New Year

Happy 2008! Hope everyone had a safe and fun New Year! DH and I just stayed home and watched Shrek the Third. It was cute, but not as good as the others.

I was just reading through my blog last year to see if I wrote anything about the new year last year. Nope. No wisdom there! But it was interesting to read through what I posted about last year. An added benefit to blogging for sure! I thought I'd post a list of things I'd like to accomplish this year:

1. Continue to go through the house and purge what I don't use or like. I did that this past weekend with my scrapbooking stuff and finally got that organized! Here's what it looks like:

I know, not much, but it's in our unfinished basement and at least I can find everything now. I plan on giving the stuff I don't want to my co-worker's daughter who just started scrapping.

2. Scrap more. I scrapped a TON in 2006, and didn't do much last year, so I'd like to get back at this year.

3. Participate in the One Little Word and 52 week Art Card Challenges. Part of #2. I've always wanted to do these challenges, especially after seeing Beth and Nicole's work, and it's a great time to start them up.

4. Cook more. I'm bad about just grabbing something the freezer and putting it in the oven. I'd like to cook more from scratch this year. Not every day, but at least a couple times a month. It's something I'm not good and really struggle with, so that's why I'm not striving to do more than that.

5. Move more. Not necessarily exercise, because I think I would fail if I made that a goal, but just moving. Taking the stairs. Taking the long way. Things like that.

6. Maintain a clean house. I'm good at cleaning my house and then assuming it's clean for too long. I don't want to let the house get too far gone before I clean again.

7. Be a better wife. I let my depression control how I act towards DH some times, and it's not good. I need to be more conscious of that and not fall back into those bad habits.

8. And lastly, smile more. :)

So here's hoping for a great 2008!

With a Corncob Pipe and a Button Nose...

I saw this the day after Christmas at my local Target. Someone had taken the time to make a snowman and a shopping cart. How cute!

Christmas Wrap-up

Christmas was very good this year. I didn't take too many pictures because I was enjoying it, but here's some highlights of what I did take.

This photo is from my Dad's side of the family. We had all of the great-grandchildren sit by the tree, and then Santa came. You can see how excited they are in this picture. Santa is out of frame.
This is my nephew, who actually let me take some pictures of him this year.

My niece was a little more squirrely this year, but I did get a good picture of her with her Wakka. That's what she calls Grandma (my Mom).
This is at the end of the night, my brother holding my niece.
The best part of Christmas? My Uncle had his breathing tube taken out and is breathing on his own. He's still very weak, but is eating solid foods and is doing physical therapy. He still has a long way to go to recover, but at least the worst seems to be over. Fingers crossed!

Hope your Christmas was as good as mine!

Family Traditions

Yesterday, my Aunt (who used to be a caterer) gave me, my mom, SIL, and 2 cousins lessons on how to make Norwegian specialties. She really wants us to learn this so we can pass this tradition down. First we made Romegrod. It's like a warm pudding. It's really good.

Next, we made 8 dozen Lefsa. This isn't hard to make, but it takes a lot of time to roll out the dough very thin and then cook it on the griddle.
Here's the Lefsa on the griddle cooking. That stick with the red handle is how you take the Lefsa off of the rolling board and on to the griddle.
Here's my mom making Flat Bread. We didn't make this, my grandma did, but we did roll it out and cook it.
Here's my Mom and my Aunt (here sister) rolling Flat Bread.
This is my Aunt putting Kransekage dough into the round tins to bake.
We had a really good time. I'm so glad we're learning all of this. I can't wait to see what we learn next year!

Umm, Yeah.

I'm back from the movie Sweeney Todd. Wow. Was that gory. I knew going that it had a lot of death in it, but they really showed a lot of blood. The scenery was great. The singing was amazing. I think I had my eyes closed the last half hour because of all of the blood. I'm not unhappy that I saw it. I'm just glad it was free.

I have off of work until next Thursday! I'm a happy girl!

Getting Ready for Christmas

My Uncle is doing okay and is going to have surgery tomorrow to put in some stints. Here's hoping it goes well. Now for a happier post:

I got most of my Christmas shopping done (DH just needs to get some for some of the guys) and most everything is wrapped. I had to do some "baking" today. I put it in quotes because this is the easiest recipe ever! One of my co-workers brought it to our Christmas party last week and I knew I had to make them. They are Rolo Pretzel Turtles. They taste a lot like the real thing. Here's the recipe:

Pretzels
Rolos
Pecans

Place Rolo on Pretzel and put in oven at 250 for 2-2 1/2 minutes. Place Pecan on top. Let cool.

Tomorrow night? Oh yeah, that's Sweeney Todd! I'm excited to see it.

Uncle Update

Thanks for all of the kind words and extra prayers. I really appreciate it. My cousin sent an update today:

"Just talked to (his daughter) and Uncle Mur is not a surgical candidate. They are going to put a trachea in. Then they will put a camera in to see if they can put a stint in the right part of his heart. She did not give me a time as to when all this is going to take place."

Hopefully this will work. I guess as long as they have options, it's better than nothing. DH and I are going to Duluth on Sunday to see him. I haven't been there in over 6 years. I wish I had a happier reason to go back.

Prayers Needed

My Uncle Murray (my Dad's oldest brother) has been in the hospital for two weeks tomorrow. He's not doing good. He's got pneumonia and a blockage in his heart. They can't operate because his lungs can't handle it and they can't not operate because of the blockage in his heart. This is the update I got from my cousin (his daughter) today:

"(Her Sister) and I have given permission for them to inject Daddy with dye (Angioplasty) to see what is going on. This will happen some time today. Daddy is getting weaker and weaker (heartwise) each day and they are not sure why. They did not want to inject the dye earlier than this because Dad's kidneys are not working very well and doing the die could cause more damage to his kidney's. We also have permission for them to do an emergency (Angiogram) in necessary if they find a blockage they feel needs to be dealt with. Granted, Daddy has blockage, but this was a step that they have been holding off because of the weakness of Dad's heart. I hung everyone's picture up in this room, he has a 8 x 11 photo of all of us. He knows you are all pulling for him. I asked him if he could see all his pictures and he shook his head yes and squeezed my hand. This is just in front of his bed and it is not all of it. "

My Grandma (his Mom) turns 96 on Friday. She has lasted all of these years without losing any of her children or grandchildren (or great-grandchildren for that matter). My parent's take care of her and have told her what's going on, but she is on oxygen almost full time now and probably wouldn't be able to make the 3 hour drive to Duluth to see him in the hospital. I can't believe we just went through this with my Dad's younger brother this fall. It makes me worried about him, since he just had stints put in his heart last year.

I'd appreciate any prayers at this time. It's not looking good, but of course we're being optimistic. I'm really hoping nothing happens before Christmas, that might be too much to handle for everyone.

2007 Christmas Card

Here is the photo from our 2007 Christmas Card. The way the photo place ended up cropping it, it was hard to tell they had halos on their heads. The greeting was "Weimaraners we have heard on high....sweeting barking o'er the plains!" - which is a take from Angels we have heard on high. I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of questions from my family at Christmas about that one. Oh well.

Oh, and thanks to Linda for all of her help! I really appreciated it!

Premiere!

I won tickets to the Sweeney Todd premiere next week! I saw the musical in High School (just a video of a performance). It was good, but very dark. The theme music is very catchy, so I'm sure I'll be singing it for a while after I see it.



I'll give you a review when I get back next Thursday night.

Funny Pet Photos

Dogster just announced the winners of the 3rd Annual World's Coolest Dog and Cat Show photos. The photos are pretty funny. You can check out the dog and cat winners here. I love this one:



And this one:



Check it out!

Phew!

Talk about scary! I have this notebook that I've kept since we got married (2000) of anyone who has sent me a Christmas card and who I sent one to. Well, I thought I lost it. Last year, I decided to cover the book to look more Christmas-y. Did I put it back when I was done? No. I had to look through totes of Christmas decorations and wrapping paper, and then through my scrapbooking stuff. Thank God I finally found it in a pile amongst my scrapbooking stuff. I don't know what I would have done if I couldn't find it!! Now I just have to start my cards this weekend and get them out. Once they're all out, I'll put a sample on here.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

I don't know why I keep posting about what I'm doing at work, but here's another one! I've been working on maps of the salesmen's territories all week. This is our southern Iowa salesman's map. I have to put down what schools they have, how many calls they've made there, how many buses in their fleet, and how many and what type of buses they've purchased in the last year. Thank God I only have 2 left to do! At least it gets me away from my desk and computer for a little while. It's always nice to do something different. The only problem is that I'm working in a drafty hallway, so it's cold there.
It's snowing right now. It's been snowing since noon. We're predicted to have up to 12 inches of snow by tonight. Here's our deck - I love how the snow falls through and makes the cool patterns.
Today I have to do laundry and work on what I'm doing for our Christmas card. Hopefully it'll be another good one. Have a good snowy day!

New Fridge?

Did I get a new Fridge? Nope. The same old one from when we moved in almost 8 years ago, just cleaned. It's one of those things that you never want to do and just put off, but finally it was time. Too many spills to ignore any more. I even pulled it out and washed the floor underneath. Hopefully a job I don't have to do for a long time, but it is SO nice that it's done. Now for the rest of the house....

More Snow!

It's snowing out! The dogs love it - they get to eat snow again! I love seeing their paw prints in the snow.

Here's wishing everyone a great Thanksgiving tomorrow! We're going to my parent's house to celebrate. I'm so excited to see my niece and nephew, and to have some pumpkin pie!

Get Smarter and Help People!

I just found out about this cool site called Free Rice. What you do is correctly guess the meaning of words, and for every one you get right, you donate 10 grains of rice. It's fun and addicting! Plus, you get to learn the definition of a lot of words, if you didn't already know them.

The other cool thing today is that Amy Winehouse's first album was released in the US. It's called "Frank" and it's awesome. It's a little jazzier than her recent one. Plus, you gotta love that she's got a song called F-me pumps! I just purchased this on iTunes and am loving it! I've posted the video as well, so you can enjoy it now!

Amy Winehouse - F-Me Pumps

DH is so Funny!

DH had to go to Wal-Mart today, so I asked him to pick up a few things that we were out of. Normally, I do all of the shopping for the house, so I tried to make clear exactly what I wanted. The one thing I wasn't worried about was the kleenex. In the almost 12 years I've known DH, he and his family have used Puffs exclusively. No lotion, no extras, just Puffs. I just wrote kleenex on the list, assuming he would know what I meant. Obviously, he did not know that I use the word kleenex to mean all facial tissue or whatever they call it. So what did he get? This:

First off, it's Kleenex brand, not Puffs. That wasn't the worst part for me. The print on the box is hideous! It doesn't match our bathroom at all! I usually pick the marbled kind that's mostly one color, either in green, purple or gray. He obviously never noticed that! I'm not upset by this at all, I just think it's funny. And I know I should be grateful that he goes at all!

Snow

Today we got our first snowfall of the winter. Nothing really stuck, which was nice. Here's a picture of my drive into work. It's with my camera phone, so it's not the best. And yeah, I need to get my windshield replaced!
What did I do at work yesterday? Made a banner for one of our customers who was picking up his bus on his birthday. Ah, what we'll do at a bus dealership when it's our slow time. I was just happy that I had something interesting to do for an hour. He was really happy to see it and we took a picture of him in front of it for our newsletter. Nice bus with the chrome, eh?
I'm off to scrap tomorrow (finally!). Have a good weekend!

What's Your Color?

It's not completely me, but interesting nevertheless!

you are paleturquoise #AFEEEE

Your dominant hues are green and blue. You're smart and you know it, and want to use your power to help people and relate to others. Even though you tend to battle with yourself, you solve other people's conflicts well. Your saturation level is low - You stay out of stressful situations and advise others to do the same. You may not be the go-to person when something really needs done, but you know never to blow things out of proportion. Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Come On Baby Light My Fire

Dh had some wood to burn, so we went out and purchased a fire ring today. It's the same one my parent's have at the cabin. It was VERY warm!
We decided to enjoy the cool November day and watch the fire. We got out the packed away deck furniture and have a couple of drinks. Of course the dogs had to be right there!
Hope you're enjoying your weekend too!

Mosaic

Everyone else is doing them, why not me? My flickr mosaic:

1. namsan tower ii, 2. wheeeee!, 3. Welcome to Hudson - Got any Light Bulbs?, 4. It's" 'Fun with Signs' Week, 5. Cross in pairs plz, 6. Watch For Dears, 7. Ghost Ship, 8. Untitled, 9. Rusty Train Bridge, 10. Stone-washed, 11. DSC_6165, 12. In the Woods, 13. Golden, 14. day of the dead feet, 15. Love in Vain, 16. Eye of the Mother-Ship, 17. In the Neighborhood, 18. PINK, 19. Argh!, 20. Letters to Friends, 21. Slowly fade away, 22. big.brothers.are.the.best, 23. Synchromie rouge, 24. no parking, 25. Untitled

Weekend Update

Another great weekend. DH and I carved pumpkins on Saturday night. This is his free hand approach: I used a stencil with mine. I thought it turned out cool!
Orion made a pillow house for himself on Saturday night - I'm glad I was able to take a picture before he destroyed it!
I went and saw my parents and the niece and nephew. My niece was playing around with my camera. I was able to back the camera enough to see her eyes, otherwise, it would have been a picture of the pores of a 1 year old!
This is my nephew's picture of his mom with my camera. He didn't really get the concept of getting the whole person in the shot.
A great weekend, as always. Isn't every day away from work a great one?!? Hope everyone else had a good one too!

Layouts

Here's some layouts I've done recently. This one is using the Kristina Contes Kit from Cocoa Daisy. This is my cousin's daughter. I love this picture! I used the April kit from Those were the Days Kits.
This is when I met Cathy Z and Donna D at Scrapbooks Two. They were both so much fun!
This is also from the Kristina Kit from Cocoa Daisy. This is when Beth, Nicole, Linda and I took her class at the pre-CHA party hosted by Those Were The Days. She's such a sweetheart and her NY accent was great!
Hopefully I'll get to scrap more soon - I'm getting behind!

My Office

Friday afternoon I was bored at work and decided to take some pictures of my office. I have a pretty small office, but it at least has a door, which is nice. This is what I stare at every weekday. Notice the iHome, Dwight Stress Ball and Bus Stress Ball.
This is the other part of my desk. It's very deep, so I'm able to put some pictures on my desk. I have pictures of my niece and nephew, more buses, and my certificate for completing the class in Tulsa this spring.
This is probably the coolest part of my desk. My salesman gave me a rearview mirror because my back is to the door all of the time. It's nice not to be surprised all of the time now!
Nothing fancy, but it's mine. Too bad you can't paint the walls or anything! So, feel free to take your own pictures and post them on your blogs. Hell, I just used my camera phone, so it was really easy to do!

6 Random Things

The other Nicole had 6 Random Things on her blog and asked others to join in if they wanted to. I did, so here I go!

1. I don't know where I got this idea, but I've always felt that dogs were telepathic and could read thoughts. No idea why.

2. I pick on my husband for not liking or trying things, but sometimes I'm just as bad at it! I hate green peppers, onions and mushrooms!

3. I can't watch the surgery scenes on Grey's (or any other medical show) because I imagine them happening to me!

4. I aim for puddles with my Jeep!

5. If I had one wish, I'd wish to be a better singer, after all of the standard world peace and the like.

6. I have TERRIBLE vision - my contacts are 7.5 in the right eye and 8 in the left! Thank God for contacts!! But I'll never get Lasik because I already get bad halos around lights at night.

There! If anyone else wants to play along - go for it!

Have a great weekend - and thanks for the great day B!

Gray Days

This isn't the greatest picture, but it's how most of the week has been. Gray. Rainy. I look this as I was driving home from work tonight. We need the rain. When we were at Mille Lacs Lake this summer, it was down 3 feet. It's going to take a lot of rain to get that back to where it needs to be. However, it would be nice if we had one or two days of sunshine in between. But I guess it's not like I can see it most of the day - I don't have a window in my office. Ah, more bitching by me about the rain. Can't you just wait until I start bitching about the snow? Ha!

Dh and I went to Michaels tonight. He got a picture he wanted framed. Almost $400 later, even with a 50% coupon, he's getting his picture framed. We don't even have walls to put it on! It's going in our unfinished basement. Hopefully this will give him motivation to finish. Ha again!

I'm super excited for Sunday. My friend KH is coming on Sunday with her new boyfriend for dinner. I've never met him before. It should be a blast.

Blog Action Day

I hope I didn't scare you! Just one of my Halloween decorations for this year. I got the letters at JoAnn's for $.60 and used ribbon I had. I'd like to do more with it, but for right now, it's just hanging there for inspiration.

Today is Blog Action Day. This year, the focus is the environment. I do what I can, but like most of us, there's more I can do. I'm one of the few people on my block that actually recycle, but after reading Ali Edward's blog about how to recycle with Scrapbooking stuff, it really made me think. I'm not sure if recycled paper would work, as in, could it be acid free? But I'd really like to make an effort to recycle my scrap paper. I'm sure it's something that stores could do after crops as well. I'm going to have to check the requirements for our recycling program. No matter what we all do to help out, there's always something more we could do.

Dh and Orion start their trip home tomorrow from North Dakota. I'm excited to see them, but I'm worried I'm not going to get all the cleaning I wanted to do (and have been putting off!) done before they walk in the door about 24 hours from now. Oh well. Either way it will be nice to have them home. Baron will probably be more excited than I will - he really misses his brother!

Curious

I do find it curious that every there is an anonymous post or post from Jennifer, someone using Frontiernet.net in Mound on a Macintosh MacOSX is logged on. EVERY time. Very Curious.

Jennifer, I'm sorry you don't agree with me. I can handle people not agreeing with me. Most of my friends are liberals. But what I don't agree with is attacks. If you want to try and convert me, go ahead. You do catch more flies with honey.

Ignorance

I have this blog for me. I wanted to share a little bit of myself with the world. I am completely fine with anyone disagreeing with what they read here, but I'm not going to let some bully just run free. The last post I made must have hit home for "anonymous". I'm glad you have so much conviction in your (note how "your" is being used in the sentence) opinions that you won't even sign your name. When people call people ignorant, it really makes them want to consider your side. I have disabled comments on the previous post because I don't want it to get any uglier. And I have also removed the name calling post because that was uncalled for. Again, if you want to convince someone to change their opinion, that's not how you do it.

It's The End of the World As We Know It

I fear for the world....Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize. It now has lost all credibility in my eyes.

On Strike! Oh, wait - Not On Strike!

It's been an interesting week around here!

Monday DH got notice that the Union may strike again Chrysler. He was in a funk and really worried all of Monday and Tuesday. Then Wednesday, the UAW decided to strike against Chrysler. I came home for lunch and DH is making phone calls and getting ready for his strike duty at 10pm that night. By 2pm, the strike is off! It's a good thing, but it made for a weird week!

Because of all this, I was able to go out to dinner with DH last night. I must really love him, because I had to miss America's Next Top Model! Luckily, it will repeat on Sunday. Now he's in North Dakota hunting all week with Orion. It's just me and Baron holding down the fort. Baron's been a little crazed without Orion here, but we're managing. He'll be happy to have Mama time by himself.

(Photo Courtesy of ABC.com)

Birthday Party

Yesterday we celebrated my nephew's 4th birthday. He had a Cars theme party. It was really fun to hang out with my niece and nephew for the day! It made me want to move closer to them. Here's a picture of my niece - she's saying "cheese!". Gotta love those 6 teeth!
Here's my nephew swinging at the pinata, of course it was Cars themed!
My nephew with his Cars cake - he really doesn't like getting his picture taken!

Good Cop, Baby Cop

If you love Pearl the Landlord, you're going to love this!

Good Cop, Baby Cop

It will definitely chase away the blues!

Blah

I hate this. I hate feeling like this. I was so excited today. Today was the day we were finding out who moves on for Last Scrapper Standing. I checked the site about 500 times today. Finally, the results were posted. My name wasn't on there. I'm disappointed with myself. This is why I don't try things - because it makes me feel like crap when it doesn't turn out. Maybe I need to wait a few more years before I enter another contest. I can't handle them.

By the way, I'm not bitter that they didn't pick mine. There were a lot of really great layouts and I'm sure it was a tough decision. I'm bitter at myself for how I feel after I'm not chosen. It's my own damn fault I feel this way, not the contest's.

I'm going to try and sleep this off. I see much ice cream in my future.

Weekend Update

Another great weekend for me! I went on a scrapbook retreat for four days with an awesome group of people. I don't get to see them too much, so it was nice to hang out again. These ladies are a riot! My Mom also brought my niece and nephew to see me. My nephew was so happy just to cut paper. One of my tablemates also let him use her dog paw punch, which he declared he wanted for his birthday! My niece tried to color, but just ended up getting green marker all over everything. Here's a picture of them:

My space wasn't that messy until they came along! :) Oh well, they're so cute, I can forgive them! Sunday I spent time with Dh, which was nice. Monday was back to work, to clean up what I missed last week. This week it's my Mom's birthday and my nephew's birthday party! So exciting!