P365 Jan 24-Jan30

Color Blankey turns 10! Well, actually, Sarah turned 10 on this day, but Color Blankey arrived not long after she was born. It was made by a group of friends that I e-mailed on a daily basis. (still do with some of them as a matter of fact!) Each of them made a patch and 'Aunt Sally' put them all together. It has gotten a lot of love and abuse over the last 10 years, patches have disappeared altogether, or we have rescued some of them in time and resewed them on. But Sarah loves Color Blankey still.

Richard and the boys went to go buy wood pellets the Friday of Sarah's birthday, but Saturday he was gone most of the day, and it was cold and icy, so they didn't get brought into the house until Monday.

This picture is simply-Fat cat in a too small box.

Wednesday I went to the church with the kids. These are the girls doing a scripture chase.

Thursday I had my almost monthly lunch with my dear friend Phyllis. We meet at Lucky's in Clear Lake after I'm done working in the art room. I usually get the soup and a salad or sandwich. The 2 soups of the day were Chili and chunky vegetable. I didn't really want chili, so I ordered the chunky vegetable thinking I might get a nice broth-based vegetable soup. Not. When the waitress set it in front of me she said, "this isn't chili." Really? Sure looked like chili to me. With chunks of vegetables in it. Grrr. Sure tasted like chili too. I even like chili. I just didn't want it that day. Oh well. Phyllis & I had a nice visit anyway.

Friday I was coming home from picking Richard up from work (we may be acquiring a new car this week so that we don't have to tag team drive anymore!) and I passed this sunset. The moon was rising big and full in the opposite direction, but I thought the sunset looked better. ;-)

Saturday the 30th, I took the girls down to Menomonie for a Seminary Activity. My friend Shelby drove her daughter down and we went downtown for some shopping and sightseeing. We toured the historic Mabel Tainter Theatre. It was a lovely old stone building and had recently been restored. This is a picture of some of the really cool stenciling that was in there. I'd like to go to a play there and sit in the balcony. (no, really, I'd like to be IN a play there, but I can't imagine driving over an hour each way for rehearsals)

Well, January is almost over and so is the first month of P365. What do you think? I'm having fun. See you in February!

Jan 17-23

This was a busy week! (of course, when isn't it?)
Sunday we had a very long day at church. After church we had a potluck lunch, and then Richard had to get everyone's financial statements finished for 2009. We finally got home around 4pm. This is Richard driving us home.

I call this picture 'six bottles'. They are the 6 bottles I picked up at the drug store on Monday evening. Daniel had had a gross nose for a while with headaches, and then it was migrating to his ears, so he got a trip to the doctor. He got diagnosed with a sinus infection moving to his ears, so he got a 2 week course of Amoxicillin. While at the drugstore, I passed the hair color, and decided it had been WAY too long since I had gotten my hair colored, my roots were as long as my bangs, there was way too much sparkly silver showing, and I just wasn't getting around to make an appointment with Dawn, my hairdresser, so I bought my own color. I'd done it before, but my hair has grown so long it takes 3 boxes to cover my hair now. I used 2 boxes red, and one brown. (obviously, this picture was taken post coloring. It looks like there had been some sort of bloodshed before the bottles were touched)

Tuesday morning it the world was white, but it hadn't snowed at all. It was just a heavy frost from the frozen fog. Every single branch was just covered with a thick lacy blanket. This is the view UP the driveway to our house.

Wednesday night, the older kids went off to church, Richard was still at work, and John was still at school, so it was just me and the younger ones. We had time to cuddle up on the couch and read a couple chapters of the books we are reading together.

Thursday, I had Girl Scouts with Sarah. We put on a play about Ruth Harkiss who was one of the first westerners to discover the panda in China and bring one to the United States. The girls made the props, and then we divided the parts.

Friday night was Sarah's birthday party. Sarah made all the invitations and passsed them all out without me seeing her list, so I wasn't sure of how many actually were invited or would come. Luckily it was only 3 that showed up, so it wasn't too overwhelming. :-) Richard took the boys out to get wood pellets and dinner. Alisha and Emily helped me with the party. This is a picture of them playing with glow sticks...with flash & without. It was a slumber party. We made pizza, painted finger nails, they played games, had a pinata & watched a movie as they settled down for the night. They were up early the next morning and we had crepes for breakfast.

Saturday, I cut fabric, and cut fabric, and cut fabric. It is the first quilt I have started in many months.

I also got my talk ready and primary things ready for Sunday (1-24) but we got a call this morning that church was cancelled because of the weather. Well, guess we are ready for next week.

Have a great week!

Jan 10-16

This is my new friend Nikia. She moved into our ward with her family this last month. She's pretty special, as you can see. She's almost 4, and very friendly.

John started school this week. Monday we bought books, Tuesday he had Student orientation, and Wednesday he started classes. He is going for a Network Specialist degree.

Most of this week it has been very foggy. It has started to warm up a little bit, which causes melting, and then fog. However, it is still below freezing, so the fog freezes on all the trees making a very pretty sight.

I love Stephen's Gourmet Hot Cocoa. It is a Utah made cocoa, and until recently, I could only get it in Utah. I even asked for it for Christmas one year. Then, recently, wandering through the grocery store in TURTLE LAKE, I found this! I was so excited! I had to buy it, so they would get more.

One of the advantages of volunteering in the artroom at the elementary school, is you get to make the projects the kids do if you so desire. I've helped make these clay rattles for a couple of years, and this year I decided to make one myself. Mine is the one with the long neck. Sarah is in 4th grade, so she got to make one this year too. Hers is the one with the duckbill.

It warmed up enough that I found a snow angel in our snowscape last night. I was told that Daniel made it. I think it almost looks like a moonscape.

Girl Scout cookie sale started today. Sarah & I spent a couple of hours out selling today. She is 20% to her goal. Being 30 degrees made for much nicer selling weather than the -20 degrees we've had to deal with some years!

Have a great week!

1st week of 2010

I'm still not used to writing 2010. I keep wanting to put two zeros together in the date.

I'm still keeping up with my goal. Here's the latest:
This is my statistics class work spread all out-Jan 6. I have finished the course work, and have the 3rd midterm requested, which I need to finish before I can take the final. I went through the pre-test & I'm not ready for the real test, I'll tell you that!

Jan 7. This is a box of logs that the boys have to haul in several times a day. Richard had a friend who had a huge oak tree that fell down a while ago and he let us have it. It took about 5 of our truckloads (we have a 1 ton truck) to bring it all home. We have discovered that oak is a not very pleasant smelling tree, and the house smells when we bring in a load of wood, but it does work at keeping the house warm

Friday Jan 8, Richard and I took a night and went to the movies. We saw 'BlindSide' with Sandra Bullock. It was a wonderful, uplifting movie. I recommend it.

This is the laundry of working people. Blue & red collar workers. LOL.

Have a great week!!

new pics! :-)

I've kept up with this for 6 days now. Woo Hoo! So, here are the latest installments:

Sunday we woke up to -18 degrees. I don't care who you are, that is cold. Snot freezing cold. We are averaging about -10 at night. That calls for a lot of wood in the fireplace. We shove it in there day and night. We have a wood pellet stove that works to about 20 degrees at keeping the house warm. Below 20, and we have to supplement with wood. Especially to heat the upstairs. There are electric baseboard heaters upstairs, but they are expensive, so we don't use them. So, Richard & boys cut trees (gotta love having your own woods) and chop wood and haul wood so that we can have heat. Heat is a good thing.

Monday (1/4) the kids went back to school and I drove to New Richmond to do some shopping. I've passed this tree many times and was always struck by its starkness in the middle of the field by itself.

This is my amaryllis that I have been growing since Thanksgiving. It has 4 gorgeous blooms on it, and a 5th bud as well. Very cool looking!

Have a great day!!

Project 365 2010

It has really been 6 months since I last wrote??? Well, hopefully this is about to change. I have taken on a new goal for the year. It is called Project 365 and it involves taking a picture every day of the year and then posting it. I may not post every day, but the pictures will be eventually up--even if it means having to upload several at a time.

I'm hoping this project will be a good and unique way to journal about the year, and to help improve my photo taking skills.

So, here we go~~!


I'll start with New Year's Eve: It was a Blue Moon, fantastically huge and looked very cool shining through the icicles on the house.

New Year's Day: I had to work during the day, but at night, we turned all electronic entertainment off and had a grand time playing Apples to Apples.

today we dismantled the Christmas tree. It always looks so sad!!


Well, that's the start of P365 2010. Hope it will be a fun journey.