. LOL! I'll post pictures of my own kids sometime soon. :)

Zzzz...

I am soooo tired right now, and really need to get the hell to bed. But I wanted to say hi and post some pictures from today. The town had their Halloween parade tonight, so I took the girls. We had a blast, the girls got a shitload of candy, and a good time was had by all.

 

Today...

We're pirates. Don't ask why. Don't ask how. Just play along. Trust me on this one.

(PS: I didn't edit these photos at all, so forgive their ugliness. LOL! And she's still wearing that damn skirt. [sigh])

I Am Woman...

Hear me roar.

Some Photos...

I have no time to blog for real right now because it's already almost lunchtime and I've done NOTHING productive, including shower. [sigh] But here are some photos from the pumpkin patches we've been to in the past few days. (One as Hannah's field trip and two yesterday with my parents.)

These first 5 are from Hannah's field trip on Friday...

 

These next two are from the corn maze I took the girls through yesterday...

This last one is from yesterday too. I realize that Grace isn't looking at the camera, but it's sooooo rare that I'm actually in a picture with my kids, that I can't help but like it. LOL!

Layout

Just wanted to post a layout I put together yesterday highlighting Hannah's crazy mood swings. I swear sometimes I think the child is bipolar. LOL!

The Divorce...

Not mine. My sister's. Mary commented in my last post asking who's getting the dogs. Those two horse-sized beasts that, for the most part, are very sweet dogs. But since I'm not a big fan of four-legged creatures, they're certainly not near and dear to my heart. Sorry animal lovers. And I think that my sister's love obsession with them is freakin' bizarre. She dresses them up on Halloween and Christmas, she has birthday parties for them, etc. She says they're her "kids," but I find the whole thing rather disturbing and unhealthy.

Anyway, back to the divorce. She's leaving him. We all like him for the most part, but she says she's not in love with him anymore. That she loves him, but she's not in love with him. He isn't always nice to her when he drinks. Never anything physically abusive, but he's been known to make rude remarks to her, tell her she's getting fat, etc. I guess over the years, it's worn her down. As much as I like Mike and I'll miss him, I'm proud of her for making the decision to move on in her life and search for happiness again.

Anyway, she told him they were done about a month and a half ago. He was devastated. However, over the past few weeks he's already dated several women (his way of "getting over Kristin") and has found a house to rent and is in the process of moving out. He still swings by here for beers and to hang out (with her blessing) and sometimes the two of them even come over together, as they're trying to remain as "civil" as possible through this whole thing.

I feel horrible for both of them because they're both upset about it in their own ways, etc. But here's where the dogs come in. My sister absolutely, positively will NOT part with those dogs. Here's the thing though. Now that Mike is moving out, he's not going to pay the mortgage on their house anymore and I don't blame him, frankly. This was her idea, not his and he can't afford to pay rent AND the mortgage. However, my sister only makes $1100 a month. The mortgage is $1000 a month. She obviously can't stay there and pay for it on her own. Here's where it gets tricky. She won't get rid of the dogs. None of us will let her move into our homes with those two beasts (as well as 3 cats... let's not forget the felines). But she can't pay for the house. Hmmm...

So the house is on the market as of last week, but my gut feeling is that will take a little while to sell. When it does sell, neither of them will walk away with much after the mortgage is paid off. A few thousand each at best. And when it does sell, where the hell is she going to go? She is never going to be find a place to rent that will allow her to have 2 HUGE dogs and 3 cats. I mean, what landlord is that stupid? Um, none. I'm actually getting pretty annoyed with her. She's refusing to look ahead. My parents have told her they'll help her out financially as much as they can until the house sells (and I think that is above and beyond what they need to do actually). But once it does sell, she's still screwed. Like I said, she'll never find a place to rent with all those animals. And she can't afford to buy a house. But when you try to talk to her about it, she just says she doesn't want to talk about it. Uh, ok. But what are you going to do, ya know? I'll be pissed if she lives off of my parents' hard-earned money for too long. Sure, they should help her out for awhile. But I'll be annoyed as all hell if she goes the next year or so sucking off my parents who really can't afford to support TWO homes. It's not their job anymore, ya know? She keeps saying "She's not moving anytime soon," and that "she'll stay in that house until they foreclose on it" if she has to. All because of 5 stupid pets. I'm sorry, but sometimes decisions we make as adults are not easy ones and I don't think she's acting very "adult-like" right now.

So I've stopped talking to her about it. I have a hard time holding my tongue around her and my annoyance is often very apparent. And you can't talk to her about anything without her getting completely defensive and pissed off and storming off and being mad at you for a few days. So I don't ask anymore. She's made her bed and now it's her duty to lie in it. The problem is, she wants to lie in it with 5 animals and I don't know how that's going to be possible. So the future should be rather interesting to say the least. [sigh]

I've Learned My Lesson.

I just called to order a pizza for tonight. I ordered ALL pepperoni. And I'm going to get SIX garlic knots and hide three of them, dammit.

 

[EDIT: I just can't win. When I got there, I decided to get the pepperoni knots instead of the garlic knots. I came home... I warmed one up... I took a big bite. They gave me sausage knots instead of pepperoni knots. I hate sausage. [sigh] I give up. LOL!]

[Sigh] She's done it again...

My sister-in-law that is. (We'll call her J. from here on out.) Remember a few months ago when my mother-in-law told Steve that J. had joined a gym and was getting all buff? And how the evil competitive side of me could NOT let her be thinner than me (which is totally unlike me), and so I "joined" a gym for a week. (In actuality, I had a free pass for a week and then never paid to join and never went back. LOL!) And then how about 2 weeks later, Steve & I were visiting my mother-in-law and we came to find out that J. did NOT in fact join a gym?

Well, she's done it again. Steve stopped at my MIL's house last night after his dentist appointment, and when he got home, he said that his mom said that J. had been bugging her to join the gym together. And that a few days later, J. told her that instead of joining, she had cleaned off her enclosed back porch and set up a little mini gym with her treadmill, some other equipment, etc. and was going to work hard to lose weight. Shit. Now you all know what that means for me. It means I have to start working out and losing weight. Ugh.

In a weird coincidence though, last weekend my sister was here and mentioned that she's selling her treadmill now that her and my BIL are getting divorced. I asked how much she wants and she said fifty bucks. I said, "SOLD!" I really do want to do something other than sit here on my fat ass, and for $50, who the hell cares if I never use it, right? LOL! So this was all BEFORE I found out J. was starting to exercise again, but not that I found out she is exercising, I have to too. [sigh] I actually have lost weight recently. Not on purpose, and not by trying, but I'm down to 130-ish, which is the lightest I've been in years. But I am NOT in good shape at all, so I really should try to get some exercise here and there. But shit, now it's a competition. Ick.

(Oh, and remember I used to comment on J.'s painted on comma-shaped eyebrows? I did manage to snag a photo one day, so I'll post it later and we can vote on whether or not they are indeed fake and if she is, in fact, in serious need of an eyebrow-painting tutorial.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In other news, I drove all the way to the costume place yesterday and they didn't have the costume Grace wants. [sigh] So since I was already in the "city" I ran into Barnes & Noble and snagged 4 new books from the clearance bins. I LOVE the clearance bins. LOL! So that's cool. Maybe I can read them while I walk on my new treadmill. [rolls eyes and sighs]

OK. Hannah has a daycare field trip to the pumpkin patch today and I'm meeting the class there in a few hours, so I have to go get ready. More later. In the meantime, here's another picture of Grace from the weekend. Dear lord, that child loves her stuffed animals. LOL! (And yes Tink, she did get a haircut. Hannah did too, but it's not as noticeable.)

Hey gang...

I don't have too much to update on. Yesterday, I spent several hours cleaning up Hannah's pigsty of a room and rearranging the furniture in there. It looks really nice and clean, but I'm not naive enough to think it'll last long. [sigh]

I'm getting ready to drive 30 miles (one way) to pick up Grace's Halloween costume before they sell out of her size. Then I'm coming home and starting on Grace's pigsty of a room. Oink. Blech.

Here are a bunch of photos from the weekend and two layouts I've done in the past few days.

Tink, you were correct the other day. Hannah was indeed wearing a bowling shirt. LOL! My mom cleaned out her attic and found my older brother, Kyle's, bowling shirt from when he was a kid. It's Hannah's latest obsession in terms of clothing. And note that she's still wearing that damn brown skirt that's Grace's. [sigh]

 

Here's one of the girls carving these two tiny pumpkins they picked up at a pumpkin patch last week.

 

Grace with the finished jack o' lanterns.

 

And one of Grace that I really like.

 

And finally, my two layouts.

Weekly Word Challenge Photos

I don't have much time to blog right now since I have a buttload of stuff I want to get done today. But I wanted to get my WWC photos posted. The words this week were Posed and Natural. Here are my takes on them.

POSED

 

NATURAL

Let's Talk About Steve...

Steve, my dear husband. I don't talk that much about Steve on here. Not for any particular reason. Just because there's not many interesting things to say.

But last night, after everyone else was in bed, I was pissed at him. We had decided to get a pizza for dinner last night, and when I went to pick it up, I saw some garlic knots sitting there and bought four of them. They're wonderful little knots of dough with oil and minced garlic on them. Delicious.

So we get home and I eat one piece of pizza and one garlic knot. I was full then and decided to save one of my garlic knots as a snack later that night. I even said to Steve that one was going to be my "midnight snack." Great.

So it's 10:30 and everyone else is sleeping. I'm hungry. I can taste the garlic knot already and head to the kitchen to warm it up. But where is it? I look on the counter. I look in the fridge. I look everywhere. And then I spy it. The little bag that had contained the garlic knots was wadded up and thrown in the garbage, indicating that its contents were gone. GONE people. Son of a bitch, the bastard ate them. He ate ALL of them.

Then, just to add a little fuel to the fire, I open the pizza box to put the leftovers into the fridge for the night. Now when I called to order the pizza I specifically asked Steve what he wanted on his. He said nothing. I wanted pepperoni and said that. He said, "Get half pepperoni, half plain." Great. So I go to wrap up the leftover pizza, and what's left? Four pieces of pizza. All plain. The fucker had eaten all pieces of pepperoni. MY half.

Now I briefly considered walking upstairs, waking him up, and yelling at him. But I realized that that sort of behavior bordered on psychotic chick type stuff, so I inwardly steamed. I couldn't wait to ream him out today.

But he was gone long before I even woke up, picked up by my dad at 6:30 this morning to head to a golf tournament for the whole day. He did, however, just call me on his cell phone to say that he talked to his mom and that his uncle's colonoscopy had gone well yesterday and that nothing serious was found, much to our relief. I should have yelled at him for the garlic knot and pizza incident. But I couldn't. I laughed instead, and told him how pissed I was last night. He laughed. I told him I had every intention of waking him up last night to rip him a new one and we laughed about that together. I just can't stay mad at the bastard, no matter how hard I try. It's a weakness.

He's damn lucky he's so hot. Because otherwise, I think I would've kicked him to the curb a long time ago. ;)