Saturday

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Too lazy to go to WW and weigh in today.  I don’t think I gained much over the holiday, but I decided to skip a week any way.

Thanksgiving was a nice few days away.  We had a small dinner at an Inn and then returned to T’s aunt and uncle’s house for pie and games.  We drove home late and went right to bed.  The next day was spent in full “Teddy Bear Photo Shoot” mode.  I will have a blog about that as soon as the pictures are culled.  I took 408 photos of Gramma’s teddy bears in all sorts of poses and situations.  It was great fun.  MIL and I laughed a lot.

Friday evening we went to MIL’s best friend’s house for dinner and then headed home.

Random fact: When I was a kid and we drove to my dad’s mom’s house in Utica, I was in charge of the toll ticket and watching for the mile marker that came before her exit.  It was a long time before I figured out that my dad knew the way, he was just trying to keep me occupied.

Happy Thanksgiving

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Greetings from upstate New York.  We are enjoying Thanksgiving dinner at a country inn with the Lord’s mother, grandmother, aunt, uncle, and one cousin.  The cousin’s sister is staying in SF with her boyfriend.  MIL’s sister’s family is going to be with her while she is recovering from a stroke.  MIL’s other brother lives out west and had to work.  His daughter also is working, so she couldn’t join us either.  So this year we are down from a possible 27 to 7.

We miss everyone, but it is nice to be with family.

I am thankful for:
My husband
My parents and my sister
My family
My MIL and her family
My health
My friends
My community
Having enough to eat
Having a nice warm house
Having enough clothes to keep me warm
Being able to read

Random fact: The second Thanksgiving we were married we spent in Cancun, Mexico with my parents, my sister, and her best friend.

First Snow

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Today was the first day it has snowed in Hometown. It was a very slow scary drive. As I rounded one corner I could see ahead of me a small black car was spinning around and around on the road. It came to settle in a small ditch between the road and the train tracks. It was all I could do to stop and not hit the car or go off the road myself. I was able to stop right in front of the car as a young woman got out. There were at least 3 small children in the car. I called out to her and she said they were all fine. I asked what I could do for her and she told me I could go on because a town truck was coming. I drove slowly the rest of the way and called the business near where she went off the road to see if someone could check on her. I was still shaking when I got to school.

Today went quickly. I was certainly ready for the end of the day. Vacation days are a gift to teachers. I will be ready to start again on Monday.

Tonight is another night of scrapbooking. We set a goal of finishing the “black” pages (pre-1949) before Thanksgiving. All we have to do on them is photo labeling, which will be easy. This has been a great project, giving me a good opportunity to spend time with my MIL. She has told me stories about growing up and being an adult in the opera.

Have a great Thanksgiving.

Random fact: I have lived in Vermont my whole life, but I don’t ski or ice skate.  In fact, I dislike the cold weather altogether.

Summer 2007 To Do List

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Summer officially starts for me tomorrow. I have made a list of things I have to do this summer. It is a very long list, but some are easy things like doctors appointments that are already made. Others are going to be harder like parting with clothes, cleaning out our office, and cleaning up the extra bedroom. I plan to take a lot of before and after pictures, so look for them here.

The hardest one on the list, I think, is to lose 20 pounds. If I start counting at my “I never ever thought I would weigh that much” all time high, I have already lost 2 as of today. Several of my goals are geared toward losing this weight. It is just a start, but I am making a commitment. Starting tomorrow.

Tonight, I have my Girls on the Run coaches party and a birthday party with cake.

Vacation week

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This has been a strange vacation week.

It started off really crappy. The weather was cold, snowy, and dark. I stayed home and worked on the last of my baby bibs. I will post pictures of them soon. I didn’t do any cleaning or decluttering.

Wednesday was kind of cold and grey but Mooch and I went to Keene to shop. I bought $.99 washcloth cotton at Michaels. Mooch helped my pick out colors, so now she is going to get some new washcloths. We also shopped at Borders, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Target. While at Target Mooch’s best friend called (three times) and we made a plan to meet at Margarita’s for dinner. They picked up Lord S and we had a great time to the max

Yesterday I went to the woo-woo doctor. I love my woo-woo doctor. She is great. We talk about everything. Yesterday’s topic was colleges. Her daughter is a junior and she has just started looking. I mean, we also talked about my woo-woo, but we talk about other stuff too. She comes to see my plays, mostly Shakespeare, but she also saw me when I was the naked bride in a play about our local history. She has been my doctor for about 5 years. Some day I will have the courage to write about my history with her. Not today.

Yesterday I got a wild hair (hare?) and cleaned the kitchen. I don’t like to clean, but I was on the floor with a cloth and spray cleaning the floor. I did laundry and dishes and cleaned out under the sink. Do you know we have TEN pairs of rubber gloves for hand dishwashing? And 3 bottles of dishwashing blue stuff (like Jet Dry), 2 partial bottles of dishwasher detergent and 1 full one, 2 boxes of Swiffer cloths and a box plus of Swiffer WetJet cloths. You would think I would have a really clean kitchen. I also need to get rid of stuff from my pantry, maybe next week.

The best news of the week is the tile guy is here!! When we bought our house in June 2002 Lord S and my dad started changing a small extra bedroom upstairs into a 3/4 bath for us. They crashed the ceiling into the attic and got some plumbing started. It has taken nearly 5 years to get us to the point where we could get the tile guy in. The first few years, when I would say something about this, my dad would point out that they had replumbed and wired the house. It escaped him though that they did that in the first 3 months we owned the house. I used to have dreams that we had to sell the house and we hadn’t finished the bathroom so we couldn’t sell the house. As soon as the bathroom is done we have a million other projects to do.

I don’t have much of a plan for today, except more cleaning. I will probably come back later.

My day off

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Today is Town Meeting Day. In Vermont, each town has a Town Meeting. Most meetings now take place in the evenings or on a weekend day. My town’s meeting is the 3rd Saturday of March, but today is voting day. We are the only town in the state with representative Town Meeting. My dad has been a Town Meeting rep for as long as I can remember. When I was little I thought of Town Meeting as a day we had off of school and I saw my daddy on TV. We have had local access television for many years and they have always broadcast from the meeting. It was fun to see him.

I actually get excited to vote. It is wonderful to me that we have that right and privilege in the United States. However, today, for the first time I am not voting. In fact, I am not doing much of anything. Last night, I came home from afterschool program feeling warm and achy. It got worse as the night went on. I woke up this morning feeling like crap. I have been coughing and achy all day. Good thing I didn’t have to go to work. I bummed about not voting. A neighbor, who was a friend in MS/HS, is a write in for a one year Town Meeting Rep and I am going to be really sorry if he doesn’t get it by 1 vote.

I am also really sorry I didn’t get a flu shot.

End of the week

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In just a few hours my vacation will be over and it will just be a normal weekend again. I have been bumming around the house knitting, updating our finances, and listening to my Podcasts. I have not done nearly enough this week. My house is still a wicked mess. I am not planned for next week. I haven’t sorted through all our bills. I have done nothing with my scrapbooking supplies. I am so lazy.

And what am I doing? Reading blogs.

I am back. And I have gotten more comments on one entry than I have ever before. I am going to start over.

Yahoo has a great back up system, but apparently it does not include WordPress databases. That’s fine. I am getting over it. I have figured out I can find a bunch of my entries through Google. I am not going to repost them, but it will be nice to have them in a Word file. I am particularly sorry I lost most of my 30 things in 30 days (entries leading up to my 30th birthday). I have found some, but not all.