Pay It Forward...

Pay It Forward...
My friend Sharon is having a fun little game on her blog. I'm playing along. So this is how it works..... The first 3 people to leave a comment on this (my) post will receive a hand made gift from me during this year. When and what will be a surprise. There's a small catch...You knew there would be didn't you? Post this on your blog then come back and leave a comment, telling me you're in. Fun, huh? Remember, only the first 3 comments receive the gift.

A splendid weekend...

I woke up this morning feeling quite refreshed. Russell and Donovan are gone camping with the boy scouts. The house is fairly quiet. I have noticed that any three of the boys can get along splendidly. You add in the fourth and no matter who the fourth is....he has to tease/aggravate his brothers in some way. So today has been just splendid so far. Michael got his wood chore done. Christopher is on vacation from chores and Nephi did what he could to help as well. All three play very nicely together in whatever world happens to beckon to them. Without Donovan around - Christopher is actually very pleasant. He is a great peacemaker if there is a little squabble with the younger boys. Maybe he thinks he needs to compete with Donovan in some way whenever he and Donovan are near each other. Maybe Heavenly Father thinks this is humorous to watch. Me trying to figure out one teenage boy and one almost teenage boy interact with each other.

I hope your weekend is just splendid too!

Oh Brother...

Our family has a chore chart. Everyone gets to help. The chore week goes from Monday - Sunday. Last week Nephi's chore was firewood. He didn't bring enough in to last through Sunday night. So....
he gets to help Michael bring in firewood today. This week it's Michael's chore.
Michael was outside and Nephi eventually turned up.

Michael: "I've been waiting for you forever and ever."
Nephi: "No you haven't. Forever and ever means many days and nights."

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Would you like to come over for a heart-shaped individual chicken pot pie? Really? You would?

Introducing....

The Black Pearl!

And you thought I was talking about the ship from Pirates of the Caribbean. Admit it. You really did.
This nice van is the newest addition to our family! We looked at it last Saturday while waiting for our tax money to return. Luckily it hadn't sold yet. Who says God isn't watching out for us. We've been praying and hoping we could get this van. Some other people had looked at it after us and were mad it wasn't "detailed." Whatever. We have no problem vacuumming the car out or wiping down the seats. Sheesh. It has under 94,000 miles and we felt really good about it.

And the color in case you are wondering....is black pearl. The boys being boys immediately thought Pirates of the Caribbean. :) Welcome to my world. All of it!

This wasn't in the weather forecast...

SNOW! We had freezing rain last night so it was slicker than snot when I went to pick up Russell this morning. He and two other teachers were in a car accident this morning. This was about 7 a.m. I picked him up about 7:45. 8:15 I was in town running errands very slowly and it started to snow. It's now 9:30 a.m. and the snow is sticking and we have HUGE ginormous flakes coming down. This wasn't in the weather forecast. Just a high wind warning starting tonight. Maybe we will get a whole bunch and the boys can stay home tomorrow.
By the way - the accident didn't require any ambulance services. Thank goodness. But the guys will be pretty sore tomorrow I am sure. Their accident is known all over town though. Talk about word spreading like wildfire! Sheesh!

Twenty years...

Twenty years has gone by. I am not sure where it went. It's just gone. The class of '89 of the high school Russell and I graduated from are working on the 20 year class reunion. I am still in denial! Has it really been that long? The exciting part is we've run into old friends through facebook and it's nice to see faces along with names. We will be able to go this time as we live close enough!

Today was a....

Today was a very productive day. Especially when you have a teenager who can watch the younger boys. Even though we came home to a house in a much different state than when we left. Shame on them. The house was still standing though so I can be thankful. :) And the boys were still alive. Christopher wasn't home so I am sure that had a great deal to do with it. He spent the day with a friend and had a blast.
Back to the day at hand...
Russell and I took off and went to Hillsboro and braved the myriads of crazy carted shoppers at WinCo. Got what we needed and had a quiet lunch at Burger King. We saw a van on Craig's List we were interested in seeing and reached the owners. It was still for sale so we went to check it out. It drives very nice, low miles, captain's chairs all around (yes!), leather interior, 2 side doors. We are hoping it will still be around next week when our tax money returns. Because we will be going back to hand over a nice check for a new van! Keep your fingers crossed! We are hoping....hoping....hoping....

Then....we took a detour on the way home to Home Depot. We priced shelving for the boys' closet and since Russell was in a very animated discussion with his brother on the cell phone....I picked out some paint, primer, paint tray and painting stuff to do the boys' bathroom this week. I can't wait to see how it will turn out!

$50 an hour...

I cleaned the house today I was going to clean on Monday. I felt tons better today when I woke up so called and arranged to do the housecleaning today. At 3 hours on the job at $50 an hour - it was a good day's work! My nose is still stuffy but I don't feel achy and yucky like I did previously this week.

Warm fuzzies...

No - I am not talking about the kind when you feel really good about something. I am talking about layers and layers of clothes and a fuzzy brain. I am going on day three of feeling yucky. At least I don't need tennis shoes any longer to chase after my nose. I can get things done around the house but it seems to take me longer as I can't think clearly.

I hope to feel tons better by Monday. I have a house to clean. It's due to a divorce and one of the parties involved needs to make sure it's done. I got a phone call today and was offered the job. It's a 3600 sq ft house and needs a cleaning from top to bottom. I charge $50/hr so should be a profitable day!

Colds, naps and frozen pizzas.

I woke up this morning. Freezing. It was a mere 20 or so degrees. The fire had been stoked by Russell but I was still cold nonetheless. I did some grocery shopping not thinking the coldness of the morning would affect me later on in the day. I stocked up on fresh fruits (lots on sale) and cereal and cheese. I came home and started sneezing. I even took airborne this morning. Love that stuff. Then my nose started running. I had to catch it. Several times. I took some benedryll for allergies and colds and picked Nephi up from the bus. Luck would have it he didn't want to eat his lunch this day. So....
He took a 3 1/2 hour nap. Maybe he wasn't feeling very well either. I expected him to wake up after an hour or so. But luck was on my side. I fell asleep too. When I woke up I felt worse. Now my throat was hurting. Where is the honey? Fell back asleep and woke up again just as the boys came home from school. By this time it's almost 4 p.m. Nephi still hadn't woken up yet. Russell came home a few minutes after the boys and sent me back to bed. After I told him we were having frozen pizza for dinner. My rationalization was they were a good pizza brand and on sale for $2.50 a box. I certainly can't buy cheese that cheap.
Now that it is evening and having taken more airborne - I am starting to feel better. I will take another benedryll before I go to bed and tomorrow should be just grand. I hope you are having good health at the moment. If you would like - I could sneeze or cough on you and we could share the germs. :)