Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
my hair, what's left of it...
So, about three weeks ago, Mark decided to take Brigid to school and then he was going to go over and get his haircut. He said he was getting hippie hair. That usually means he actually has to comb it, I think. I went with him and ended up getting eighteen inches cut off- yep 18 inches! It is now shoulder length and is really cute on me. I still wake up every morning and am aghast at my image in the mirror, but it has been totally worth it. I haven't has a headache since and am using about 1/4 of the shampoo and condition I was. I never thought I would ever cut my hair. It has been 18 years since my hair has been this short. Here's to a new look.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Things going on...
Fiona loved her dance class. She has spent a lot of time since then practicing her steps and rhythms. It is so amazing to see her blossom in an activity.
Brigid had a doctor's check-up. She is in the 75% for height and 50% for weight. She still is super skinny though. I have to pin all her pants up. The doctor was impressed that they only see my kids yearly. She absolutely loves that they don't know who she is. I took Brigid out to lunch as she had 4 shots and did not cry at all. She is my brave little trooper.
Our other cat, Poe, has not acclimated himself well to being an only cat. He wanders everywhere looking for the other cat. He seems really depressed. We may have to get a new cat sooner than we anticipated for Poe's sake.
Mark and I have been taking inventory of our property and trying to figure out what we can do with what we have. We are thinking of doing a mini-homestead here! We planted quite a bit of edibles this year, but we are going to expand. We are thinking of putting in some grape arbors with concord grapes, more raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and more veggies. The pear tree has given us more than we can eat this year. I was forced to make pear jam. One apple tree died, but we can still use the other. We shall see how far we are able to go.
There is a family in California that grow 99% of their food on 1/10 of an acre, in PASADENA! I am utterly amazed and enthralled by their work. That is what we would like to achieve, vegetable and fruit wise. With Mark and I both hunting, we may need the grocery store less and less as time goes on. That is my ultimate goal. Next up, I am thinking about my own bees....
Brigid had a doctor's check-up. She is in the 75% for height and 50% for weight. She still is super skinny though. I have to pin all her pants up. The doctor was impressed that they only see my kids yearly. She absolutely loves that they don't know who she is. I took Brigid out to lunch as she had 4 shots and did not cry at all. She is my brave little trooper.
Our other cat, Poe, has not acclimated himself well to being an only cat. He wanders everywhere looking for the other cat. He seems really depressed. We may have to get a new cat sooner than we anticipated for Poe's sake.
Mark and I have been taking inventory of our property and trying to figure out what we can do with what we have. We are thinking of doing a mini-homestead here! We planted quite a bit of edibles this year, but we are going to expand. We are thinking of putting in some grape arbors with concord grapes, more raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and more veggies. The pear tree has given us more than we can eat this year. I was forced to make pear jam. One apple tree died, but we can still use the other. We shall see how far we are able to go.
There is a family in California that grow 99% of their food on 1/10 of an acre, in PASADENA! I am utterly amazed and enthralled by their work. That is what we would like to achieve, vegetable and fruit wise. With Mark and I both hunting, we may need the grocery store less and less as time goes on. That is my ultimate goal. Next up, I am thinking about my own bees....
Monday, September 14, 2009
Better today
I am certainly feeling worlds better today. I know Hamish is in a better place with people around him to love and that has given me a lot of comfort. Actually, my friend Diane was the one who thought that maybe Heavenly Father will now wake up to kitty massages every morning. It's funny, I really didn't feel up to church on Sunday, but the Relief Society choir was singing and since I am first counselor, I had to be there. Sacrament was truly uplifting. The music is what really got me. It was about consoling grief and finding hope. Heavenly Father certainly watches out for those who need it. But, then, the ladies sang. I had chosen "Beautiful Savior" from the old Children's Songbook. It has a stunning descant and is just amazing when sung by a large group that truly believe the words. There were only 15 of us, but we sounded like 300. Our group always has a few angels that like to sing with us. It is always a wonderful experience.
Monday morning dawned, and it was off to school for Fiona. She seems to dislike first grade, so far. I think she is a bit intimidated by the amount of work. We shall see how it goes. She brought home homework and has not been entirely excited about it. She starts irish step dance tonight at the Center for the Arts. She has sooooooo been looking forward to the lessons. It has been her entire focus this summer. Wish her luck!
Monday morning dawned, and it was off to school for Fiona. She seems to dislike first grade, so far. I think she is a bit intimidated by the amount of work. We shall see how it goes. She brought home homework and has not been entirely excited about it. She starts irish step dance tonight at the Center for the Arts. She has sooooooo been looking forward to the lessons. It has been her entire focus this summer. Wish her luck!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
RIP- Hamish 9/12/2009
My beloved cat, Hamish was struck and killed by a car last night. I am beyond upset still over 12 hours later. They closed the bridge on the end of a main street and so we are the detour street. We have 1000% more traffic and no one slows down anymore. The two girls that struck him did the right thing, though and went looking for his owner. They found some neighbors who recognized him, called my in-laws who called Mark. I am glad that we didn't see him being killed, especially the kids. This will devastate them when we tell them after church. I have never ever had a cat who didn't die of old age or a lethal disease. I am beyond hopelessness over this loss.
Hamish was a stray that a local man found and took in to his shop in Cortland. Hamish was the office cat, then named Snuggles. When we bought the house, I had to have a cat, so we rushed over there. He couldn't find any kittens, but my girls couldn't pull themselves away from a long haired, overweight, over-affectionate cat. Scott put him in the car with us and away we went. Hamish loved riding in the car because the driver had to endure him sitting on your lap while you were forced to pet him. I woke up almost every morning to Hamish kneading my back to get me to wake up. I will severely miss the kitty massages.
I am so grateful that Hamish got to have a familywho loved him beyond words for a little over a year. He lived a short 4 years, but the last was the best.
Hamish was a stray that a local man found and took in to his shop in Cortland. Hamish was the office cat, then named Snuggles. When we bought the house, I had to have a cat, so we rushed over there. He couldn't find any kittens, but my girls couldn't pull themselves away from a long haired, overweight, over-affectionate cat. Scott put him in the car with us and away we went. Hamish loved riding in the car because the driver had to endure him sitting on your lap while you were forced to pet him. I woke up almost every morning to Hamish kneading my back to get me to wake up. I will severely miss the kitty massages.
I am so grateful that Hamish got to have a familywho loved him beyond words for a little over a year. He lived a short 4 years, but the last was the best.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Pictures!
Mark's cell phone has its own memory card that fits in my computer. So here are some pictures of what we have been up to.
This is a picture of Fiona from May, before school let out. They are all about the fairies now.
This is Brigid at the Relay For Life at SUNY Cortland. There was face painting and Brigid
loves the Itsy Bitsy Spider song.This is a scene that Mark came home to the other day. Brigid woke up with a night terror and crawled into bed about midnight. Fiona got up at 3, realized that Brigid was sleeping with me and crawled in too. I love that they feel close enough to sleep in my bed, but Brigid spends the entire night trying to get as close as she can to me. Some nights, I fall out of bed from her advances.
I love being a mom. :)
Monday, July 13, 2009
The BBC has a list of 100 books you have to read. The average person has read only 6 out of 100. I have read 68! Thank goodness for no television. It really does make a big difference in your life. Here's the master list. The ones I have read have an X after them.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (movie) X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling -- X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper LeeX
6 The Bible X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman -- (I think not!)X
10 Great Expectations - Charles DickensX
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare X
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du MaurierX
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George EliotX
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles DickensX
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy X
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor DostoyevskyX
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo TolstoyX
32 David Copperfield - Charles DickensX
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma - Jane Austen X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen X
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha -X
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X (
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie CollinsX
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood X
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert X
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zifon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X )
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John SteinbeckX
62 Lolita - Vladimir NabokovX
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre DumasX
66 On The Road - Jack KerouacX
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen FieldingX
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville X
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram StokerX
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James JoyceX
76 The Inferno - DanteX
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray X
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice WalkerX
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo IshiguroX
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert X (Yuck)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad X
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams X
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre DumasX
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor HugoX
Now, not all of these are the best of literature, but so many of these are old friends. Dune I read at least once a year. Little Women is another that is part of my yearly reads. Some of these I will never read again, like Les Miserables and Heart of Darkness. It's not that they weren't good, it is just that I want something a bit more uplifting.
So are you a freak when it comes to books? I bet you are...
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (movie) X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling -- X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper LeeX
6 The Bible X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman -- (I think not!)X
10 Great Expectations - Charles DickensX
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare X
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du MaurierX
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George EliotX
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles DickensX
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy X
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor DostoyevskyX
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo TolstoyX
32 David Copperfield - Charles DickensX
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34 Emma - Jane Austen X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen X
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha -X
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X (
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie CollinsX
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood X
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert X
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zifon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X )
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John SteinbeckX
62 Lolita - Vladimir NabokovX
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre DumasX
66 On The Road - Jack KerouacX
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen FieldingX
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville X
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram StokerX
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James JoyceX
76 The Inferno - DanteX
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray X
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice WalkerX
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo IshiguroX
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert X (Yuck)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle X
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad X
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams X
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre DumasX
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor HugoX
Now, not all of these are the best of literature, but so many of these are old friends. Dune I read at least once a year. Little Women is another that is part of my yearly reads. Some of these I will never read again, like Les Miserables and Heart of Darkness. It's not that they weren't good, it is just that I want something a bit more uplifting.
So are you a freak when it comes to books? I bet you are...
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Mark got the job!
Mark got the job at TLC Ambulance! First interview, and a job offer on the spot. Heavenly Father has blessed us so much these last few months and now to top it off, a job with better pay and better benefits than Rural Metro. Mark is happy, but cautious. He worked there years ago, when Fiona was born and it wasn't the right fit then. But, Mark has grown up and I think that working here in town will be better for him in the long run. The two greatest things about this job are that he can walk to work, and HE DOESN'T NEED TO WEAR A BULLET-PROOF VEST TO WORK! In my mind, as the mother of his children, this is the best part. I don't have to worry about the gang violence and the murders like in Syracuse. He will still have to see crappy stuff, ie child abuse, but he will be safer in the long run. Yipee!!!!!!!!!
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Life always seems to get in the way
It has been an incredible 6 months! Christmas was awesome as it always is. Lots of love and family. Even my Aunt Mary and Uncle Dan were here from Illinois!
January was a bit of a bummer. Mark got into an accident with his ambulance and they fired him. The accident was not his fault. He was going to a call with lights and sirens and some idiot T-boned him. He has not found a new job yet, but has an interview this week. :)
The upside is that Mark has reorganized this house top to bottom. He keeps me constantly worried about some mess the kids have made or that there are dirty dishes in the sink. Gotta love a husband with mild OCD.
Spring came and it was so hot that I decided to start the garden a wee bit early. According to the U.S. government, we are now zone 6 for planting due to global warming. It is sheer baloney as we had frost on June 1st! I lost my squash, zucchini, green lettuce and some tomato plants. I think I should sue Al Gore, but I won't. He needs the money to pay his electric bill.
Fiona graduates from kindergarten on Thursday. I just cannot believe she is no longer a little baby anymore. Of course, she is becoming a young woman I love even more everyday. She has been writing books on a variety of topics and does a great job!
Brigid has become the funniest skinny chick I know. First off, she has developed a habit of shaking her fist at people when she angry and asking them if they want a knuckle sandwich! She never has followed through with her threats and actually most of the time does it to make someone laugh. In her housework abilities, she has moved on to washing dishes. She is amazing at them!
I am busy as ever mainly trying to keep Brigid from digging up my plants and housework. That's life I guess!
January was a bit of a bummer. Mark got into an accident with his ambulance and they fired him. The accident was not his fault. He was going to a call with lights and sirens and some idiot T-boned him. He has not found a new job yet, but has an interview this week. :)
The upside is that Mark has reorganized this house top to bottom. He keeps me constantly worried about some mess the kids have made or that there are dirty dishes in the sink. Gotta love a husband with mild OCD.
Spring came and it was so hot that I decided to start the garden a wee bit early. According to the U.S. government, we are now zone 6 for planting due to global warming. It is sheer baloney as we had frost on June 1st! I lost my squash, zucchini, green lettuce and some tomato plants. I think I should sue Al Gore, but I won't. He needs the money to pay his electric bill.
Fiona graduates from kindergarten on Thursday. I just cannot believe she is no longer a little baby anymore. Of course, she is becoming a young woman I love even more everyday. She has been writing books on a variety of topics and does a great job!
Brigid has become the funniest skinny chick I know. First off, she has developed a habit of shaking her fist at people when she angry and asking them if they want a knuckle sandwich! She never has followed through with her threats and actually most of the time does it to make someone laugh. In her housework abilities, she has moved on to washing dishes. She is amazing at them!
I am busy as ever mainly trying to keep Brigid from digging up my plants and housework. That's life I guess!
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