Winding down.

Hard to believe this long weekend is over already. Much to be thankful for. Many projects to accomplish coming up. Now I need to gear up and start getting ready for tomorrow.

Zzzzzzzzz

Home safe. Pooped out. Nite nite.

Learnin' new things

Somehow we have raised two kids to teenage in Minnesota with them never learning to ice skate. Auntie Todd and the grands took care of that this afternoon. My hometown is a hockey town with a relatively new indoor ice rink (where new=built since I graduated 22 years ago. Little bro was a goalie, now raising his own little hockey players, so they headed off to open skate and took my kids along, where the older kids took to skating like fish to water. Thing 3 had a little harder time, but still got up and made her way around the rink. Thing 4 watched and cheered.
They then came home to break out the presents from yesterday. The aunties both knit, so the older Things got learn-to-knit kits and private lessons.
Tonight some extended family have joined us to watch the hometown football team at the state competition. It's good fun, good times, quality living.

Merry Thanksmas!

Havin' a great time with my folks. Eatin', playin' games, openin' presents, playin' with the stuff we opened, eatin' some more, and winding down now for bed. Hope everyone has it this good for their own Thanksgiving. And remember tomorrow is Buy Nothing Day!

Ready, set, zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I got home with great expectations of getting lots of things ready for the trip to the folks tomorrow and our part on Sunday. Then I found the recliner. All bets are off.

Twitter killed the blogstar

The short and quick nature of Twitter is really bad for Blog 365. If I take the time to brew up a good post, this is definitely the place for it. More often these days, posts here are just the pithy, quick-checking-in-for-the-sake-of-Blog 365 sorts of posts. Hopefully I'll cook up more of the good sort soon.

Let the holidaze begin

Along with our shopping trip yesterday, we started cleaning and getting ready for our St. Andrew's dinner next Sunday. We usually go to my folks' for "Thanksmas" to best work around the East Coast travel/visitors for the extended family. In the past, iPastor or I usually worked Thanksgiving Day, so we put in a token appearance at one of the local rellies on Thursday and head to my folks' for a long weekend. This year, iPastor is somewhat in control of his schedule (limited only by his manpower)so we'll head down on Thursday.
"Our" holiday is becoming St. Andrew's Day. Whatever day it falls on (November 30) we have a Scottish meal. We were tired of letting the Irish have all the fun on March 17th. We usually host a game party on the weekend between the holidays or New Year's Eve as well. It seems like a lot, but somehow we don't get caught up in the frantic atmosphere that so many people complain of. I can get a little too comfortable holing up in isolation all winter on any given day, so I like to plan days to have people around and enjoy them when they are here.
Now, I need to get ready for the normal week as well.

Yay!

Went to Home Depot and Menards today to lay in supplies for the bathroom reno. Merry Christmas to me. I'm getting a heated floor!

Thea-tah

Took Thing 3 to my schools production of Flowers for Algernon. It was about 5 seconds from the final curtain to the first parent I heard say "I'm so impressed that they knew all their lines." That may be a record.

The House of Sickness

The kids seem to be taking turns with a bug. I need to go into hiding so I don't get it...

Only Wednesday?

It hasn't been a bad week at all, but boy has it dragged out. Are you sure it isn't Friday?

Epic Fail

So I cranked out a couple pumpkin pies tonite. I used some of my plethora of pumpkin to make the filling from scratch. I was having a hard time getting any assistance from the kids, so I did some serious multitasking. I managed to follow the recipe correctly, but had to take Thing 3 to dance before they came out of the oven. I left explicit instructions with Thing 1, who is 15 and a graduate of 3 years of FACS classes. Unfortunately, she couldn't be bothered to see them through, and passed the buck to Thing 2, who is also quite capable, but did not realize the buck had, indeed, been passed. So I came home to very dark brown pies and and crusts. They could have been edible, but when I tasted them, they were REALLY salty. I hadn't noticed anything amiss, but when I read deeper in the "comments" of the recipe site I was using, I noticed that several reviewers had noted how salty the filling was. Next time I'll read all the reviews before I try a new recipe. Oh, well. The cats didn't mind.

Parental Suffering

We're back from the first middle school concert of the season. We got there early, for once. I had forgotten my glasses, which I need only for distance, so I took a seat in the front row. The only possibility that I wouldn't see my kid would be if she stood behind the piano. Guess where she stood. So, I moved to the only seat available toward the back of the auditorium. Unfortunately, this one was also on the side where the placed the soloists and instrument players. In front of my kid. She was in the 5th grade choir. It's usually fun to attend middle school concerts, as you can tell from grade to grade the progression the kids make. Not so much this year. The 6th grade was nice, the 7th grade was lifeless, and the 8th grade was puny. That and the mics on the soloists were poorly balanced, so two kids honking out "Oh, oh" sounded like feedback. Oh well, there's always Christmas.

Slowdown

The frenzied pace of yesterday has calmed a bit, but still getting a fair amount done. Cool.

Cleaning frenzy

No one's coming over (for a couple weeks anyway), no deadline or goal, just doing some cleaning around the place for my own enjoyment and benefit. ALso baking. I feel like a freakin' domestic goddess. No, I'm not pregnant.

The bar has been raised

So I dropped my kids off at the latest sweet 16 party. There are actually a few Quinceañera parties in town now and then, but this was the first Sweet 16 that looked as if the kid watched a little too much VH1. Her folks rented a ballroom at the casino in the next town down the road. Parents with kids who don't yet have their driver's licenses were less than amused at that. I know for a fact the kid's mom busts her butt at two jobs. My soon-to-be 16 year old says she doesn't wanted a party, but her 14 year-old sister caught the bug last night. Oy. Fog machine and lava lamp in the basement, anyone?

Life in da 'hood

I fully realize hunting is part of the local lifestyle and economy, but it's still quite disconcerting to wake up to gunfire. Granted, it's outside of city limits, but that still puts it two to three blocks away.
So who wears the blaze orange, the crips or the bloods?

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Truth:

Happy Veteran's Day

Our team rocks!

Home from junior high knowledge bowl meet with a win. Second team placed firmly in the middle, but still a respectable showing for first time out! We rawk.

Dang winter

Back home safe and sound from bro's bday. We tried out a new BBQ joint (mediocre at best, but always gotta try) the kids made good use of the pool, we all got our money's worth out of the hottub, and iPastor enjoyed the wifi. A lovely weekend getaway, if you ask me. Now to gear back up for reality. Yuck.

Break time!

Off to spend an overnighter with my brother to celebrate his upcoming birthday. Wheeeeee! More from the road, perhaps. High speed at the hotel! Woot!!

Singing for supper

Took Thing 3 to Madison for the annual Norsefest talent show. She won some cash, I didn't fare so well. My CD, which worked just fine in the car, started skipping in the middle of my song. I think they should at least dole out sympathy money for being forced to sing in a theater that reeks of lutefisk. Lord. Thing 3 got a little spending money, though, and we had some girl time, so it was all good.

Thursday

So there's a lyceum during my 6th hour class, and no school tomorrow, which means its like a Friday, which means my 7th hour class will be pointless. Hmmm.

Wordless Wednesday

more animals

Woohoo!

I voted. Due to a computer glitch, my vote was actually the first one processed in my precinct. Said precinct only received a hundred ballots to begin with, so its not like it was a big stretch. Now we wait...

Third Day on the third day

It's Third Day on the third day! The third of this month was conveniently located soon after the date I planned to see Third Day in Spencer, IA, so I figured I'd have a concert post this time around. Cool. Alas, it was not to be, due to the very sad passing of David Carr's father. I was really bummed out that the concert was postponed, but I completely understand why.
So now what to post about?
Hmmmmmm...
I'd go the "favorite song" route, but that seems to change with the mood or the moment. So, how about my take on a song? I guess I'm driving this boat, so I'll run with that.
I suppose I cam a little late to the party, so "Mountain of God" was the first song I recognized from Third Day. I heard it quite often on my commute to and from school (Christian Contemp radio has play rotation as nastily tight as top 40) so I got to know it pretty well. I really liked the southern rock sound they have, and the lyric was awesome. It was the song that made me want to hear more, so iPastor got busy loading my ipod with the eponymous album and "Offerings." More on those in our next installment of 3d3d...

Weekends make me tired

Holy cow. I worked harder this weekend than I did all week. We're having a gorgeous spate of indian summer, and I didn't want to spend it all in the basement, so we got out in the yard, brought in the lawn furniture, cleaned up and raked a little, and had a lovely fire going. Now I smell like smoke and I'm ready for bed. But it's a good tired. What the heck does that mean, anyway?

Full throttle

It's been a long day, and it's not done yet. We're clearing a path for the delivery of my new dryer on Tuesday, and storing the remnants of MIL's garage. In the process, we're scrubbing and unearthing. Nice to get a layer of scunge out before we seal up for the winter. Ew.