Game On

It's been quite the weekend so far. Hubby and I had a nice time Friday night at the Java Room. It's a nice little coffee shop where we go to hear live music. Some good friends were playing so we went and had some raspberry smoothies and relaxed to the beautiful songs our friends write and play. It was a great Friday night treat after a long week. Saturday I worked in the morning then went with Hubby to my ex-father-in-law's wake. It was a very strange experience. I always got along well with my ex-hubby's family. In fact, they were upset for me when ex-hubby and I got divorced. They knew what kind of person he was and actually gave me kudos for staying with him so long. So it was kind of nice to see them again, despite the circumstances. My kids were doing just fine. They were visiting with relatives and heard a million times "Oh my gosh, I haven't seen you since you were this big!" They were holding up nicely. We only stayed for about 20 minutes because then we left with Jamie to take her to her football game in Hartford, CT.....about a 2 hour drive. The whole drive down it was pouring-down rain. Thankfully, it stopped just as we got to the field to drop Jamie off. Hubby and I had about 2 hours before the game started so we headed off for something to eat. I had looked online to find a restaurant and chose Black-eyed Sally's. It was a southern-style rib kind of place and turned out to be delicious. Hubby had blackened Catfish with mashed sweet potatoes and Collard Greens (yuck to the Collard Greens!) and I had cornmeal fried Catfish with sweet potato french fries and cole slaw. The food was wonderful and the atmosphere was fun. It was in an old mill building so the inside was all bricks but someone had painted all over the place. You could sit there and just gaze around at all the things to see. Our original intention had been to go early and sight-see in Hartford, but because of the situation we didn't have time. Now we really intend to go back and do that sometime. It looks like an interesting city. Black-Eyed Sally's has live music at night ...... we wouldn't be averse to going back there after a day of sight-seeing and have dinner again and listen to some music. Finally we went to the field for our purpose in going to Hartford. The weather was 40 degrees or so but thankfully not raining by that time. Hubby and I are old hands at watching games and had worn all our winter woolies. The Manchester Freedom played the Connecticut Crush. Freedom won the game 27-14. Jamie got the first touchdown of the game......a sweet catch and run into the end zone. She also kicked the extra point on three of the touchdowns and had some very hard hits on defense. I was so proud of her and the game she played. The whole team was awesome. The drive home went quickly and we were in the house by midnight. Today it's off to Grandma's house for Easter dinner. I'm making my sweet potato casserole as we speak. It'll be a long but fun day of visiting. Hoppy Easter everyone!

Sadness

My ex-father-in-law passed away last night. It's a strange situation for me to be in. He was my father-in-law for 23 years......but then he was not. I was divorced 7 years ago and haven't really seen him since. Not because there was animosity between us, just because my kids were grown when the divorce happened and there wasn't really any reason for us to get together. I saw him only once or twice.....at my grand-daughter's birthday party or whatever. By that time, he'd had a couple of strokes and I'm not sure he knew who I was. My sadness is for the memories. We had a good relationship. We always got along well. And he was always good to my children.....his grandchildren. I hope they have some great memories of him. My in-laws had a summer camp and the kids spent lots of time there. I hope they remember the good times they had with him and their Nana at the camp. It's the first big death for my kids (my "kids" being 30, 28 and 27 years old). They've lost their first grandparent. The only other deaths they've known are distant relatives or grandparents of friends. I hope they can handle the wake and the funeral. My first instinct is to offer to go the funeral with them. So they can have the emotional support I doubt they'll get from their father's side of the family. But they're grown-ups....and they have each other to lean on. I will go to the wake. I'd like to pay my respects to his family. I think he deserves that. He was a special part of my life for a lot of years.

Busy Busy

It's been wonderful that for the past two days I've been busy at work! Hurray! I'd much rather be busy than not. The days go by so much faster. Are we up for a review of our Reality Shows?

First up: Celebrity Apprentice

This is a new show for me. I watched the Apprentice maybe the first season then haven't watched it since. I don't know what made me start watching it this season but I've enjoyed it so far. This week......what the hell???? He fires Tionne because she volunteered to be a good friend to Melissa and go into the boardroom with her? I really think he just didn't know who to fire from that team since they'd worked together so well and he didn't want to fire Melissa, so he chose Tionne randomly. And firing Khloe because she had a DUI? I admire him for his stand on drunk driving, but that was a totally random firing as well. There was no question that Clint needed to be fired, but he chose Khloe instead. There is a method to his madness......I really believe he wants Melissa and Joan to be the last ones standing so they have to go head-to-head in the final task. Mark my words.

Next up: Amazing Race

I was sorry to see Mike and Mel get booted off on the last episode. I think they were a great team and genuinely loving of each other. Of the teams that are left I'd like to see Margie and Luke or Mark and Mike win. Tammy and Victor are just too predictable. I like to go for the underdog. And Cara and Jaime are just too mean.

Survivor:

I'm rooting for Taj. She is smart, wily and works hard. She had a good idea of forming an alliance with the other team. I'm glad JT did the right thing and didn't vote for her last week. Can we all agree that Coach has to go?

American Idol:

Some great performances again tonight. My favorite, Danny, and Hubby's favorite, Allison, are both doing great. I really, really think Scott finally has to go tomorrow night. I so hope that people arent' voting for him because he's blind. I would be horrified to think I'd won a singing competition because everyone felt bad for me. He just really hasnt' got star quality. And what happened to Lil? She's done bad the past three weeks. It's going be either her or Scott going home this week.

And I know it's not a reality show, but were we all sad to see the finale of ER last week? I watched the show religiously during the first 5 or 6 years, kind of watched sporadically during those murky years 7, 8 , 9, then started watching again. I thought they did an excellent job of bringing everything full circle. I loved that they brought Mark Green's daughter Rachel in to remind us of him and show that things come around and connect. I was disappointed they didn't get more of the old characters back for the finale......what about Lukah and Abby? And....please tell me why Nurse Haleh wasn't in the finale??

Hiking Harold

Hubby and I have been trying to get out and about to do more hiking and get more exercise. We both need to lose weight and I need to lower my cholesterol. Last Sunday and this Sunday were gorgeous days to be outside. This Sunday Hubby and I went to Harold Parker State Forest. We had downloaded a trail map from the computer but that didn't help much. Most of the time we didn't know where we were. (and the trail of breadcrumbs just wasn't working!)

However, our view for most of the day looked like this so we really didn't care:

We spent a good hour and a half hiking around in the woods and really enjoying it. This lake made us remember how much we want a canoe though. Anyone have a canoe for sale? Just a small one.....maybe 12 feet? We have no place to keep it since we live in a condo but we'd figure something out

Stupidly......we went and got an ice cream cone after the walk. Kind of defeated the purpose but I figure it would be worse if we'd sat around on our arses all day and then went and got a cone! I did get frozen yogurt......which counts for something, right? Even if it's Moose Tracks???

Unfortunately today looks like this outside:

That means we won't be doing our promised after-dinner walk. We want to try to walk every night but this makes me just want to put my jammies on and curl up on the couch.

AND......Opening Day for the Red Sox was cancelled!!! ohhhhhh....that just makes it seem like it's not really spring yet. Hopefully they will get the game in tomorrow.

Manchester Monarchs

Last night Hubby and I went to a local semi-pro hockey game. We're not fans of hockey but daughter Jamie's football team The Manchester Freedom, was having a fundraising night and we bought tickets to support the team. We had a really nice time. The team had a pre-game gathering at a local sports bar. Hubby and I figured we had to eat dinner so we might as well go. It was like a cocktail hour with food. Then place was right across the street from the arena where the was so we walked over after dinner. A semi-pro game is so much more fun than a professional game. Before the game started they had a local bunch of kids sing the National Anthem. They had the giant Lion Head blown up for the hometown team to come out through. The action on the ice was exciting. During the first intermission they had some tiny tiny children who are budding hockey players come out to play a ten-minute "game". They were just hilarious. "T-ball on ice". There was more falling down than skating, but I'm sure the little kids were thrilled to death to be skating at a real arena. They also had the Lion Mascot come out and shoot t-shirts up into the stands with a bazooka. There was a blimp flying around dropping gift certificates to a local restaurant on the crowd. During the second intermission they had the famous "Chuck-a-Puck". For a price you could buy a foam puck with a number on it to throw out onto the ice and try to hit a target and win $100. We got a free Chuck-a-Puck with our ticket. Sadly, I couldn't get the puck to go farther than the row of seats below me. Regular hockey fans must know what happens, because the people in the lowest group of seats near the ice knew enough to turn around after chucking their own pucks and catch all the pucks that were raining down from the seats about and throw them onto the ice for us. Between some of the action, the jumbo-tron would put up video of people in the stands dancing or waving or acting like crazy people. My son Nick and his girlfriend Kelly and their two friends managed to act silly enough to get their faces on the jumbo-tron. All in all it was a fun evening and we helped out my daughter's football team.

Genius? I think so!

My grand-daughter is not quite 20 months old. She started counting by rote several months ago and can count easily to 10 (although for some reason she often skips the number 1). Sometimes she keeps going into the teens. I thought this was astounding enough. But watch the video below to see true genius.

At first I'm trying to get her to count....that's my voice you hear. When she looks at me and realizes I'm not going to tell her the numbers, she picks out some numbers to tell me. She knows even more than she says here......but of course I couldn't get her to do it on camera. She says "seven" perfectly.......when she wants to!

April 1

Happy April Fool's Day everyone! Does anyone do jokes for this day anymore? I haven't done any since I stopped working with kids.

Four and five year olds don't quite get humor but they try anyway.

"Miss Karen, you have a duck on your head! April Fool's! ahahahahahahah!"

We did try one time to play a joke on the parents at my preschool. We would open the door at 11:30 to let parents in to pick up their kids, and the kids decided to hide in the other room so the parents would think they were "missing". The parents did a great job of pretending they couldn't find their darlings........and the kids jumped out and screamed "April Fool's" and thought they were hilarious.

I'm not working today.....I hope I don't miss out on any good tricks at the office!