Construction Zone!

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm in the process of making some changes to my blog, so if things on here seem wonky now and then, well, it's just me! I only have time to work on it in bits and pieces, though, so thank you for your patience.

Tom's New Blog

Tom has started a new blog. The link for it is over to the right. Well, we (his family) seem to be the only ones who call him Tom; the rest of the world knows him as Tommy! You have to see this movie that he made, with special effects.

Well, off to work - just wanted to put in a plug for my kid's stuff!

Such a deal!

Here's a deal for ya - I was looking at next week's (09/09 - 09/15) sale paper from Food Lion and I saw that there was a very good loss leader (loss leaders are the things usually on the front page of the ad, usually a very good price, and the store generally won't make a lot of money off of - they are used to lure you into the store to buy the stuff that they will make money on). Wisk laundry detergent, regularly priced at $6.49, is sale priced at $2.99, with a limit of 2. The sale price alone is good with a savings of about 58% right there, but here is a place you can print a coupon for $1.00 off of that, bringing the price down to $1.99 per bottle, making a savings of 72%. After you print one coupon, hit your browser's back button and print out another one. The limit is two coupons from the site so if you try again it will come up and say that you have reached your print limit. I think I have a new hobby - this coupon thing is getting fun!

Oh, and I want to clear up something I wrote in my last post - when I wrote that I use the treadmill, Bowflex and Wii Fit, the problem is that I don't use any of these consistently - sporadically at best - otherwise I would have lost more than 25 pounds by now!

Guess what I just did?!

Guess what I just did?! I just registered for a belly dancing class. Go ahead - read that sentence again. I'll wait.

Okay, now that you've recovered your sensibilities, let me tell you about it. I had received the latest program offerings from our county parks and recreation department and was absently thumbing through it thinking that maybe I'd like to take a class in something, and lo and behold, Beginning Belly Dancing caught my eye. I bought a DVD to teach myself a while back, but never actually got around to it more than once, so I figured I needed something a little more structured! After just one time with the DVD my arms and middle were sore, so I know it must do something.

I'm looking for something different in terms of exercising. The heart rate monitor I wrote about a while back is connected to software in which I input my exercise heart rate, progress, weight, and stuff like that. Every so often there is a Fitness Challenge in which anyone who belongs to the group can participate and challenge themselves for 12 weeks. The latest challenge began yesterday and I really want to do well this time. Last time I came in #328 out of 2,211 participants, so not too bad, and between that challenge and the one before it I lost 25 pounds, but I still have quite a bit more to lose. So, I was looking for a different form of exercise besides the treadmill, Bowflex and Wii Fit that I do now.

I'm also dragging my poor friend kicking and screaming to this class. When I asked her if she'd go to the class with me, she asked if there wasn't a geriatric quilting class or something else we could take! She is so funny; when she finally agreed to take the class, she told me not to expect her to be as enthusiastic about it as I was; her husband was enthusiastic enough for the both of them!

Also, had to update on my coupon adventures. I made a last trip to Kmart on Saturday night before the double coupon event ended and got even more stuff! When I went the first time they were out of stock on a lot of items that I wanted and they had restocked by the time I went back on Saturday. My total for Saturday's trip came to around $80.00 and after coupons it was $30.00. But my coupon adventures were not over yet! I saw that Giant had Oscar Mayer bacon Buy One Get One Free, which in itself was a great deal, but I also had COUPONS! So I went to Giant yesterday and bought 6 packages of bacon. My total came to $40.92, then the Buy One Get One amounts came off, then my coupons came off, and my grand total was $11.97, which works out to roughly $1.99 per package, which is 64% off the regular price.

Well, that's all for right now on this rainy Tuesday morning. Guess I'd better get to work now. Happy Tuesday!

It's funny that it doesn't look like so much spread out here, but if you look at the individual items and add up what their cost is, you'll get an idea of how much I really saved. Oh, and there were two Coffee Mate creamers in the refrigerator and we forgot to take out to add to the picture!

The Damage

Okay, here's the rundown on my Kmart shopping trip. When I walked in the door my very first stop was at the customer service desk where I verified what I had been told the day before. It was true! The lady said I could use as many coupons as I wanted. Little did she know! The employees at Kmart were the absolute best. Every single one of them was nice- even the poor cashier who had to scan my coupons! At the end, two other employees and two managers walked up to the register where the cashier was (still!) scanning coupons and excitedly waited for my total! I think it was interesting that one of the managers was in line behind me with a handful of coupons herself!

While the employees were wonderful, unfortunately, the customers were complete horses' patoots. Well, except for one nice lady. Whenever anyone got in line behind me, I nicely let them know that I had a LOT of coupons and that I would probably be a while checking out. Every one of them said, "Oh, that's okay. I can wait." Within five minutes they were giving me dirty looks, rude comments, and fuming out of the checkout lane to go to another register. I don't understand this - I told them right up front, and there were other (faster) options of checking out. Except for the one lady I mentioned - when I told her I had numerous coupons, she just smiled and said, "Honey, waiting in line doesn't bother me at all. If that's all I have to worry about, I'm a lucky woman. I have a grandson with a brain tumor and compared to that, waiting in a line is nothing." I told her that I admired her perspective. More people should be like that.

I was going to list all the items here, but changed my mind. It's too much stuff! When the cashier finished ringing me up (before coupons) my total came to $353.69. Then the coupons started. And went on, and on, and on, and on............... and eventually my new total came up and it was - drum roll please - $119.35. That is a savings of roughly 67%. Several of the items ended up being free, almost all the deodorants, toothbrushes and toothpastes. As I was deciding what products to buy, I would figure out my savings with the coupon and if it didn't mean a savings of at least 60% or more, it didn't go into the cart.

Oh, I do hope they don't stop super double coupons. I'm really hooked now! The pictures of my goods are above - and if you're wondering about the dog items, those of you who know we don't have a dog - some went to Sam's family for their dog and some are for our neighbor's dog, whom we kind of adopted in a grandparent kind of way - we enjoy his company but he always goes back to his own home afterwards!

Look out Kmart!

Attention Kmart shoppers - you might want to stay home tomorrow 'cause I'm going to clean out the shelves and annoy people! Well, only those who have a problem with coupon-users. Let me explain. Kmart is having a "super double coupon" week right now where they will double coupons up to and including $2.00. How great is that?! Unfortunately, not all stores are participating. Here is a list where you can check if your local store will be participating. I had written to Kmart customer service last week and asked (before I got that handy list) and was told that my local Kmart was the only one in the area participating. I say again - How great is that?!

I went Sunday evening to "test the waters" and they are fine! There are rules to the event in that you are limited to using 10 coupons per transaction, so when I went Sunday I just wanted to see how things would work out, using just a few coupons that I had. I had never heard of, much less participated in, a super double coupon week before. Well, I am hooked now. My total for the items you see in the picture below came to $27.21. Then I handed over THE COUPONS. My total dropped to $6.06. For all that stuff you see. Yeah, I'm going back tomorrow!

Also, after reading some other people's blogs it seems that not all Kmarts are adhering to the 10-coupon rule, so I called my local one to ask and was told that there was no limit. The lady that I spoke with said, "If you have a cart full of stuff and a coupon for everything in that cart, we'll take them!" I hope I don't find out tomorrow that she was mistaken.

I promptly hung up and started cutting and organizing my coupons. I am sad, though, to learn that this will be the last super double coupon event indefinitely, and even if they do change their corporate minds, another one won't be forthcoming until sometime in 2010. Darn. I was just getting the hang of this, too. Well, there's always tomorrow. Literally!

My longsuffering hubby!

I just had to write and share what just happened to my poor hubby. After a 14-hour day today (leaving here at 4:00 AM and going straight to the job in Delaware), Jerry stopped at the ATM in Rehoboth to take money out of his business account and deposit it into our personal account for a payment that was automatically set to come out tomorrow. Let me start by stating that there is only one Bank of America ATM in all of Delaware. Anyway, he withdrew cash from his business account and then went to immediately put it into the other account.

The ATM came up with a message that it couldn't accept some of his cash. This was the cash that he had just gotten out of the ATM! He tried several times. He has had problems with this machine before but this time it was really being stubborn. I was on his truck phone with him the entire time. We would talk for a while and then he'd try the machine again. Finally, while we were still talking, I connected with Bank of America customer service online to try to get some help. Jerry stayed in the parking lot where the ATM was in case they could somehow help.

After waiting forever, I finally got a customer service representative who was, well, nicely put, incompetent. The messages typed back and forth went something like this:
Bank of America (BOA): How can I help you?

Me: My husband is out of state and trying to make a deposit at an ATM to cover a payment that will be automatically withdrawn from our personal account at midnight tonight. The ATM will not accept the cash deposit. Any suggestions?

BOA: (After a LONG wait for a response) You should not use non-Bank of America ATM's when out of the United States. You will need to use wire transfer when out of the country. (I am NOT making this up - this was the conversation).

Me: I didn't say he was out of the country; he is in Delaware and our accounts are in Maryland, and it is a Bank of America ATM!

BOA: What is your card number and I will look the transaction up for you.

Me: Card number? There was no transaction. The machine won't let him deposit cash to cover a payment that is coming out at midnight, and it's the only ATM in Delaware.

BOA: I need your card number to find out exactly why your transaction was denied.

Me: I don't think you understand - there WAS no transaction!

BOA: I will get my manager.

BOA manager: (After an interminable wait) Thank you for notifying us about the malfunctioning ATM machine at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. We will try to have it fixed as soon as possible. Thank you for banking with Bank of America.

I did not make ANY of that up. That was the conversation. *Sigh*

Since I had been reading the responses the whole time to Jerry since we were still connected via his truck phone, I had gotten nearly to the end of that lopsided online conversation when he decided to call customer service from his cell phone. Finally, after a long wait and being transferred once, they took care of everything for us. They linked our business and personal accounts online (which they normally don't do) so that we could transfer money from account to account whenever we needed to and Jerry wouldn't have to stop at the ONLY ATM in the state to make these transfers anymore. So, finally, two hours later the problem got resolved. Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, Jerry left to go back to the trailer and get a good night's sleep.

Shortly after he left the parking lot we were talking about everything that had just happened when he said, "What the.........? What did I do?" He said a policeman was pulling him over. Then when he pulled over, he said a backup arrived. One police officer walked up to his driver side and the backup walked up to his passenger side, both shining flashlights into his truck. Since I was still on the truck phone, I heard the entire conversation. Turns out that several people had called and reported a suspicious person lurking at the ATM and in the shopping center parking lot for a couple of hours. When Jerry opened his glove box to get his registration out, the backup officer on the passenger side seemed awfully interested in shining his flashlight in the glove box - Jerry informed him that what he was looking at was Red Yeast Rice - an herbal cholesterol lowering medicine that I make him take! Jerry explained what had happened at the ATM and after checking his tags and license and such, they apologized and said that they had to follow up on it because they had gotten so many phone calls, wished him a good night and left. Has this guy had a bad evening or what?!

So, my poor hubby is an exhausted man, somewhat humiliated by being pulled over not only by one, but two police officers on Route 1, the main thoroughfare in Rehoboth Beach. All for trying to make a deposit at an ATM. Let this be a lesson to any readers - make your necessary deposits far ahead of schedule, don't linger in parking lots too long, and keep your Red Yeast Rice in plain view at all times!

Can it be? A new post from me?

Just a post to say that I am still kickin'! We have been busy around here. We rented a dumpster for three weeks that sat in our driveway, and boy did we fill it. We have been here 15 years and in that time have accumulated more stuff than anyone could ever possibly need.

I am very proud of ourselves, though. We got rid of stuff that we were hanging onto "just because." Not too long after I got married a great deal of my personal belongings got thrown away that were in my mother's house including love letters, poems and drawings by my husband, my high school yearbooks, years of journals, and other stuff that I didn't get out of my closet fast enough after I married and moved out. Because of that I have had a tendency to save EVERYTHING! I also tend to be sort of a "proxy saver" for the boys - I save stuff of theirs just in case they want it some day.

Well, we had a long discussion and I decided to let the boys decide for themselves what they deemed worthy of keeping, and to my surprise it was very little. I also decided that I didn't need to hold onto "stuff" anymore - I could keep the memories and get rid of the stuff. Some things just can't be replaced, like letters, drawings, yearbooks, but what I had here was WAY less important and so out it went. I even got rid of my depression glass dishes which I loved, but really had no place for. I kept thinking that "someday" I'd have a place for them. Well, while waiting for "someday", I wasn't living here, now - and they were taking up an awful lot of space. I must confess though, I did keep my Jadite pieces! I will FIND a place for them! I am very proud of all four of us. We got rid of years of accumulated junk and decided collectively that it was time to start fresh. I can't believe how much storage space we have now.

Andy and I have also been gearing up for this school year. We will be going to the next big book sale in September to round up the books we need for literature this year. We are studying British literature and need several classic books, all of which I'm sure I'll find at the book sale considerably less expensive than buying them new online. I love that book sale - yes, I got rid of a LOT of books in our massive cleanout. What I have left though are good ones and textbooks, some of which I have already listed and sold on eBay and have some still to list. So they won't be sitting around like they would have previously. But I can't help myself - I LOVE books! Homeschoolers can never have enough books.

Well, that's it for now. I can't promise when my next post will be, but I'll try to make it some time before the new year!

Swagbucks!

Okay, I am going to shamelessly plug something here. I have discovered Swagbucks. Basically, when you search something (through Google or Yahoo or whatever you usually use to search with) you can earn Swagbucks automatically. And then your Swagbucks are redeemable for your choice of goods. Personally, the one I'm going for is Amazon gift certificates. Every 45 Swagbucks is good for a $5.00 Amazon gift certificate. But there are lots of other things - too many to name here - to choose from. I have shamelessly put a block on the top right so that you can click on that and go directly to the site and sign up.

Now for full disclosure - I will get points when you sign up for Swagbucks - but I don't know who you are, what you search, or anything about you. Swagbucks does not disclose that - just adds matching points (for every point you get, I get one) to my account. If you have a blog yourself, or just want to email a referral address to your friends, you can do that too, and then you will get the matching points instead of me. This is not like a pyramid or anything like that! I've been watching this for a while and can honestly say that I'm okay with it. I have checked into it extensively and found that it is all above board, legal, and LOTS of companies participate now, so it's growing by leaps and bounds.

I have put a search engine block on my toolbar for Internet Explorer and on Firefox (yes, I use both - I prefer Firefox but my job software requires me to have IE), and whenever I'm working and need to search a medical term or something, I just use that. Just this afternoon on Firefox I searched "shaving a cat" - I'll explain in a moment - and it came up and said "Congratulations! You've just earned 1 Swagbuck!". Not bad for wanting to learn the proper way to shave a cat. Okay, now for the explanation - we have a longhaired cat who is shedding copiously, and because I'm still refusing to turn the air conditioning on yet, I think he'd be more comfortable with less fur. I was searching for info about it to make sure I wasn't going to make him psychologically unstable or anything. Well, more psychologically unstable. Anyhoo, he'll be more comfortable and won't require therapy because of it.

Well, guess I'd better go. Off to shave the cat, and we have a long day tomorrow that will start early - there's a huge book sale tomorrow with over 90,000 books that starts at 8:00 (I'll explain about that later), and then we're going to Jerry's mom's to shoot our potato gun - more space, ya know! If you don't hear from me for a while, the cat did NOT like being shaved, and I'm recuperating.

Back Again

Wow - a month since I've blogged. Well, I'm not surprised anymore - and you probably aren't either! Just been busy, as usual. We built a potato gun this weekend. Doesn't everyone build one?! This is the coolest thing I have ever seen. We finally stopped shooting it because it sounds like a huge shotgun blast. Yes, it's that loud. We figured our little neighborhood wasn't the best place for it! We kept waiting for the police to arrive, but they never did. The videos do not do the potato gun justice as far as volume goes. Anyway, hope you enjoy our potato gun as much as we did!

A Great Vacation

Last week for Jerry's birthday we took a little vacation. Jerry's mom, Jerry, Andy and I rode the Cape May-Lewes ferry from Delaware to New Jersey, spent the day exploring New Jersey, and then rode the ferry back that night. I'll let the pictures tell most of the story, but suffice it to say we had a great time. We drove my truck onto the ferry because the shuttle buses don't start running until June and it's a six mile walk from the Cape May station to town. After we parked the truck on the deck of the ship, we returned to it a few times to get various things out of it (jackets, cameras), and it was a really weird feeling to be sitting in the vehicle while moving on a ship. We saw dolphins swimming by quite a few times. The four of us shared a hotel room in Rehoboth Beach. Jerry completely took off work and nobody knew he was in the vicinity (or if they did know, they didn't bother him!) It was only for three days, but what a great three days. Jerry and I climbed to the top of the lighthouse. Whew - 199 steps! But it was totally worth the climb to walk out on the top, feel the wind and see the spectacular views. We are definitely planning to go again. Here are some links to the fun stuff we did and saw:

Cape May-Lewes Ferry

Cape May Lighthouse

World War II Concrete Bunker

Naval Air Station, Wildwood, NJ

A view from the top of the lighthouse. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, look in the corner of the wooden walkway going out onto the beach - see the two people, one in a pink shirt and one in a black shirt? They are Jerry's mom and Andy waving to us while Jerry and I were at the top.


A really neat piece of history - a concrete bunker from World War II.

More of said bunker.

One of the views from the top of the lighthouse.


199 steps up to the top!


This is just one small part of the cockpit!


Naval Air Station, Wildwood, New Jersey.


We have new occupations! Oh, and I grew!

Here are our shadows while standing at the rail.


Water, water everywhere!


Happy sailors!


Here we are driving aboard the New Jersey.


The New Jersey.

The Suspense Ends!

Okay, okay - my apologies for not updating sooner. I had my followup appointment last Friday and it turns out that they actually took out four polyps, but only biopsied three. Of those three, two were benign and harmless, but Ol' Ugly was sure enough adenomatous (precancerous). Thankfully the margins surrounding it were found to be clean and free of adenomatous cells. So, I was admonished to eat red meat as little as possible (because it evidently has been linked to cancer), avoid corn and seedy stuff (so as not to aggravate the diverticulosis), and have another colonoscopy in three years to make sure nothing is growing back.

I can't help wondering what might have happened if I had waited until I was 50. Precancerous cells are just that - pre cancer. They are in the process of mutating into cancer cells. What if I had waited?

Please, please, please go have a colonoscopy if you have not had one. For my brother and sister, the doc said to tell you that you NEED to have this done because of my findings. On the plus side, the doc says that if your insurance company balks at approving it because you're under 50, you can tell them (and it can be verified) that you now have a sibling who had an adenomatous polyp removed and generally that should be enough for approval before age 50.

Anyhoo, I'm in the middle of stuff right now, but I just wanted to take a moment to update. I'll write more when I can. Happy Tuesday!

More Information Than You Wanted.....

Okay, people. Hope you're not eating at the moment, but I got a wake-up call the other day and some readers out there probably need one, too. My cousin was recently diagnosed with advanced colon cancer at age 41. That was impetus enough for me to get a colonoscopy myself, which was done this past Thursday. Although "they" (who are "they", anyway?!) say you should have colonoscopies starting at age 50, I am glad I had one done before then. I am 45, healthy, take no medications, walk/run a couple of miles nearly every day, and try to watch what I eat. So I was very surprised to be told that I had three polyps and diverticulosis. Two of the polyps were small but one of them was, in the doctor's words, "rather large and ugly-looking". All of them were removed and sent off for biopsy and I will find out the results in three weeks.

Polyps are generally slow-growing critters, so at least the large one has evidently been taking up residence in my nether regions for a while now. What if I had waited until I was 50? How large and ugly-looking would it have been then? I have posted two of the pictures they gave me; one is one of the small polyps (the two smaller ones looked alike), and the other picture is the ugly one. I warned you - I truly hope you weren't eating when you started reading this post!

My hope in sharing this information is that you will take this seriously - I'll be honest; I went in there thinking that everything would be great and that was that. Now I will wait three weeks to see if Ol' Ugly is benign, precancerous, or cancerous. I do hope that this is a wake-up call to my dear brother o'mine and sister o'mine. I was the guinea pig for this stuff - now it's your turn!

Back Again

Where has the time gone? Has it really been two months since Christmas?! Has it really been about one month since I last posted?! You'd think with no TV that I'd have more time to blog, wouldn't you? Well, actually no, because I never really watched TV that much anyway when we did have it. No one has gone through withdrawal, either. It's amazing how much time can be wasted spent watching TV. For me, though, it's the internet. I find myself losing track of time perusing favorite blogs or researching whatever I'm into at the moment, and I really need to keep track of how much time I'm wasting spending on it!

One of the blogs that I have been keeping up with is this one. It has been truly amazing to read their journey through cancer. Their faith is truly an inspiration. I strongly encourage everyone who visits my blog to visit this one. Make sure you have a LARGE box of tissues nearby. Go back to the earlier entries where their journey began and read through to the present - you won't be sorry - what you will be is uplifted and with a renewed sense of how awesome our God truly is.

In light of that blog and the news of my cousin's advanced cancer, it has really made me think. I know that I am saved, but how about all of you reading this? Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior? If not, please search your heart and think about eternity - it's a long time to spend somewhere you *truly* do not want to be! Besides, I want to see each and every one of you in heaven. What a party that will be! If you're not sure if you are a saved Christian or you know you aren't and want to be, then I suggest you start by reading John 3:16; "For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die, but have eternal life." Then pray sincerely, acknowledging that you know you are a sinner and wish to be saved, and that you believe in and accept Jesus as God's son and your Savior. It doesn't require long, fancy words or lots of "thee's and thou's". What God wants from us is earnest, heartfelt communication, and faith in him. Jesus says we are to have "faith like a child." Simple, unassuming faith that we'll be taken care of, no matter what, and that our life is in the hands of someone far more capable than ours! Please know that doing good deeds will NOT save you. Only simple faith and belief in Jesus will. Nothing we do here on this ol' earth will get us into heaven. Okay, my sermon is finished for today. Please consider what I have written - life truly is short, and eternity truly is a long time. Where would you rather be?

In other news, Jerry and I had our 27th anniversary last week. I am so in love with that man it's not even funny! I thank God each day for him. When we got married I had no idea that it would ever be this wonderful, but it just gets better every year. We didn't exchange gifts for our anniversary because we chose to do that for Valentine's Day. As soon as I get my pictures uploaded I'll post a picture of the wonderful gift he gave me. My camera has been pretty finicky lately and frankly, I don't feel like arguing with it this evening.

Last week Andy and I went to Delaware and took Jerry's mom with us. We had a great time. We walked EVERYWHERE. That lady's hard to keep up with - and I thought I was in fairly good shape! We plan on going back in April to ride the ferry to Cape May. One night we all went to the boardwalk. It was drizzly and chilly and the wind was really howling. It was about 9:00 at night and I couldn't help but walk down to the beach and stand in awe of the ocean. I don't believe I have ever seen the waves that huge, and when they crashed it sounded like thunder. It was so loud that when the others joined me down on the beach, we had to shout to be heard. We tried to get pictures but it was too dark. The whitecaps rolling on the huge black waves and then crashing down into an explosion of foam on the sand was truly a sight. I wandered too close a couple of times and got chased back by the waves, but I could have stood there all night just watching that.

Well, guess that's it for now. I'm sure I'll think of stuff I forgot to write, but that's a post for another day! Oh yeah - speaking of posts for another day, while certain people who shall remain nameless harass me for not blogging often enough, I haven't seen said certain person update his their blog in some time, either - just sayin'.............

Aren't we radical?!

Well, we did it. We got rid of our tv. Oh, not the tv itself, just the cable service to it. We still use the tv to watch movies and play video games; we just don't have access to tv, and I couldn't be happier - and so is my bank account! Jerry and I have been talking about it for a while and we realized we really didn't watch that much tv. He watches the Weather Channel, I watch Food Network and PBS - and then only certain shows, if I remember to catch them on. The boys didn't watch tv at all. We decided that the little bit it was used just didn't justify the cost of it every month, so I had us officially uninstalled. Here's the weird part - they gave us a service disconnect date - and they came out and did whatever it is that they do - and we still had cable. Now this posed a moral dilemma. Technically, we were no longer paying for cable, but we still had it. Hmmm.....what to do....... Okay, that only lasted a short time before our conscience made us do the right thing and disconnect the box inside the house. Turns out, since we have to have digital coming in so that we have internet, if there is a box hooked up, we will still get tv. So for any cable employees or tattletales out there reading this, no, we're not getting free tv - technically, this would be stealing, and I don't know what your Bible says about it, but mine says it ain't right! Jerry and I decided that getting free tv just wasn't worth blocking any blessings that the Lord may feel inclined to bestow upon us! Oh, and thanks to that brother o'mine for being the voice of my conscience before my conscience actually kicked in on this issue! Maybe he'll be nice enough to let me link to his blog - I'll have to ask him. Anyway, off to roll out dough for cinnamon buns. Happy Sunday!

Finally!

You know that post I wrote last about the Christmas background? Never mind.

Hi, Again!

Yes, I realize the background of my blog is still Christmas. And no, there isn't anything I can do about it. At least not yet, anyway. The site to change the backgrounds is down for maintenance at the moment. I promise to have something fresh just as soon as I can. In the meantime, check out the slideshow I made! (in the post below - and it takes a while to load). Tom and Sam made one for her parents for Christmas and it was so good that I just had to try my hand at it. Tom and Sam didn't use specific software, though. They put it all together using various applications and stuff (whad'ya expect from a graphic arts student?!) I, however, cheated and found a great (and FREE!) program download from microsoft.com that works just fine for me. We won't tell Tom, though, after he went through all that work! Anyway, I have been spending inordinate amounts of time playing with the program. So, here's my first project - try not to be too harsh - I'm still learning. Enjoy!

Spending WAY too much time having fun with this software!

Merry Christmas, Y'all!

I figured it has been about a month - I should probably write something before everyone thought I fell off the face of the earth. Andy and I spent the first two weeks of December in Delaware (it was only supposed to be three days, but stuff happens!) Anyway, by the time we got back home we were seriously behind on decorating, wrapping gifts, and that sort of thing. This Christmas is kind of a first for our family. Jerry and I have not exchanged gifts for years. In fact, the last time I can remember us giving each other a gift is when Tom was a baby. That "baby" is now 22 years old! The boys talked to Jerry and I at dinner one evening and said that they wanted Christmas to be different this year. We have never really gone all out for birthdays or holidays, and while the boys said they didn't want anything extravagant, they wanted a little more than what we had been doing in the past, and that included everyone getting gifts for each other - especially Jerry and I.

This Christmas season has been very special so far, even though we were away for the first two weeks of the month. Our "extra-special" Christmas plans had been decided before we left for Delaware, so Andy and I had an opportunity to shop in Rehoboth for our gifts. The boys shopped for each other for the first time, too, using their own money (not ours!) I can't wait for Jerry to open his gifts. We also had a rule about Christmas this year - no credit was to be used whatsoever (well, for Jerry, Tom and I - Andy doesn't have any credit cards!). If it couldn't be purchased with cash, it wasn't purchased. As of today my bank account is pretty flat, but I got GREAT gifts for my family and won't have any credit card payments for it next month -and that's a gift to ME!

We also bowed out of my family's Christmas gathering this year. I fully expect to be shredded, dissected, and turned into verbal mincemeat on Saturday, too! It has nothing to do with anyone - no politics, no hard feelings of any sort. We love everybody but just wanted this be "our" Christmas this year. We had a family meeting a couple weeks ago and voted on staying home this Christmas. Yes, I realize that we would all still be together even if we went somewhere, but there's just something different about being home with your loved ones. We're not shunning anyone - just enjoying our family time quietly this year.

I will post more later if I get a chance - right now I have chocolate chip cookies in the oven that need to be taken out! Merry Christmas, y'all! We love all of you and hope tomorrow is extra special for you, too.

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for more than just the food this year. My one and only brother is a hero to me. Let me explain. Anyone who knows me knows that I am Mrs. Supreme Worry Wart. I can worry about the most inane things sometimes which drives myself, and my family, bonkers. When Jerry is away in Delaware it gives me more reason to worry. I worry about him constantly and drive him bonkers! We have a kind of routine when he's away where we keep in touch with each other at certain times throughout the day and he almost always calls to say goodnight (if he doesn't fall asleep first), and then when he wakes up at some point during the night he'll call just to say goodnight then!

The week before last he asked me to order pizza for him from Pizza Hut. I order online here and then pay for it online also so that all he has to do is sign the ticket and wait for delivery there in Delaware. I called him back with the expected delivery time and he said that he would eat his dinner and then call me. He specifically said that he wasn't feeling very tired so he would definitely call me when he finished eating. He has a tendency to fall asleep at the drop of a hat. He has fallen asleep while eating, while in the bathroom, out in the garage under his truck (I'm not making that up - Tom found him asleep there and almost called 911). And you wonder why I worry. Anyhoo, the pizza was late in arriving (I leave my cell phone number when I order in case there is a problem - which there was - the driver was lost and I had to direct him turn by turn to the trailer).

A long while after I knew the pizza had arrived, I figured Jerry would be calling anytime. I was working on a quilt that I am finally finishing after a long time, and lost track of time. When I finally looked at the clock, it seemed pretty late and a good while after the pizza had been delivered. Dad was out that night and awful thoughts of Jerry falling asleep and subsequently choking on his food, having a stroke, heart attack, etc., and being alone with no one to help him came to mind. Do I have an imagination or what?! Well, if you knew Jerry, you'd know it wasn't so far fetched. I decided to call him. It rang the requisite number of times and then went to voice mail. Hmmm......well, not too worried I figured I'd call again. Maybe he just fell asleep and it was taking a while for the ringing phone to register. No answer again. And again. And again. By this time I tried calling the trailer phone. I know the answering machine there is loud and annoying and SURELY he would hear that. Still no answer. Now my Supreme Worry Wart potential was in full regalia. Being 150 miles away in a situation like that is NO FUN AT ALL. NONE WHATSOEVER. I was praying like crazy by that time. I was really scared.

By now I had tried to call him 10 times over a period of time and had also called the trailer phone a few times. I finally called my wonderful brother and through my shaking voice explained what was going on. He did not even hesitate - he offered to go check on Jerry. I believe it was somewhere around 9:30 at night, too. If it was later, dear brother, feel free to comment and correct me! I made him leave his warm house at that ridiculous hour to check on my husband and he never even had to think about it. What a guy. Meanwhile, I kept trying to call Jerry. Finally, FINALLY, he groggily answered the phone. I lost it. Completely lost it. Between sobbing with relief and wanting to wring his neck, I finally choked out the whole story to him. But I had to hang up and call my brother who was still en route to him. Thankfully, he wasn't too very far from home, but still, the fact that he had to leave his house at all made me feel terrible. When I called Jerry back he said that he's not sure what happened - when he finally heard the phone and answered it, he said he looked around and found that he was sitting up, propped up against the headboard of the bed, TV blasting, with a piece of pizza in his hand. Long story short - okay, okay, too late for that - my brother was a hero to me and to Jerry and we both can't thank him enough for his selflessness. I will be writing about our holiday and other things, but this had to come first. We salute you, brother o'mine. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Fall Bounty

Jerry stopped at a farm stand and brought me two HUGE heads of cabbage, two HUGE heads of cauliflower, and two HUGE boxes of sweet potatoes. I have been busy processing stuff and hope to finish today. I made Andy a sweet potato pie, I made coleslaw, and I made a batch of sauerkraut. I've never made sauerkraut before. I let it "sour" for just under two weeks and it still seemed a little more sweet than sour, so I think I'll let the next batch sit a while longer. We'll be having some of the first batch with a pork roast this weekend when Jerry comes home. The heads of cabbage were so huge, that we measured and weighed them. They were bigger and weighed more than my boys when they were born - and they were both BIG boys! One head measured 30 inches around and weighed 11 pounds. That's alotta sauerkraut!

Here's Andy holding the mutant cabbage head, and in the next picture a salt shaker is placed next to the cabbage for comparison.

Yuck and more yuck

We were in Delaware again last week. And yes, I drove again. I'm getting pretty good at this stuff! Last week, though, we were there to do a really ugly job. Last year we discovered a leak under the kitchen sink and Jerry fixed that. Unfortunately, there are NO shutoff valves in the trailer! NONE! So, one by one everything that has to do with water is getting a shutoff valve put on it. We were actually awakened one night last December by a loud pop and then the sound of cascading water. I jumped out of bed and discovered that a pipe under the bathroom sink in our room had burst and was spraying water all over. Because there was NO SHUTOFF VALVE!!!!! I ran outside with a flashlight, had to take the access panel off of the skirting under the trailer and reach into the web-infested space under the trailer and turn the main water valve off. Unfortunately, we have had to do that a few times over the last year while we fixed one leak or another. Jerry's mom mentioned hearing about a polybutylene pipe recall a while back and so we looked into it. Lo and behold, guess what the trailer plumbing consists of? Yep - polybutylene pipes. There was a class action settlement in which if your trailer was manufactured between certain years, had polybutylene plumbing, and had experienced sudden leaks (we met ALL the criteria!), all of your plumbing would be replaced courtesy of Shell Oil. We looked into filing a claim and found out that the deadline for filing was 2005. We were a tad upset!

Anyway, with the kitchen and the bathroom sink repaired, we figured we'd be okay at least for a while! We knew that the wood underneath the kitchen sink needed to be repaired but Jerry figured he'd get to it when he had the time (which he does not have a lot of these days!).

Last winter I noticed that our bedroom got pretty cold while the rest of the trailer seemed toasty, so I decided to try covering the heat vents in the floor of the spare bedroom, living room and kitchen with phone books to see if I could direct more heat into our bedroom. Well, it worked just fine and so now the heat was just going into the two opposite ends of the trailer; Dad's room and our room. After a while Dad said he kept tripping over the phone book on the kitchen floor and so he put duct tape over the vent to close it off permanently. About a month after that, the kitchen floor started getting mountains in it! I'm not kidding - it actually started buckling up like small hills in places. We thought that maybe having the duct covered up was doing something not so great to the floor, so we uncovered it and figured we'd just have to replace the floor at some future time (again, when Jerry had the time!).

Then, while we were there three weeks ago, we had gone to Home Depot one night after dinner to pick up some things Jerry needed the next day for work. It was kind of late when we got back and Dad was already in his room. As we were walking into the trailer - still outside, though - we heard a VERY loud - I'm talking the kind of loud you have to shout to be heard above - whooshing, whistling and waterfall-sounding noise. We ran into the trailer to see what was going on, and followed the noise to the kitchen where, looking down into the now-uncovered floor vent, we could see water pouring into the vent from somewhere! The noise was deafening. Dad, of course, was sound asleep in the back of the trailer and heard nothing! Take two on my running outside with a flashlight to turn the water off. Only there were more spider webs to stick my arm through this time - ewww. Anyway, Jerry cut a piece of the flooring out to see what was going on. Boy did we see what was going on. A piece of that *$%&&# polybutylene pipe had just burst right in the side and was shooting water against the vent, but because it apparently had been leaking out of there for some time (which we were not aware of), it had soaked the insulation and the plywood, and the plywood had finally buckled enough to pull the vent right out of the main trunk line going into the kitchen. The deafening roar was a large water leak spraying under pressure against the metal of the trunk line. Now we understood where the mountains in the floor had come from - major water damage.

We knew that Dad would be going away for a week soon so Jerry fixed the leak and we figured we'd wait until he went away to gut the kitchen and replace the entire floor. Last week when Jerry started cutting the floor out, we were shocked at what was there. The flooring was moldy and disgusting. As he would cut pieces out, Andy and I would haul the moldy, smelly pieces outside. I just know that had to be really healthy for our lungs! It was slow going too, because everything was so rotten. Since the whole floor had to be replaced, we had to take EVERYTHING out of the kitchen. All the cabinets, sink, refrigerator, stove. Everything. And since it was a trailer, all the cabinets were built into the wall. I felt so sorry for Jerry. He really had a job to do. And this was in the evening after he had already worked all day. Everything was put into the hallway since Dad was gone and nobody needed to be in the back part of the trailer anyway. Over the course of three evenings Jerry got everything done. He completely rebuilt the bottom of the cabinet where the sink is and put new pipes there - with SHUTOFF VALVES on them! He also put a new dishwasher in. There was an ancient one there that hasn't worked in years so it will be nice to have a dishwasher to use there. He also repaired the ice maker to the refrigerator which also hasn't worked in a long time! He put all the wood flooring down and then finally the vinyl flooring. I am very proud of Jerry - he really does beautiful work. Over the past couple of months I had gotten so used to doing the "kitchen two-step" over the hills and valleys over the floor (I knew by heart where each dip and mountain was!) that after the new floor was down I was still doing the kitchen two-step out of habit! I'll have to get my bearings to know how to walk on a flat floor there again.

Well, that was last week. Andy and I are home again this week, trying to get stuff done here. I think it might be a little while before we go back - a couple weeks, at least - or unless that *&^%$ polybutylene decides to show us who's boss again - *SIGH*

The finished product - a wonderfully flat and solid floor that you neither sink in or have to surf over the waves on! Oh yeah - and a shiny new dishwasher - yay!

Yuck, yuck, and more yuck. The flooring was moldy from all the months of the water leak underneath. Gotta love that polybutylene plumbing. You can see the plumbing repair that Jerry made in the line toward the bottom of the picture.

The hallway was the storage area for the counters and stove while the work was being done.

I Did It!

Whew - it's been a long time since I posted. I was in Delaware for 4 out of the last 5 weeks; 3 weeks there, 1 week home, then 1 week there again. And are you ready for this?! Drum roll, please........ I drove there MYSELF both times. Not only that, but during the first session (the three-week stint) I drove from Delaware to Annapolis to meet Tom and Sam and have lunch at Red Robin in the mall, then drove back to Delaware again. Yes, ME! Jerry says he's going to have to keep an eye on me now because I'll be all over the place. Everyone has asked me about the Bay Bridge - believe it or not, that didn't bother me at all. And yes, I do know about the tractor trailer that went off the bridge the week or so before I went. What bothered me the most was the traffic through Annapolis. I feel so boxed in - trapped. I do not like being in the middle of a lot of traffic at all. Oh, and I don't like two-way traffic on the Bay Bridge. My poor truck doesn't know what to think - the odometer actually turned over to 10,000 miles while we were gone. This February will be three years that we have had that vehicle - hmmm, 10,000 miles in three years - do you think I should cut back on my driving some?!

I had fully intended to go parasailing while we were there but it was Labor Day weekend and it was nuts and Labor Day was the last day the parasailing place was open. Here's a link to the parasail place. Look out next year, though! Dad thought I had lost my mind. When he asked me what I could possibly be thinking, I told him he could have his midlife crisis his way, and I'd have mine my way! (can't afford a red convertible, ya know!).

Andy and I are excited - turns out that the neighbors who live on the street behind us homeschool and belong to Conowingo-Rising Sun Christian School too. Conowingo sends out a newsletter with members' names, addresses and emails on it and I was really glad to see someone on there who is so close to us. I emailed them to introduce ourselves and they wrote back. They have a son who is a year older than Andy, a daughter who is 1 year younger, and another son who is 3 years younger. Their mom wrote and said that their oldest likes to skateboard and play video games and asked what Andy liked to do. How cool is that?! Andy likes the very same things. We are looking forward to meeting them.

I am declaring war on my house (again). I am fed up with this clutter. I have had bags of clothes and things sitting around that I was going to list on eBay, but now I just want them out of my house. I want open space back. A thrift shop has moved into the old post office building just down the street now. Guess where all my stuff is going this week?! I do not have the time right now to list all that stuff and the amount I would make from it would be minimal compared to the time spent writing listings for it. I would be better off just doing a few extra medical reports. Flylady is big on letting go of perfectionism and that's a bad trait of mine. My thinking was that I can't get rid of the clothes until I list them perfectly, take perfect pictures, etc. Well, I don't have that kind of time anymore nor do I want them taking up my space anymore - I love that mop commercial where the uppity guy says "Remove it from my space!" Sorry - hope I didn't give you whiplash by changing gears like that! I will still list things like school books and things like that, but the clothes have got to go now.

You may remember a couple of tips I wrote in the past, Karen's Ramblings: Karen's Household Hint #1, and Karen's Ramblings: Laundry Lessons. Here's another one - don't try to wash the fabric softener attachment of your washer in your dishwasher. Just don't. Your dishes will be Downy-fresh for the next 18 cycles.

Will Someone Please Clue Me In?!

In a former post I wrote about a project Tom had to do for school which involved drawing his shoes. Here's the link to the post - http://karensramblings.blogspot.com/2007/01/here-is-toms-drawing-of-his-shoes.html.

I have written before about how I am able to see where visitors to my blog come from. Although I can't see who you are, I can see where you're from, unless you're using a proxy blocker. Anyway, over the last year or so there have been countless visits to this one post about Tom's shoes from literally all over the world. Just this morning there was a visitor from Australia looking at it. Over the weekend someone from Egypt looked at it. There have been visits from Italy, France, Spain, England, and just about every state in the United States.

Here's my request - will somebody PLEASE, PLEASE tell me what the attraction is to this post?! I did track it down and found that it was being used on an art school site (unfortunately not Tom's!) and was in a collection of drawn shoes, but I can't find anything else beyond that. Personally, I don't find my son's shoes all that interesting, but evidently SOMEBODY does - or at least his drawn rendition of them! I think I'll edit the post that is attached to the picture to ask directly on there for somebody to clue me in as to this picture's popularity. I even found it on a Google photo gallery of drawn shoes. I'm not asking for royalties here, I just would like to know what the great attraction is! Anybody?

Where'd This Week Go?!

Has it really been a week since I last blogged? Time is flying WAY too fast these days. And the worst part is that I don't see that I'm accomplishing anything!

The boys had a great time fishing. Everyone caught their limit and the fish were cleaned at the dock so they brought home ready-to-eat fish. They caught blue and rockfish. Thankfully, no one caught a tagged and valuable fish! Wait - let me rephrase that - thankfully no one UNKNOWINGLY caught a tagged and valuable fish and accidentally threw it back. UNFORTUNATELY, no one caught a tagged and valuable fish!

Last Monday I seasoned the bluefish fillets with a spicy dry rub, let them sit in the refrigerator for the day, and then smoked them on the grill using mesquite chips. There were no leftovers! The rest I put in the freezer for later. We are having some of the rockfish tonight. Well, the boys and I are having fish - Jerry will be having a New York strip steak. A while back I bought a large pack of New York strips and divided them for the freezer. When Jerry comes home from Delaware I cook him one while the boys and I eat something else. We don't mind, because the boys and I like spicy stuff and smoked stuff, and Jerry is a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, so we're all happy. Unless I go to Delaware with him, Jerry doesn't get a home-cooked meal while he's there so I try to spoil him when he's home.

Andy and I will be getting his high school curriculum stuff together this week. Well, deciding what it's going to be, anyway. I can't believe how quickly this summer has gone by. We might try turning the air conditioning off this week as the temperatures look a little cooler - at least this week. When I mentioned that to Jerry, he said that just because I want it to be autumn doesn't mean that it is, and that I should probably leave the air conditioning on for a couple more weeks!

Well, Tom just came home from work and between his working, my working, and his going over Sam's house, I haven't hardly seen him lately. I think I'll go catch up with his world. Besides, my 15 minutes are up!

Gone Fishin'

The boys (all three of them!) are fishing today. The crew that Jerry works with doing tree work chartered a fishing boat and Andy and Tom went along too. I am being optimistic that we will have fresh fish for dinner and so have not taken anything out of the freezer for dinner.

Earlier today I was reading the local news stories online and I saw where the Department of Natural Resources here is trying to promote fishing in the state and so have tagged and released several fish into the bay. If you catch a tagged fish then you can win a prize corresponding to the tag. One of them is worth $10,000. I really, REALLY wish I had known about this before they left this morning! I can just see one of my boys catching a tagged fish and just throwing it back because they don't think the tag means anything other than it is being tracked by DNR and unwittingly watch $10,000 swim away.

So, I have the day to myself. Jerry asked me yesterday what I was going to do with a free day. I worked, watched Food Network for a while, straightened the house, and worked some more, and now am writing this. When my 15 minutes of writing time are up, I think I'll read for a while. Or maybe get something out of the freezer for a dinner backup plan!

And yes, this did take 15 minutes to write. I didn't have much to say and spent most of the time thinking! Did y'all smell something burning?!

Karen Who?

I'm back from my hiatus. Calm down. You know you weren't just waiting for my next epistle to get on with your lives! I'm not even going to try to recap the past two months - just bits here and there. I have decided to use Flylady's 15-minute method to write. Her theory is that you can do anything for 15 minutes and so I have set my timer. Maybe I'll be more consistent now. Or not.

Jerry has been in Delaware a lot lately so the boys and I have been hanging out. Well, Tom's been working and going places with Sam, so Andy and I have been hanging out!

I have made changes to Andy's homeschooling for next year and we are excited about it. I wanted to do something different for him for the high school years, since those are what really counts as far as transcripts go. I also was really getting unhappy with the Board of Education reviews. The whole point of homeschooling is to teach differently according to the individual child. If I wanted him to follow a public school model he would still be there! I was butting heads a little more often with the reviewers as I really didn't feel like I had the freedom I wanted as far as subjects and what to teach within those subjects.

I did a LOT of research (partially the reason why I haven't written in FOREVER) and finally decided on Conowingo-Rising Sun Christian School. When you homeschool in our state you are given two choices - either let the local Board of Education review your curriculum and progress, or go under what is called an "umbrella" school - an independent institution who will review your curriculum and handle things with the state for you. With Tom we went under the umbrella of the church we were attending at the time because they were accredited to do that, but since we weren't attending there anymore with Andy, I just went with the Board of Education. The reason I think we'll be happy with Conowingo is because although they have credit requirements just like any other high school, what you teach within those credit requirements is strictly up to the parent. For instance, he needs three math credits to graduate. He can choose which math he would like - business math, geometry, or he can even use his math knowledge in cooking skills to count for credit. The same is true with all of the subjects. And the best part is that life experiences can count towards credits. Helping people or doing things for them (as long as it's not for pay) counts towards the Bible credits (it is, after all, a Christian school). I keep track of his credit hours earned and once a year I am reviewed by a reviewer from their school. This way Andy gets to learn what he wants, when he wants, and in what order he wants. I think it makes a lot more sense to study what he actually is interested in and that he may use in his future career. How often do YOU use Algebra II in your day to day life? I thought so.

Once Andy has completed his credit requirements he is issued a diploma from Conowingo. They have a graduation ceremony each spring for students meeting their credit requirements. The diploma is an actual, for really high school diploma that is accepted anywhere, plus they keep his records and will provide transcripts to any future colleges he may apply to. There is no set age for graduation; just when your credit requirements are met. Since the culinary schools Andy has looked into accept students as young as 16, he is thinking about trying to finish by then, but I won't push him to do that. Now, on the other hand I don't think Conowingo will take kindly to a 28-year-old student, either!

Well my timer just went off so I think I'll go. More later in the next 15-minute increment!

Running Away - Sort Of!

I had a great Mother's Day. Yes, I realize that was about three weeks ago but I'm just now getting a chance to write. The Saturday before Jerry had worked and so had I and we were both pretty tired but at about 9:30 that night Jerry asked if I felt like going somewhere. Sure, why not? I asked where we were going and he said he didn't know - just going. We assumed the boys would be going too as we always have a good time when we're all together doing stuff. Tom was home because Sam was working that night. Turns out that they didn't want to go anywhere, but gave us their blessing to go, so we took them up on it. We ended up not leaving until around 11 that night and we just drove west. Yes - we actually went west, finally! We ended up stopping at a Comfort Inn at about 2:30 in the morning. We got up the next day and hit the road again - still going west. To say we had a great time is an understatement. We talked, sang, laughed, stopped when we felt like it and in general just had a wonderful day. We went to Lynchburg and some places a little farther than that - I'm not even sure exactly where we were; I was too busy enjoying the trip and the scenery. Finally later in the day we started running into some pretty nasty storms. Since we had been listening to the satellite radio in the Tahoe we hadn't heard a weather forecast but we figured it was time to head home anyway. We got home at about 11:30 on Sunday night. It was really a great day. Usually on Mother's Day I try to do something special for the boys and Jerry. I think Mother's Day is a little backwards anyway. I LOVE being a mom and a wife and I use that day to celebrate my boys and my husband; not me. After all, if it weren't for them I wouldn't be a mom, right?! The boys had a great time and so did we. There was no one to tell them to quiet down and go to bed! I remember my sister and I doing the same thing - staying up until all hours and just giggling like crazy at nothing at all, so I completely understand how the boys felt.

Well, that's about it for this update - off to do stuff! For anyone who is wondering, I have asked Tom to please update his photo blog - I miss seeing his pictures and I know he has taken some really great ones lately. His photo blog is seen by people all over the world - like my blog! - and his viewers are missing his pictures, too.

Quick Update

I didn't want anyone to think I fell off the face of the earth. I've just been very, very busy. The worst part is that I can't really say what I've been busy doing - just that the days and weeks seem to be flying by.

Jerry had a good trip to Illinois and back. The morning that he was returning home there was an earthquake there, as I'm sure everyone has already heard about. Jerry was in Virginia heading home at that time and didn't know about it until he got here. Later that day he called the Amish man (he has a phone on the side of his barn in Illinois) to see if everything was okay. Since their house isn't built yet, they were sleeping on the ground in the barn. They said the earthquake definitely woke them up as the barn was shaking around them, with roof rattling, and the ground was shaking under them. It turns out that the epicenter of this earthquake was only 37 miles from where they were. They said they rode around later in the day and saw that some buildings had fallen and others were damaged. Jerry asked them if they were ready to come back! He and they were thankful that everybody was okay and that the barn was still standing.

The weather has been beautiful. I had an attack of spring fever last week. I bought a bunch of herb plants and a hibiscus. Yes I know - you can't eat the hibiscus, but it looks beautiful on my front porch. I love cooking with fresh herbs. Last summer I had rosemary, basil, sage and chives that the boys and I cooked with all summer long. Only the rosemary and the chives survived through the winter but that's okay. I was pleasantly surprised about that. The chives were up early and we were having chives on our potatoes in March. I have basil, dill, lemon verbena, thyme, rosemary, oregano, and a few others that I'm forgetting. There is nothing better than fresh herbs in a summer dish. You can't eat it, but my lavender is doing beautifully. I like to brush it with my hand when I'm walking by - a lovely scent whooshes up to greet me.

Some time soon I'll need to go through all my jars and get my canning gear ready for another canning season. My pressure canner needs a new gasket so I'd better get that ordered. Once canning season starts in earnest it is difficult to get canning parts or accessories as everyone sells out. I intend to buy new lids this year. While I do appreciate all the lids that were given to me by Hilda when she moved last year, I was embarrassed by the number of non-sealing jars that I ended up with. I thought the lids she gave me were ones she had recently purchased, but now I don't think so. I believe they were kind of old when she gave them to me. No, I'll stock up on new ones that I buy myself this year.

We are very proud of Tom. Habitat for Humanity contacted his school to see if any of the students would do some design work for them. Tom submitted some samples and Habitat contacted him and asked him to design their T-shirts for the crew working on a condo project in Virginia. The design he created for them is really cool. Since the design hasn't been officially "unveiled" yet I can't share it here, but I will as soon as I can. Tom is building up his portfolio which he will need for graduation next year and this is certainly a feather in his cap for that.

Andy is still cooking away. We were excited about finding that the Culinary Institute of America has "boot camps" which are from one to five days (and priced accordingly!) in which you can learn LOTS of stuff. I wrote to them about it and asked about ages but they said you had to be 21 to attend, as there is wine tasting involved. We were pleasantly surprised though to find a professional chef's magazine in the mail a few days later, published by the school and sent to him. He hasn't decided which culinary school he wants to attend. Who knows - maybe he'll decide not to attend any at all and just cook for himself. He's got plenty of time to think about it yet.

Well, I'm off to do stuff now. I don't have much time for writing these days but will try to at least spend a couple of minutes putting in a blurb every couple of days or so. I've said that before, though haven't I?! Happy Sunday, y'all!