Winter

Lovely, isn't it? Between Friday morning and this morning, we got 2 feet of snow.... another 4 - 7" is forcasted for tonight.

Notice Al Gardner's car parked on the street. It's not a huge car, but you have to admit it would be tough to get in on the passenger side. We did a good job of clearing out the driveway though, don't you think?

The fence is 5 feet tall. That "bottom" rail is really the middle one. After the first day Rumples was running and jumping through the snow. After the second storm, he gave up. There's yellow snow all around the patio.....

April is how far away?

Memory Tag

I saw a post on a friend's blog and thought it would be fun to remember some good times. Here are the memory tag rules:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.Thanks!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

Your results:
You are Apocalypse

Apocalypse 55% Magneto 51% Lex Luthor 48% Dr. Doom 48% The Joker 47% Juggernaut 46% Green Goblin 46% Kingpin 45% Mr. Freeze 40% Venom 35% Catwoman 31% Dark Phoenix 27% Mystique 26% Riddler 26% Poison Ivy 24% Two-Face 22%

You believe in survival of the fittest and you believe that you are the fittest.

Click here to take the "Which Super Villain are you?" quiz...

School?

Ok, so I'm thinking of maybe trying to finish up my degree at BYU. I need 8 credits before I can be accepted into the Bachelor of General Studies Program and then I'm not sure of how much or how long it will take. My guess is 3-4 years doing it part time. By then I will be 58-59. Now I am of the mind that education is never a bad thing, but what about the effort and expense as compared to any real monetary benefit in the future. If this were 10 years ago, I would definitely go for it. But, as it is, I really hope to not be working in 3-4 years. It's a quandry.

You Are Scooter

Brainy and knowledgable, you are the perfect sidekick. You're always willing to lend a helping hand. In any big event or party, you're the one who keeps things going. "15 seconds to showtime!"

The Muppet Personality Test

Just as I figured

OK, so now I've tried it and I hope it copies over OK


Your Linguistic Profile:

50% General American English
15% Upper Midwestern
10% Dixie
10% Midwestern
10% Yankee

Can't figure out how to get the picture to come over....

Now I'm in the dog house...

Missy and Dad left yesterday morning on their great adventure. Rumples is absolutely convinced that it is all my fault that they left. He doesn't meet me at the door after work, won't talk to me when I am home, and hasn't eaten anything since they left. He just won't listen to reason. He did however go on a walk with me this morning, so maybe all is not lost.

How could it be?

How in the world could it be Memorial Day weekend already? I know it has been an especially busy year, but, WOW! Anyway, I made my annual trek up to Hi-Way Produce to get the flowers for around the house today. When we were loading the flowers into Missy's truck, I was sure I had been over charged for some stuff, so I went back in and pulled a very nice cashier out to check my receipt. After going over it with her, there was no mistake. I spent more than $100 more this year than last. I couldn't figure it out, because in all honesty, I probably got less this year than last. After I got home I realized that the flats of flowers were the same price each this year that we got 2 for last year. Add flowers to the list of things going up in price.

OOPS!

Now that I have quit whining, I remembered what else I was going to talk about. What a wonderful opportunity I had to be with Andy (Drew) and Kay and Anson and Lorin. I really appreciate Andy and Kay letting me come out and pretend that they needed me to be there to "help out" . Anson was a blast and I think he started thinking of me as someone who might be OK to have around there near the end. Lorin is amazing. I can not believe how fast she is growing and how alert and engaged she is in what is going on around her. The added bonus was that I got to see John and Tara and their girls several times. It's good to be able to make frequent contact even if you really don't do anything at all. By the way, when I first got there, Lily was about 3 times the size of Lorin.... I think she's only about twice her size now. And, for those keeping score -- Lily looks alot like Kate did when she was a baby -- except she has blue eyes!

I know, I sound like a broken record...

but, the last 2 weeks in Utah it was sunny and 70 nearly every day. I got warm, I got to see the mountains every day, I got to see some configuration of the grandchildren every day, no snow, no coats, and people for the most part are very nice. Tell me again why we are living in Buffalo? It is so beautiful there, there were days I was wondering just why we ever left. Ok, enough whining even if it was 21 degrees when I landed in Buffalo.

This just isn't right...

Do you know how hard it is to come home to Buffalo after being in Utah? We went out for Lily's blessing and had a wonderful time. We got to spend a lot of time with everyone out there and couldn't have been happier. Andy and Kay let us stay at their place even though KayLynn was so close to her due date. We really enjoyed ourselves. Then it came time to go home. We had heard the weather was bad here in Buffalo.... but when it's sunny and 50 in Utah, you kinda don't care. IT WAS AWFUL!!! 6 degrees and snowing like crazy. It's cold everywhere, even in the house. When you go outside, the cold wind rips your breath away. The longest flight home was fairly miserable with a very crowed flight and someone bigger than me sitting next to me taking up her seat and half of mine. Dad and I were squeezed into 1 1/2 seats for 3 hours. Yesterday I took a container of soup out to a family that is going through some really rough medical trials right now and slipped on the sidewalk leaving and had a spectacular fall. And, KayLynn had the baby the day after we left. Now, I'm not mad at Kay. There is no control over these things. But couldn't something be pleasant about coming back to Buffalo? I've vented and I feel better now. Congrats Andy and Kay!!!

Yes, it's been quite awhile, but then it's kind of been same old, same old around here. Except of course for going down to Amy's, having Amy & Co here for Thanksgiving, working 12-14 hour shifts 6-7 days a week trying to get this new registration system working right, still trying to get the yard cleaned up after the October storm... you see what I mean? However, things are going well. We seem to be surviving the work load and Dad has developed a real talent for house work. I appreciate all the support he's been giving while I have been working my tail off for Kaleida. I had today off and while I was gone to lunch with some friends, Erie Co Water Authority dug a great big hole in our front yard...........

No heat, part 2

It was a little cold in the house on Monday night, but I didn't think too much about it... it is fall after all. Then yesterday I didn't have to work, so I was in the house all day. I kept hearing this sound like an electrical motor trying to start and not being able too..... it was the furnace. Dad has pulled the blower motor tonight and he is going to try to find a place to buy one tomorrow. In the meantime, it's getting pretty cold. The Marriott is starting to look pretty good to me.

We have Light!

The juice came back on at 7:45 this evening. We had 62+ hours of no electricity and no heat.... Now that may not sound all that bad to you, and maybe it isn't. But it was darned inconvienent. It's the little things that get you. Dad kept putting things in the microwave and punching the buttons. Everytime I went into the bathroom on the 1st floor, I flipped that stupid switch for the light. Everytime my eyes popped open at night I raised my head up to see what time it was... I have now gone 3 days without blow drying my hair and I am afraid some of the interesting shapes it has take may be permanent. All in all, we made out pretty good. No damage to the house that we can see. We had plenty of help on Saturday and got the lion's share of the yard cleaned up. And I broke out the cast iron turkey roaster and cooked with it a couple of times. It cooks frozen ham baked potatoes really nicely and I baked corn bread in it tonight. Thanks to the Hatzenbuhler's generator we didn't even loose anything really important in the freezers. Alas, it's back to work tomorrow.

Oh, all right...........

I know, I know, I haven't written anything for awhile. Between Relief Society's lice-a-thon #2, working nearly full time again, and things around here, I hardly have time to run to the bathroom. Enough said about lice-a-thon #2. At work the powers that be decided to scrap the two registration systems that the hospitals use and bring in a brand new to put everyone on. Now, I'm all for this. I think all the hospitals ought to be using the same registration system and the new one is much more up to date than anything anyone was using before. I'm not, however in the majority with this opinion at work. This new system is more complicated, more detail oriented, and anyone doing an audit will know immediately who is doing what they are supposed to be doing and who isn't. Some of the secretaries don't think this is such a good thing. I figure is I'm doing my job correctly, I've got no problems. Anyway, there are several components to the training and I took the 1st one over the weekend. That means I worked last Monday, Tuesday, went in for a couple of hours on Wednesday and then drove to Bath NY for a funeral, then went to work on Thursday, Friday, trained Saturday, Sunday and back to work on Monday for another full week. Needless to say, I'm getting a little tired. I'm looking forward to the weekend just to do something other than work. The only consolation is that I will be getting a couple of good checks and will be able to pay off one of the credit cards and start hammering on another.

Updates

OK, we made it through Dave's surgery, Andy and Kay's quilt is finished and on their bed (yipee! yahoo! OK! alright! FINALLY!), and I had a great visit with Kate, Mary, Emma, Ruth, and Anson. All and all not a bad couple of weeks. Now for a little rest before Darren, Amy, Evan and Madelyn get here on Thursday.........

It doesn't take much...

It doesn't take much to throw me off my diet. I thought I had done so well last week. Stayed on program and drank all my water. And when I weighed in I had lost a great big 2/10 of a pound..... needless to say I was upset. Now I know that last week I weighed in in the morning and this one was at the end of the day, so, I really was likely to have lost nearly 2# more than that, but I was not in the mood for thinking rationally. So, we went to dinner at Smokey Bones and I had pulled pork, smoked sausage, and french fries and ate every morsel..... Today I am very sorry for having binged and will try to get back on program.......

In spite of being very non-compliant...

I managed to loose another 1.4# this week. Up to 10.8# lost so far. Hopefully, this will be a better week. I only have to work 2 days....... YAHOO!

Now that I am off the soapbox...

I also weighed in yesterday. Drumroll please! Another 2.4 # gone. That's up to 9.4.... not great, but I'll take it.

Dodge Dealerships

For anyone out there considering the move to a Dodge Caravan -- think carefully. It's actually not a bad little car but it does have some annoying problems and the Dodge dealerships aren't particularly helpful. We've had a lot of suspension problems with this car (and apparently so has everyone else who owns one judging by what I learned on the net). Now so far everything has fallen under the extended warrenty and we have had to shell out very little for repairs. However, the dealership has never been able to do the work in one day and frequently I have been without a car for up to 3 days. They also seem to always be able to find at least $400 worth of work that isn't covered under the warrenty that absolutely must be done. According to what I read from others who have owned this car, Dodge acknowledges the problems, but just refers everyone back to the dealership where they purchased it. What has happened to standing by the product you produce. Dodge isn't paying for the repairs on this car -- our extended warrenty company is. If they know that this model has these many problems you would think they would take responsiblity for them wouldn't you? And, you would think that once a problem is fixed, that you wouldn't have to fix it again. Wrong! We've had the bushings replaced on the front end at least twice. Power steering has been completely overhauled twice. I drove that last Ford van 167,000 miles and never replaced bushings or sway bars. I did have to have the power steering system completely replaced while it was still under warrenty (only up to 36,000 miles) and never had another problem with it. Needless to say, I will not buy another Caravan.