Time to hunker down and hibernate!

Well Jason and I went to Fat Daddy's Comedy Club last night for the show.  It was pretty obvious how long it had been since I had been out in the real world and to any kind of event because I thought the opening comedian was the only comedian for the show.  I was wrong.  He was not.  The main event came up after him and he was HILARIOUS!  The main comedic event was comedian Stephano.  He had DVDs for sale and at the end of the show we bought one.  We have not watched it yet, but I have no doubt it will be just as funny if not more that the show we saw.

Anyway, it's been snowing all day today, school was called out early and it looks like we're in for some REALLY cold, COLD weather.  They predict serious wind chills tomorrow through Wednesday afternoon, like some 40 below zero.  I seriously question if they will even have school tomorrow if this happens.  All I wanna do now is to snuggle in bed and stay warm.

Back to life.

Well, today was a great day to sleep in with the hubby, no need to wake children up for school, no early rising, nothing but sleeping in till our bodies carried us out of bed.  The ritual for the children on the weekends is to wake up and immediately play the Xbox.  Once my hubby and I were up and about it was off to town we went to visit a few places of business like Sam's Club, Wal-Mart, and Hy-Vee (a few of them), to get food and other items.  Sam's was packed!  It felt like Christmas season when I walked in there, and then my thoughts were quickly to getting our stuff and getting out.  Thankfully enough the line going out was not a backed up when we left as it was when we arrived.  Wal-Mart was about as packed, but it's Wal-Mart!  The only time it isn't packed is at 2am!  I was really happy when we went to Hy-Vee to see they still sold the fizzle skittles!  Wal-mart doesn't sell them anymore.  So we basically bought candy there and rented a few movies from the redbox.  We went to another Hy-Vee to check out their meat.  They had pineapple brats!  They are so yummy!  So we cleaned them out of those to create a supply for us here!  If you have not tried their flavored brats you definitely need to!!!

Then it was back home.  It was great to get back out into the land of the living after being "in the house" all week long, and it was really great to get out with my hubby finally after trying unsuccessfully to get to a movie for the past few days, going to get food was just fine too.  It's always good when the two of us can spend some alone time together.  I love laughing with him.  Tomorrow we're going to the comedy club and hopefully laugh all night long!  I can't wait!!

Another Friday.

Here we are at another Friday with the weekend here.  It'll be nice to not have to wake up so early in the morning to get the kids ready for school!

Tomorrow though my husband and I are going to town to go to a few places and hit the grocery store.  We might even hit an afternoon movie too, but we'll have to see how long the other places take before we make the decision to go to a movie.  But I'm still excited to head to town with him and spend some time with just him.  His work schedule has changed so we don't quit have as much time available as we did before, so I am looking forward to it.  Then on Sunday we have a date to the comedy club in Sioux Falls, thanks to being a fan of a local radio station on their facebook page.  I was lucky enough to get a pair of free tickets to the Sunday night show.  I think going there was even on my 101 things to do list.  Even if it wasn't, having a date night with my husband definitely is!  I cannot wait to laugh the night away with him!!!!

So the other night when I made that amazing butter yellow cake with the most delicious home-made chocolate frosting, I was going to post the picture of the cake but didn't get around to it when I blogged.  Well now I have he pictures on the computer and here is the cake.  It was REALLY good!  Doesn't it look yummy?

The last two days my husband and I have been talking about what we would like to do this summer for trips etc. and we have always talked about heading out to Yellowstone National Park, so I think we're going to try and make that trip a reality this summer.  I think with early planning and preparing we may actually be able to go on this trip.  We've talked about taking two weeks, not that we would spend that entire time in Yellowstone.  We would stop at Devil's Tower on the way out and then at the Battle of Little Bighorn on the way home, and we might possibly head into Montana more while we are out there, like to Great Falls for a surprise visit to my Grandma and then maybe even up to Big Sandy to show my children where their Grandpa grew up.  Not sure though, we'll have to do some more planning for that trip because it certainly isn't a day trip from Yellowstone!  We've been checking out all the places to stay in the area as well as things to do in the park, and sent off for some park information.  It's kind of exciting thinking about taking a family vacation out there.

Tonight I spent some time picking up, cleaning up, and straightening up the house a bit.  A few months ago my husband bought me pink roses and they withered away so beautifully that I wanted to keep them, but I neglected to "hang" them, so they dropped over as you can see below.  I taped them upside down hoping that  I might possibly be able to reverse their bend, then I'll hairspray them and put them back into the vase.  Here's what they look like:

Well, off to watch "Pearl Harbor"!

Tomorrow is Friday!

Tomorrow is Friday!  That's about all I'm going to say for today folks!!!

I wish this cold I have had for the past week would finally leave already.  Mornings are icky with all the build-up from the overnight and my nose is all plugged up.  Enough already!  Tomorrow is Thursday!  We didn't make it to the movie this afternoon, but we're hoping tomorrow might work out instead.

I made a butter yellow cake tonight.  I'm not sure if I've ever had a butter yellow cake before.  I made homemade frosting for it and it is very delicious!  I'd post a picture but I don't have everything hooked up yet.  May do that in a little bit.

Washing a few loads of laundry right now before I head to bed.  Kids need jeans for tomorrow!  Other than this not much a day here today.  Still looking for a job!

Tuesday

It's no longer Monday!  I can hear the weekend approaching once again.  Doesn't it just seem like monotonous clockwork week after week?  I mean Mondays are boring because it's the beginning of the work week and we've been spoiled by having two days off at home, wishing for another, but we gotta go back sometime.  Then we have Tuesday, which really doesn't mean anything other than the fact it's no longer Monday.  Here comes Wednesday, hump day, the week is half over and we can see the weekend coming.  Thursday, isn't much either, but it's much more exciting than Tuesday because the day after is Friday, which means the weekend is finally here, another two days of no work and nothing but relaxing at home.  So there's the week for you!

Alright, well today, of course, after getting the kids to school I went back to bed for a nap, got up around 11am, hopped on facebook and had seen an entry from mix 97-3 about sending them an email to win a pair of tickets to the comedy club in Sioux Falls.  So I emailed him thinking I wouldn't hear anything because he posted it an hour earlier, but 15 minutes later I got a call that I won a pair of tickets to the Sunday night show!  Yeah me!!!  It pays to be a fan on facebook.  I think this might have been one of my things to do too.  I've actually been wanting to go to some sort of comedy show with my husband for a while now.  It's absolutely great to laugh with him!  There's nothing quit like having a giggle attack with your husband and the two of you making each other laugh or both laughing at the same thing.  And he has Sunday off so this is almost perfect!  Free tickets and a night off.  I can't wait!

Once I picked the kids up from school we had to drive into SF to get Alex some black pants for her band concert, which was tonight.  I'm so proud of her.  She plays the French Horn and while straightening her hair before the concert I realized she was taller than me!!  Ugghh!  She did a really great job, as did everyone there tonight.  The sixth graders played Hang on Sloopy for one of their pieces.  That always gets the crowd going, and sure brought back memories for me of high school football games over 21 years ago.  It was enjoyable to say the least.

Now it's off to bed, wondering what tomorrow will bring.  I'm kind of hoping my hubby gets to sleep early tonight when he gets home from work because I wanna go to a movie matinée tomorrow.  I wanna see "Love and Other Drugs".

FYI, still no word from the Travolta's.

It's Monday!

The last couple of days I've been struggling with a sinus infection/head cold.  Plugged nose, sore throat, then a runny/drainy nose, coughing, headache, and very fatigued.  After the kids were off to school this morning it was without a doubt back to bed for more rest/sleep and that is definitely what I did.  I finally got out of bed around 2pm.  Yep, 2pm!  I really needed the rest though.  I would really like to get rid of this junk lingering around inside my sinuses.  No need to go to the doctor about it because they won't do anything for it.  My folks are heading to Mexico here in a few weeks.  I love it when they head down there because we generally get a supply of amoxicillin, so when sinuses etc act up, I take a few of those and within a few days I'm all good.

There was one thing I really wanted to watch on TV today and that was the Oprah show.  She was going to reveal some deep dark family secret and of course since the first previews for the show, that's all you've been hearing about, what could the secret be.  I kind of wondered when she began talking about the story starting with Patricia that somehow they were related and then when I saw Tennessee on one the hospital documents I figured she was a sister to Oprah.  Wow!  Can you imagine waking up one day and discovering your sister is Oprah Winfrey?  It was kind of emotional watching and listening to her and her family throughout the show, but very exciting for everyone involved!

Tonight I finally got off my rocker and made some banana bread.  It turned out so amazing, so beautiful, almost perfect!  I am very proud of how well it looked, how well it came out of the pan, and I'm looking forward to it tasting as sensational as it smells!  Here's a picture of the two loaves.  Don't they look incredibly delicious?

Oh, and before I forget, I have a nibble for a job!  :o)

Just another day in paradise.

Nothing new today.  Started the day cleaning, washing dishes then making bread in my bread machine...potato bread.  I love the smell of fresh homemade bread, even if it is from a machine.  The smell of fresh bread reminds me of my childhood years when my dad would make bread from scratch, the old-fashioned way, the true way of making bread, kneading it by hand, placing a damp cloth over it, and watching it rise for hours.  The whole house had the fresh bread smell in it!  It was awesome!  That was in our house in Little Falls, MN.

Next it was off to watch TV, which pretty much sums up the rest of the entire day.  Pretty boring, although I did search for jobs and send off my resume to a couple different places.  I did manage to deep condition my hair with a treatment called WEN by Chaz Dean.  Wen is more of a conditioner vs. a shampoo.  It works alright, kind of expensive, so I didn't use it long.  In the kit they had a deep conditioning treatment.  I used it and kept it in my hair for about an hour, rinsed it, and now my hair is silky soft.  If it wasn't so expensive I would use it all the time.  With my long hair I go through it rather quickly so I would need more of it, which equates to more money spent on it, which I obviously have no money at the moment with no job, so yeah, there ya go.

I'm really feeling lazy at the moment, nothing is appealing and I'm just kind of staring off into nowhere, which is where I feel I'm going to.  Maybe tomorrow will be better?

It's Friday, like that matters!

TGIF!  As if it really matters if it's Friday or not.  Everyday is like a Friday for me because I don't have a job, but I guess I still get up early Monday through Friday to get the kids ready and off to school so in a sense Fridays are great because then for at least two days I can sleep in and not wake up so early.  Although I generally go back to bed though after I drop them off at school, so to some degree it really doesn't matter.

Last night was a late night for me getting some papers filled out and ready to mail out today.  I looked for more jobs today.  There were a few I plan to apply for, but as usual, not much out there.  I did get my papers in the mail today and even paid some bills online tonight.  I think I'm all "caught up"...for now at least.  I think about our bills, what we have, what we own etc. and wonder why it all even matters?  I mean, we can't take any of it with us when we die can we?  The only thing we can take with us when we pass is our faith and belief in Jesus and God, and with any luck we've lived our lives according to them and can have eternal life after death.

I often, quite regularly actually, think about what it's like after death, or what would it be like?  What is death like, so on and so forth?  When I die will it be thousands or millions of years before the end of time?  How long will my body be in the ground before I have, or hope to have, eternal life?  I mean how old would Adam and Eve be today?  And where are they buried?  Abraham and Sarah?  How long do our bones stay in the ground?  I know, too many questions, but this is what I think about throughout the day.

Some cool news, while surfing the internet I came across an article from business week listing the top towns in each state to raise a family.  In South Dakota that city/town was Lennox, with Worthing being the runner up, which is liek 7 miles from Lennox and in the same school district.  That was pretty exciting to see the town we lived in was actually listed the #1 place in the state to raise a family.

I'll see ya'all tomorrow!

Countdown

Nothing new today. Same routine as it has been lately. I would really like to get a job, sooner rather than later preferrably. I'd like to find one where I could really put my education to good use but there are not a whole lot of jobs out there right now where I could do that. I did apply for one last week that I am really hopeful about, but we'll have to see where it leads. I wish I could have taken the job search class a little sooner because that could have made a difference for me in some cases. My resume was very generic and my interviewing skills, to be blunt, sucked! The class gave me some really great pointers from filling out the application, to having a great resume, to interviewing questions. It really was a great class! It was mandatory for unemployment insurance, but I really did find the information beneficial and applicable to my job search. So, for now, I keep looking and hoping something soon will pan out so I can begin working again. I wonder how many more days it will be before I have a job???

Being a "homemaker" isn't always easy though. I wonder how I ever got all this stuff done when I was working. All the cleaning etc., extra "baking" and "cooking", then making sure all the kids get their homework done and to bed on time, it gets overwhelming. It doesn't help either when you yourself feel completely unmotivated to get anything done. Of course the weather brings even more feelings on lowness too. I hate winter. Every year I want to move and every year I'm still here! Only 59/58 days till Spring though.

Let's not forget about the royal wedding either...April 29th, in 99 days. I'm actually looking forward to it. I still remember Princess Diana's and Prince Charles wedding. It's really exciting to see another royal wedding. I will definitely be watching it, with my daughter.

At least tomorrow is Friday and after that I can have two days of sleeping in and not worrying about getting up early to get the kids up and off to school! The school year is half way done too! So many countdowns to keep up with!!!!!

Nothing to lose.

Today started off just like it typically does. Kids got up and off to school. I went back to nap, got up and made a trip to Sioux Falls to get back in time to pick them up from school. Came home and watched tv for a few hours. Now I'm blogging, tweeting, facebooking, and doing laundry.

I did receive an email back from Tanner's sister today. She was very thankful for my email and expressed how it lifted her spirits. In thinking about the family more and how heartbroken they were I thought there has to be something more I can do to help their healing. While watching ET (Entertainment Tonight) it came to me. They were talking about John Travolta and Kelly Preston's new baby. What do I have to lose by doing it? The answer...not a darn thing. So, I emailed Kelly Preston via her website and talked about this family who lost their son a short time ago. As you all know I'm sure, they lost their son Jett in January 2009 at 16. Tanner was 15, just 14 days from turning 16 when he died in the car accident. The Travolta's daughter was about the same age as Tanner's sister when he passed. I figured maybe a word from them on their healing process might help Tanner's family in their healing. I don't expect too much from it, but figured the situations are very similar, and since I really don't have anything to lose, why not at least try.

I guess I would say to stay tuned to see if anything happens.

Till next time!

Today

My days seem to be pretty uneventful with no job. They go like this: wake up to get the kids ready and off to school, go back to bed for a nap, wake up and watch tv for a while, go online to see what jobs are posted, pick up kids from school and be lazy the rest of the night, go to bed and do it all over again the next day. Pretty boring. Of course there is the occasional trip to town every other day, which takes the monotone nature out of the schedule.

Tonight however, when my daughter was on facebook, I read a post from a girl in 6th grade here in Lennox. Her brother was killed in an auto accident on October 29th 2010. That day is a day I will always remember, forever. This year in particular though marked Rachels 40th birthday. Even though she's been gone for 21 years this year, I still take time for her on her birthday. Around 4pm that day, well, let's back up. The day before was the day I left my job, or rather my job left me, so Friday I wasn't working and decided I could go help out with a Halloween party at school for Aidan's classroom. I went to help and as school came to an end in that classroom a teacher popped her head in the room. It was Mrs. Bainbridge. Right around 3:10pm. I took the kids home and around 4pm we took a quick trip. Our route took us right by and through a horrifying accident. When I saw the vehicle my heart stopped and I couldn't breath. I really felt like there was a terrible result of this accident. I was right. Tanner Bainbridge, only 15 years old, died as a result of this accident, on Rachels would-be 40th birthday.

What a day. I think about them quite often, praying for them, for their healing. Tanner's sister, as with all of them, are having a really difficult time with it all, and really, who wouldn't? Like many things, even my experience with losing Rachel, you wish you could "redo" or "undo" events in your life, or "pretend" they never happened. Unfortunately that isn't the case. Things do happen, difficult things and happy things. They are all a part of God's master plan. All we can do is sit back and let them unfold.

So I wrote his sister a message in an email letting her know my brief story and to hold onto to her faith in God. Time will heal, but we will never forget!

We will all see each other again!

Gadgets and gizmos.

Well I just spent a little time adding a few things to my blog design. It took some fiddling around but I got them all on there and I love the look of my blog. I'm thinking of looking into some social networking type classes to learn more about this stuff, but there is so much on the web that I could probably just search there and get all the information I need to and want to know.

School was cancelled yesterday and today so this Christmas break has been, what seems like an extended on. School is two-hours late tomorrow but the kids don't know that. I still want them in bed at a normal time. If they know it's late then they'll try to stay up late. And looking at the time it's time for me to hit the hay too.

TTFN!

Monday

Well today started with a phone call from school telling us school was two-hours late. An hour later came another phone call now cancelling school for the entire day. I must say I was relieved a bit knowing we didn't have to do the morning rush and we could all get up and get going on our own time.

I did go into town though to drop off an application and resume. I would really like this job as I've worked for the company before and had really great experiences with them. Roads were obviously snow covered and slick but we made it there and back just fine.

Yesterday I was able to recreate my resume and take from three pages down to one. I am much more impressed with my current resume than I was with my old one. I went to a job search class last week and learned a lot about the presence and information on your resume and application, how to score the interview and land the job. So I'm practicing and putting these skills into place, hoping a job comes my way, sooner rather than later.

Received a phone call this evening school was going to be two-hours late tomorrow however, I didn't tell the kids that, just so they would go to bed at their normal time and not use that as an excuse to stay up a little later tonight.

So now I'm having some time to myself and blogging. ttfn!

It's been a while!

Wow, it's been a while since I've been on here, like four months! I've thought many times about getting on here and writing, but never did. It's nice to see it's still here, not sure how long they stay up with no activity.

Many things have happened in my life since my last entry. I won't share every detail, but it's been a roller coaster ride filled with excitement and sorrow. Out of nowhere I now find myself searching for employment. I've had a few nibbles here and there, but nothing that has panned out yet. So, I keep searching and hoping something will come my way. I went to a job search class yesterday, which was extremely helpful, and I would recommend everyone take a class like this. During the session I realized my current resume needed a complete makeover as it was too boring and too long. So now I find myself "recreating" my resume to be only one-page and much more exciting, more appealing to the employers.

Our holidays were pretty good. I particularly like Thanksgiving because my parents came over and spent several days with us. It was really nice to have them spend that time here with us. I hope we can have them over more often like that...for a couple days. My brother and his wife also came out for dinner on Thursday, so it was really cool to have us all together at the dinner table having Thanksgiving dinner. The kids loved havingall of them here. Christmas was quaint, having my brother-in-law and his wife over for dinner. The kids loved their presents from them, from Santa, and from us. We chatted about the true meaning of Christmas though being about Jesus.

The last couple months I have felt like I've been on somewhat of a spiritual journey, re-evaluating my spirituality, re-discovering it. Our children received a day-by-day guide to reading the Bible to children. Beginning January 1st, well we were a couple days late, but now caught up, I've read the Bible to them. Although it's pretty vague, suited to children, it's a great review for me. I would like to read my Bible as well, but so far have not done that. I find myself being drawn to finding out more about religious history, the life and death of Jesus, and life after death. I've been working more at bringing prayer and God/Jesus/Holy Spirit more into our home than before, so our children know them and how to live by his word.

Winter sure has been showing up lately with blizzards and freezing temps. Makes me look forward to Spring, which is 72 days away! I'm not a winter person. I don't like coats and bundling up to go somewhere. I have made my favorite season to be Fall because summer is too hot, spring is still too wet and sloppy with melting snow, and winter is too cold and too white, plus everything is dead (most plants and trees), or rather hibernating.

Well, enough for now, but before I go: Yeah for Friday!

Spring