Wacky Weather!

Has mother nature forgotten that it is April? Seriously, this is what we woke up to this morning! A 9:30 a.m. it is only 30 degrees, and a dusting of snow on the ground. I guess we should count our blessings! The forecast said 2-6 inches of the white fluff, and areas to our north did get several inches! We're just trying to stay warm, and hope that next week's forecast holds true. Sunny & 60's!! We're all ready! Once the weather improves, I plan to get out and start walking. A LOT! I can't believe we leave for our cruise in only 10 weeks!! I am very excited! But this body is not ready for shorts and bathing suits! Some of you already know that I signed up online for the SELF Challenge. If you are not familiar, SELF magazine does this every year. Challenge yourself to eat better and exercise more! The magazine gave me the kick start, and their website is full of tips for working out and eating better! I'm all signed up, have set my personal goals, and I can keep it all logged on their website to help me track my progress! So far I only have one "buddy" signed up! Anyone else care to join? I figure "the more the merrier", I can always use the moral support!! Wish me luck!! On that note, I'm going to pop in a video and try to get some exercise in today! Katie and Jacob are at school, and Emily is napping. Sound like perfect timing!

Time flies!

They say time flies when you are having fun. I'm not sure if I would call the events of the past month "fun", but the time sure did fly!! I had no idea that it has been almost a month since I last posted an update here.

It really started about a few weeks ago. We had a couple weeks of very warm weather, which melted lots of snow, and thawed the frozen ground. Then there was the week that we got more than three inches of rain in about 4 days. That's when the "fun" really started! You see, we already have a tendendcy to get a little water in our basement. Well this time, we got a LOT of water. Almost the entire basement floor was wet. Some spots had standing water. As quickly as you could sweep it toward the floor drain, it was seeping in again.

Luckily, most of the basement is not finished, and there's not much that could be damaged.

However, we do have our cherished family room. Poor Patrick worked so hard; running electricity & wiring for a sound system, hanging drywall, painting, and of course laying carpet. Well, the carpet is ruined. Water is literally squishing underneath. We have started to tear it out, but it's a long slow process. Made worse by the fact that Poor Patrick the CPA is working 12-16 hour days in the height of tax season. Only 9 more days of that, thank goodness!!

So, in the meantime, I moved the computer out of the family room, and made a temporary home for it in the dining room. Due to a wiring glitch, I was not able to get an internet connection right away, and had to wait 5 days for my friends at Mediacom to get someone out here to get it fixed! But, I'm back online now, and I must say I'm happy to be here.

This past weekend was very exciting. Not only did we celebrate Easter, Katie had a BIG moment for a girl of 6.

Yep, she lost her first tooth! It had been loose for 3 weeks. On Saturday afternoon it was really wiggling, and barely hanging on. It finally fell out while she was lying in bed that night trying to fall asleep. How lucky she was to have the Tooth Fairy AND the Easter Bunny visit on the same night!!

The Tooth Fairy was kind enough to leave her TWO of the new gold dollar coins featuring our first US President, George Washington. The Easter Bunny, of course, left a few new toys, and way too much candy!! What a great weekend!!

I think this is long enough for today. I will try to stay more current here in the future! Thanks for reading. Have a wonderful day!

Questions for Readers

WOW! Sorry it's been awhile since my last post. So much for keeping up with that resolution! So, seriously. I want to know what you think about this blog. If you are reading this, then you have answered my main question! SO, please let me know!! Send me an email, or leave a comment here on the blog. You can leave a comment anonomously. You don't have to "join" or "sign in" or anything. I also want your feelings on the content. Is there anything else you want to know about? Pictures you want to see? Help me make this better! Please! Ok, that's all for today. At least for now. I need to get back to cleaning!

Addictions

I already have too many. I would like to thank my "friends" Jen & Laura for the latest. Digital scrapbooking. These girls have dragged me under into the cult-like, online world of creating scrapboook layouts without paper! What is a girl to do with all that paper & adhesive lying around? They say it's faster than scrapping with paper. Maybe once you get used to using the "not-so-user-friendly" Adobe Photoshop. But I'm still having a lot of fun. Jen has become a designer, and she is making her own digital products. To help promote herself she formed a Creative Team. What we do is make layouts using her products, and post them on websites devoted to digital scrapping to help get her name out there. It's fun, and really addictive! Don't worry my paper-scrapping friends. I will never give up my paper. The stickers, the eyelets, the ribbon, the "Jellishments". The list goes on and on!! It's too much fun. It's an outlet for me. A way to escape the house every other Friday night, and an occasional Sunday afternoon. I plan to keep alive the fantasy of the "Scrapbooking Cruise" (yes, there is such a thing!). All my scrapping friends will come along! We will spend days on a boat cruising warm waters, soaking up the sun, swapping embellishtments, and talking til we can't talk anymore! Oh, and let's not forget the cocktails! A girl can dream, right? Well, all this talk of scrapping has me itching to do just one more layout before going to bed. Please check the link to the right to view the latest, and let me know what you think!

The icy blast!

Wow! I didn't realize how long it had been since my last post. So sorry to keep all of you on the edge of your seats, just waiting to find out what's been going on here! LOL The BIG event this week had to be the nasty winter weather this past weekend. It all started Saturday morning with some freezing rain. This lasted pretty much ALL day. It was just lovely. We had power outages off and on all day long, lasting anywhere from a few minutes to a couple hours. It was the same with our phone service. Thank goodness for cell phones! Finally, shortly after 10pm, we lost power for the night. The power company was calling crews back in due to the dangerous conditions. They got back out bright and early Sunday morning, and we were back in business by 8am. Sunday then added more freezing rain and snow to the ice that was already on the ground. Luckily there are some warm days in this weeks forecast to help clear it all up. Is anyone else ready for spring?!?!? I can hardly believe it. Dawn (Patrick's sister) is getting married in FIVE days!! I'm really looking forward to the weekend. It will be hectic, and crazy, but loads of fun. I can't believe I still need to get shoe's for myself, and pants for Patrick to wear. Better get out there tomorrow!! Other than the storm we had a pretty uneventful week. The usual running kids to and from school, and Katie to dance class. They are starting to learn their recital routine, and she's getting very excited! More on that later. The CPA just walked in (at 8:43 pm) from a long Monday at work. Time to go be a couple for a few hours!