Lexi squared

Both of our nieces are named Lexi. We've got one on each side. We got to spend lots of quality time with them over Christmas. Our poor little nephew, Tatum, had pneumonia over Christmas :-(

"Little Lexi" Checking out the ornaments on Grandpa and Grandma's tree.


"Big Lexi" fending off Uncle Corey, peppermint pig thief.

Great news!!

Chloe's tumor biopsy came back benign!! Yay! What a great big relief. We couldn't be happier for that. Its a Christmas miracle ;-) She's still doing great and hardly even complain about her stitches.

We had a great time this weekend, catching up with our families and spending lots of quality time with our nieces and nephews. I have some cute photos to share, but unfortunately my computer is not cooperating at the moment. I'll post them soon.

One strange thing happened when we got home. We noticed that our hot tub cover was off and propped up against the railing of our deck. Then, we noticed that the water in the hot tub had a layer of ice on top!! I immediately assume the worst... that some hoodlum neighbor kid was messing with our stuff. We did some checking and testing and realized that the breaker is bad on electric going to the hot tub. Not sure how the heck the cover ended up where it did. Corey thinks maybe the wind blew it off (it was really windy the last few days) but I don't see how it would have ever landed in such a position. Maybe it was in the yard and someone picked it up for us? I have no clue. Our only option tonight was to drain the water out of the hot tub to keep the pipes from freezing up. Hopefully that works until we get a new breaker tomorrow.

David Gregory gettin' down with Mary

It's hard for me to put into words how much I love this. Yesterday, Mary J Blige was on the today show, performing songs from her new album, Growing Pains. Leading up to her segment, David Gregory, the rather stiff and demure fill in host of the Today show, confessed his adoration for Mary. He said he was a long time fan. "Yeah right", I thought, they have to say that kind of stuff. I started to wonder when he kept going on and on about her. Then this happened.





LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THIS!!!!! It makes me so happy. And really, who doesn't love Mary?? She rocks!! Always has, too.

little trooper

Chloe is doing great!! She came home this morning, wagging her nub with joy. She's hardly even limping. Her first priority was the water bowl, where she drank a ton. Corey saw the tumor, which was sitting in a jar on the counter at the vet. Yuck, I know, right? He said it was the size of 3 golf balls in a row. It sure didn't look that large when it was on her leg.

The vet tech said she was really good while she was there. I think good girls deserve waffles.

Poor little pooch

Chloe had surgery today to remove a tumor on the back of her thigh. We are not sure if it is cancerous or not yet. We called the vet to see how the surgery went and they said she was doing okay. We had been worried that they make have to amputate her leg, but they didn't. She will come home tomorrow morning. I can't wait to get her back home where she belongs. It makes me so sad to think of her in a little cage alone, afraid and hurting. I'm taking off work the next 2 days to be a nurse for her. More updates to come.

Back again

I've been a very bad blogger as of late. I deserve a hunk of coal in my stocking, I know.

My new job continues to go well. I'm loving the area even more as I drive around working with customers in the hills and hollers of Monroe and Brown Counties. Its beautiful! Corey and I are thinking more seriously about buying some wooded land to build a cabin for hunting and generally getting away from it all. Ideally, it would have an old house on it that we could stay in while building the cabin and then tear it down when we don't need it anymore. I would LOVE our cabin to be strawbale built, but we're still just dreaming at this point.

We've gotten fully into the Holiday swing, as of the last week or so. I've pretty much finished making homemade Christmas cards and most of the gifts have been purchased. Corey made buckeyes and toffee and I made my Grandpa Rhoades famous fudge, but just like everyone else who's attemted to make it since he passed away, I couldn't get it to turn out right.



It has turned really cold over the last few days. Stinky has been hogging the heat registers. Today has been the first real snow (it snowed about an inch once before, but it fell and then melted while I was in a meeting for work, so I don't count that one since I didn't see it ;-) Ed and I are enjoying watching the snow flakes fall outside the window as I write this.





Happy Holidays Everyone!

Woohoo

Prudence must be getting worked in. I hit a new record today. Averaged 60 mpg on the way home from work. Yeah!

Oh deer!

“There are two things you don’t want to see being made - sausage and legislation.” - Otto von Bismarck

My husband, the sausage maker. This is what has become of Corey’s most recent deer (along with some pork, which Corey says you need, since deer is so lean). He made bratwurst and “Slim Jims”. I was proud of him. He did a really good job. Near as I could tell, without tasting them, which I will NOT do in a million years. I am still a vegetarian, after all. He ground the meat, seasoned it, stuffed it, smoked it, and finished it off in the oven. So, now I can say from experience, I’ve seen both legislation AND sausage being made…. and it wasn’t so bad.


Stuffing the casings.



Twisting into bratwurst.

Prudence has arrived

Corey surprised me and picked up my new Prius and parked it in our garage. I figured it wouldn't be in for a few more days. I named her "Prudence", which seemed appropriate. I love the smart key feature (you leave the key in your pocket and the car senses it, allowing you to open the doors and start the engine) and the hands free phone thing is pretty cool, too. It's amazing how quiet the car is... scary, almost. Its so cute, you almost forget that you are driving a partially 0 emission vehicle. Toyota says it generates 70% fewer smog forming emissions and uses at least a third less gas than an average comparable new vehicle. It's blue, but yet, it's so beautifully "green".

The invasion has begun

They started creeping in through the gap around the air conditioner upstairs. Then, I started seeing a few, parched little creatures laying belly up on the living room windowsill. Today I must have sucked hundreds up with the vacuume whilst cleaning the front porch.

Almost heart attack

If you know me in real life, you know that I tend to freak out about stuff. Well, last night was no exception. I realized that I had accidentally erased a bunch of important pictures off of my memory card. I was really bummed because I'd driven half way across the state to take these pictures as a favor to my mother-in-law. I was totally bummed out. Then, a very nice fellow Flickr member mentioned that there are some shareware programs that can retrieve erased pictures off memory cards (as long as you have not re-written over them with new photos). I was able to try one of the programs out for free to see if it could find my photos and voila! There they were! I did purchase the program and recovered all of my photos. The program I used was called "CardRaider" but there are plenty to choose from. So just so you know, all is not lost if you screw up your memory card.

I had a really fun weekend. My friend Kim spent a few nights and we had some serious scrapbooking time. We also checked out a neat new scrapbooking shop. Our other friend Susannah and her little boy Tucker came over for a day, too, and we had fun catching up. Susannah brought along a recipe for squash soup, which all agreed sounds gross, but it tasted great!

I only have two pics to share today, one of me and Kim taken with the onboard camera in my new computer (she will be so thrilled when she sees this) and another random shot of Ed jumping for a milk jug ring. He can get some serious air.

Note: pictures are not currently working (trying to resolve the problem).

Its official

This puppy should be parked in my driveway in a little over a week. Woot woot!

most awesomest pie ever

I just made this pie, with Winesap apples, courtesy of our friends Doug and Jennie. I had to share the recipe right away just in case I die of happiness (or sugar shock) in the next few moments. Seriously, I think its the best apple pie I've ever eaten. The only change I made was to add a bit of fresh ground nutmeg and use a home made crust (of course) instead of store bought. I was a worried at first because it seemed really tall with all of those apples in it. Like a little mountain, but they cooked down just fine, as you can see. You can fine the recipe I used here.

Good news on the job front!!

I was offered the position I REALLY wanted. Its only about a 20 minute drive to work and it will even be a pay increase over what I made in my old position. I am on cloud nine over this! I have been so sick of not working, feeling like a total loser and missing my old job so much. In this position, I will be doing the same thing I did before, only I will have more responsibility since I will be covering a larger area. I feel really lucky, as I know lots of other super qualified candidates applied for it. I just had to share my happy news!

P.S. The candy corn cookies were a huge hit at the bake sale. I heard they sold out right away :-)

candy corn cookies

I stole this cute cookie idea from this blog. I actually used this recipe instead, though. I made them for a bake sale and they turned out really yummy :-)

Funky aprons

My friend Jane has just opened a cute new website where she is selling her "Funky Chef" aprons. Jane and I used to work together in Plymouth, and we often shared our dreams of making money with our handmade items. I was there when she was just starting her business, and now she has her adorable aprons in some area stores and online. I'm very proud of her! You can check out her online store here. Here are a few of her creations that I particularly love:

Festivities

Some pics from our Halloween party yesterday:

Mom and Dad (maple tree and oak tree)



Corn hole tournament



Cami and Seth



Me (toasted marshmallow)



Corey (zombie)



Lexi, Monica and Zack



The garage



Doug and Jennie

Fall Randomness

I took this picture of Corey's valiant attempt to jog with both dogs. He is back on his jogging kick (a good thing) due to a bet with his brother and brother-in-law. It is basically a "Biggest Loser" type of a contest, with the winner getting a nice chunk of change. Corey, never one to back down on a challenge, has lost 10 lbs so far. I'm very proud of him :-) Now, if only the dogs would cooperate with the running. Tater, Corey's usual companion, always does quite well, Chloe took after me (as much as a dog can take after a human), and had to be dragged for the 2nd half of the run. Needless to say, I think Chloe will stay home with me next time. I love this picture. The trail in our back yard is even more beautiful now that the leaves are starting to turn.

I'm still having fun with my daily "365" project. Today was "Karate Kid Pose" day in Flickr Group Roulette. If you want to see my interpretation, click here.

I shall leave you with another random photo from yesterday.

Not much going on here

Corey and I are making Cornhole sets for the Halloween party next week.

Stinky swallowed a bunch of thread (when I found him, the string was coming out of his mouth and I followed it back to the bobbin, which was still on the sewing machine). The vet says only time will tell if its going to do any real damage. Of course, I'm worried about him.

On a random note, I just finished off the persimmon ice cream from the little local ice creamery. Yum. I highly recommend it.

Here is Corey being silly. Note the sicssors in his hand.

chilly air > intimate seating arrangements

Recent dropping temperatures have led to much cuddling in the household. Cat + dog, and other interspecies cuddling is not uncommon. We are just not prepared for these 50 degree days after sweating in the mid 90s just a few days ago. Don't get me wrong, I love the cooler weather, I just need some time to adjust.

new project

I'd been trying to figure out what to do with our living room. The location of the front door creates an odd area where we can't put any furniture and it just needed "something". After seeing this mural, I decided that was "it". Every room needs a little vegetation, right? My clone volunteered to help with it. She is a much better artist than I am.

pictures from today

Corey and I took some pictures by the fence in our back yard. The sun was setting, which made for some cool lighting. I really like the way they turned out. I think the ugly chain-link is starting to grow on me...

Think Pink

This is a tribute to all my friends and family members who have been affected by breast cancer. To my friends who have bravely battled this evil disease, I applaud you for your courage and strength.

Even members of the “itty bitty committee” need to think about breast cancer. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and we all need to do our part in spreading reminders to do monthly breast self-exams, get mammograms, and donate to breast cancer research. I made my donation. Have you? You can donate to Susan G Komen For The Cure, where they will put your dollars to good use. You might also want to check out the Blogger Boobie-Thon, where you get to ogle boobies for a good cause. If you Flickr, post your pink photos to the Passionately Pink For The Cure group and Yahoo will donate $1 for each photo submitted (up to 2 per person, per day).

Thanks to my Flickr friend M@ for inspiring me with this boobielicious challenge.

Evil twin

Well, I'm off to my brother's house to babysit my little niece tomorrow. I'm feeling much better now, I just don't have much of a voice. Corey keeps making fun of me. I'm sure little Lexi won't care if I sound a little froggy.

Back soon...

Ugh

After a 2 day hiatus, by cold is back with a vengeance. The nasty little bugger. I was up all night hacking and crumpling tissues. Poor Corey, for having to sleep next to me. Tea, honey, the couch and my comfy blanket are my friends this morning.

Wildlife

This probably isn't appropriate, but I don't really care...






Happy Monday.

Edit: LOL. I must be pretty sick, because I forgot what day it was. It was actually Tuesday when I posted this!

Wedding fun

I've been MIA this past week, helping with Corey's little sister's wedding preparations. I even got into florist mode, making bridesmaid bouquets and other flowery goodies. The wedding included a beautiful outdoor ceremony on the dock of a pond, and a fun reception where we danced until we dropped.

Unfortunately, now I've come down with a bug and feel really cruddy. I'm taking lots of vitamin C and hoping for a speedy recovery.

On a happier note: my computer fix, which included pieces of a styrofoam plate and masking tape, seems to have worked! 7 full days and counting with 0 problems. I feel like MacGuyver.

Major surgery

My trusty little iBook is on the fritz. It is having a 'logic board" issue, where it basically freezes and the screen goes black. There was a recall on this part, but the recall is now expired. Of course! So, I am now resorting to major surgery... trying to shim up the offending component on the circuit board (using an online tutorial from some other poor sap who attempted home iBook repair). I am definitely NOT qualified to do this kind of work, but I decided to crack the bit@# open and go for it. I got her back together and didn't even have any parts left over. So far it seems to have helped, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high, yet.

Tuck

We are headed out for a long weekend of camping, but before we left I wanted to share this pic from todays little photo shoot with baby Tucker. Isn't the name "Tucker" just the cutest? Don't worry Susannah, there will be more to come :-)

Have a great weekend!

ITLAPD

OMG I almost missed it! Tomorrow is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Spread the word, aye?

Go here to learn more about ITLAPD.

My new niece

Natasha Robertson. Isn't she a doll? So, maybe she isn't "officially" my niece. I did witness her glorious birth last Monday, so that counts for something, right? Her first photo session didn't go off exactly as planned. It was a little too chilly for nakedness, and she peed on a prop. Photo shoot #2 is scheduled for later this week. Congratulations Mommy Rachel!

365 Project

So I've started a new photo project for a little creative "kick in the pants". I joined a group of people on Flickr who are taking one self portrait of themselves each day for 1 year (365). To make it more interesting, I'm also in a group called "Flickr Group Roulette" that picks a different theme each day for your 365 shot. Today the theme is "jumping project". Yesterday was "laying in the grass" and "mirror project - reflected self portraits" was the day before that. You can check out my 365 pics here.