My New Craft

My friend Kay, whom I work with, is a "stamper".   She makes all her own cards.  We went over to her place a few weeks ago, and she has a whole room downstairs filled with stamping materials:  paper, stamps, punches, rolling stampers, etc, etc.

I was quite envious.  I love craft paper.  I've been scrapbooking for about 12 years now.   Stamping is one step away from scrapping.  

So she's turned me on to this new craft.  I joined her stamp club.  Every month I HAVE to buy at least $15 worth of stamping materials. 10 or 12 other women do the same.  And every once in a while, I get to be the hostess for the month, and earn free stuff and hostess gifts.

I tried out my new "talent" on two cards for my daughter and my sister.  They're very basic, as I don't really have any materials yet.....but here they are:



Another Home Improvement Project

Our new house has a mudroom off the kitchen.   It was in very sad condition.   The roof leaked, the lights didn't work, the floor was a disaster.   

Hubby took care of the roof.  And he also installed a new ceiling light and fixed the electricity so the ceiling light and the porch light both worked.  

Then it was my turn.

The very sad floor:

The stained ceiling.  This one is only a partially "before" picture because that is the new light fixture.  The old one was falling apart, rusted and had no glass covering.

If these tiles look familiar....well.....they are.   They are the same as the tiles I put into the bathroom.    6 boxes of these tiles were given to me by my brother.   "Free for Me!!"

Now that the ceiling and floor look so nice, I've decided I want to paint the walls.  It's paneling but I'll paint right over it with a nice bright color.  



Our New Addition

My Hubby is a musician......and a musician without a piano is like a day without sunshine.  

One of the first things he wanted to do when we bought the new house was get a piano.........

and he did!

Watch out Cake Boss!

My baby daughter is turning 30 years old this weekend.   We always celebrate her birthday on Thanksgiving because she was, after all, a Turkey baby.

She plays women's football, so I created this lovely cake just for her.   You can't see it in the picture but there is a replica of her team's logo in the middle of the cake, and all the players and the line markers are "30".

Thanksgiving

My Dad did most of the work of cooking for our Thanksgiving feast.  Then my brother John carved the turkey and we all helped serve it up.

Of course, Dad had to do some quality control taste-testing of the turkey.

Nick, Kelly, Courtney, Sammi and Lloyd wait patiently for the food to come out.

Steve passes some food to Doug.

Ruth and Paul are replete after their holiday meal.

Sammi enjoyed her dinner.

Laura played a little Barbie dolls with the little kids.

Kara leads Ciera, Emily and Hailey in a sing-along.

Jamie and I took the kids on the traditional after-dinner walk.  When I was a girl, we took a walk after dinner to avoid doing dishes.

Aren't these little faces sweet?

Professional or Casual?

My company recently merged with another division of the same company.   I don't consider it a merger....it seems more like a takeover.   Because we've made a whole bunch of changes...changes made so that we line up with the way the other division does things.  I'm pretty sure they haven't changed anything to line up with our way of doing things.

We have new insurance, different  holidays, a different sick time and vacation time structure, and we are going to be selling some different products.   New computer programs are right around the corner.  And now the latest change..........our dress code.

Up until now, our offices have been "business casual".   Which means pants, skirts, blouses, sweaters, and capris in the summer.  Something like this:

And the men could look something like this:   (oh!!! How I wish the men looked like that!!!)

Since I'd worked in child care all my life, it was hard enough putting together any kind of business wardrobe. 

Now, we have to look more like this:

Power suits, collared shirts, blazers, stockings, etc.  

I sincerely have nothing that fits into this category.  I don't know how I'm going to do this.  I don't have the money, or the shopping inclination, to get a whole new wardrobe by January 1.

Our other option is to buy and wear company logo shirts.   So I'm thinking my one pair of black dress slacks worn every day, and a couple of logo shirts alternating every other day.   Won't I look pretty?

 

What I saw at the Movies

Last night Hubby took me to the movies.  We don't go very often.  It's pretty expensive, even with discount tickets from work.   And we do have to get some movie theater popcorn.   All in all, it cost the two of us $30 last night.

The movie was fun.  Lighthearted.  We had a good time, although the movie wasn't as much fun as the first one.  I did like listening to the little kids in the theater laughing.

What I did find interesting and pretty entertaining was the other people at the theater.  When we got there, the parking lot was packed.  Hubby thought all those people were there to see the opening night of Happy Feet.   I told him no, it was the opening weekend for one of the Twilight movies.

Yes, the place was packed with teenage girls.  Waiting in long lines to get in to see the Twilight movie.

I guess that's not so unusual.   What I thought was amusing was that at least 3/4 of the people waiting in line were doing this:

Now I ask you, as a curmudgeony old lady, what is the point of going out with your friends if you are going to stand next to each other and text other friends?   If you wanted to socialize with the other friends, why didn't you just stay home and hang out with them?  Aren't the people you went to the theater with good enough to chat with?  You have to text other friends, who couldn't be bothered to come out to the movies with you?

Or are they texting the people standing right next to them?

Visiting friends

I had the great good fortune to have all my girlfriends over for dinner on Wednesday night.

I have six friends who were Girl Scout leaders at the same time I was back in the 90's.   Now that all our girls are grown (and some are married -and some have made us grandmothers!!)  we were worried that we wouldn't see each other anymore, and that we'd lose touch.

So we started having dinner out once a month.  And we've been doing it for at least 7 or 8 years.  We love getting together and talking about our lives - our families, our jobs, our vacations and adventures.  Sometimes there are only 3 of us there, sometimes all 7 - but we always have a great time.

This month, I offered to have everyone come to my house.   Only one friend had seen the inside of it, and I thought it would be fun to be "the hostess". 

And it was soooo much fun!   At first, they'd talked about everyone bringing something.   But I sent them an email asking if they'd allow me to cook and serve them a meal.   And they agreed.

It was the first time in ten years I've been able to have a real "dinner party".   When we were living in the condo and I had people over, we had to have pizza or something similar because I didn't have room at the table for a lot of people.

This time, I took my good dishes out of storage, set a pretty table, cleaned the house, lit some candles and created an inviting ambience.

And we had a wonderful time.   I'm thinking we might have started a new trend.   We so enjoyed being able to relax, and my guests were able to stay as long as they wanted.   In a restaurant, you're limited.  So next month Sue is going to have a Christmas dinner at her house - and maybe we'll continue visiting each other's homes instead of going to restaurants.

I loved being the hostess and can't wait to do it again.

Playground Play

Today we got to bring Emily to the local playground.

She strikes a pose for Pepere's camera before we enter the park.

The twisty slide is the best.

But this one was fun too.

Memere pulled back for the big swing push.

And Pepere gets the shot.

HERE........



SHE............

COMES!!!!

Love the swings!

Phew!  Pepere fits in the train caboose.  But can he get back out?

Memere says, "I'm not trying that caboose!! No way!"

As always, Emily made herself a little friend.

They both love the twisty slide.

Auntie J joined us after a while.  She likes the slide too.

We finished off the day with purple ice cream at Hawksies.   A perfect Sunday afternoon.

Veteran's Day

It's a wonderful thing when Hubby and I have an extra day off.   Most of the time we have to be at work 6 days a week, and Sunday is our only full day off.

This week I was blessed to have Veteran's Day off.   Hubby took it as his floating holiday and we decided to spend it doing something we enjoy, rather than staying home and doing chores.

One of the things we most enjoy is eating!  So we went to our favorite breakfast place, Parker's Maple Barn.

Parker's is about an hour's ride from our house, so we only go there occasionally.  If it was in my town, we'd be there every weekend.  

On the way, we travel through Nashua, and traffic was stopped just as we got to the intersection at Main St.   We were lucky enough to get to see this:



It brightened up our day, and reminded us why we had the day off.   

I'm going to be a curmudgeony old lady

As a person who is impatient to begin with, I find that the older I get, the more impatient I am.  I want to be able to go out into the world and do the things I need to do with NO other people around.   NO traffic.  NO lines.  NO problems with computers.  Just let me do my thing.

Yesterday I simply wanted to pick up my photos from Walgreens.  I got there AT 8:30 when the store opened, went straight to the photo counter - and there was already someone there checking out!! 

How is that possible?  How could she have gotten all the way through the store, and have 8 things in her basket, when the store JUST opened?   And of course, because it was 8:30 in the morning, and usually no one is there to shop yet, they only had the one register open.

Now certainly, I'm patient enough to wait behind ONE person.   However, this person was not only trying to buy 8 items with 8 different coupons, she couldn't figure out how to make the coupons work to her ultimate advantage.

So she started out buying each item as a separate transaction, then wanted to use TWO coupons with each item.  When she found out she couldn't do that, she decided to return some of the items.   ARE YOU F-ING KIDDING ME??

I go in the morning because it's quiet(er) but that does put me on a deadline to get to work on time.   And this woman was screwing with that!!!!   Not-for-nothing, but she was a SS, and could easily have done her business anytime during the day.

This morning, I needed to deposit a $15 rebate check into the bank.   We've gotten so spoiled with direct deposit and debit cards, we never go to the bank anymore.   But this was a paper check.   There was really no rush -  I wasn't desperate for the $15 - but I figured I'd swing over to the bank before work and deposit it in the ATM machine.

I get to the bank, and the drive-up ATM is closed because they are working on the roof right over it.  I start to pull into the other lane so I can go to the drive-up window (this is another place that opens at 8:30 and I am there at 8:30 on the dot)  and a guy in a truck cuts me off and gets to the drive-up window first.

Hell and damnation!!!!   I pull in behind him and wait seven minutes!!!!  before I finally back out of the line, swing around the bank, get out of the car, walk into the lobby and use the ATM machine there.

Coming back out, the guy from the drive-thru almost hits me with his truck.

And we wonder why we're all grumpy?