Our Anniversary Dinner

 

  

 

  

 

  

As you can see I did not practice any restraint or use any appetite suppressants for our anniversary dinner at the Adirondack Brewery in Lake George!  It was bad but it was gooooooooooood!  DH and I shared the fries and we both got the buffalo chicken sandwich.  Took two beers to wash all that down, you see. :-)

  

After lunch we walked around the village.  We specifically stopped at Molly Malone's to check out their celtic wedding bands (in case you're not a usual reader, it was recently our 15th wedding anniversary and I was thinking of getting a ring to commemorate the occasion).  I had been looking at the Shanore company's rings and they actually had the one at the shop that I had in mind.  However, I was very disappointed.  Usually jewelry looks even nicer in person than it looks in photos, but in this case it was the opposite.  The ring was much smaller and less substantial than I was expecting based on the picture I had seen online and the price, and the knotwork was not very clearly defined or easy to see.  Just my opinion.  In the meantime I have gone to some local jewelers and I did manage to find two celtic rings I felt were the quality I was looking for, but both were over $1,000 dollars and I'm not going to take advantage of DH's generosity.  

  

I did come up with another idea of a special gift that I am considering - I was thinking of getting a Pandora bracelet (or necklace).  If you're not familiar with them, it's a bracelet or necklace you can customize by purchasing any one of a number of beads to put on it.  In fact on their website is a bracelet builder which is a lot of fun to play with - you can try it here - it's fun.  (Plus it's doesn't cost anything if you just make it virtually! :-)  I could get a nice start on it for my anniversary, and then the nice part is it can be added to over the years for other special occasions.  Still mulling this over.

  

So, I still have no special keepsake anniversary gift yet, but maybe Pandora is the way to go.  Or I'm open to suggestions if any of you have any brilliant ideas.  There must be some of you who have reached milestones in your relationships - what did you get for a special gift?

  

The end.

  

Our Trip to Our Property in the Adirondacks

 

  

Just a quick post for now - I'm pretty pooped from our weekend.  So here is how our property and "our" lake looked at 9:25 Saturday morning.  It was so nice to be back again.  At 9:30 we met with our builder on our lot and went over what needs to be done / timeframes / pricing and he also answered a bunch of our questions.  Yeah, I did say "pricing".  Gulp!  I think looking at life insurance quotes online is less stressful! :-P  Just kidding.   

   

As you can see the weather was quite overcast and it actually rained for a bit.  The mosquitoes were hovering around us in swarms but thank GOODNESS DH remembered the bug spray.  It kept them from biting quite effectively, but I had to keep waving my hands in front of my face just because they were so annoying.  "Mosquito" and "Black Fly" season should be over soon though.  By about noontime the weather cleared and it ended up being quite a nice day.

  

We had a chance to stroll around town a bit a buy a few "sourvenirs" with the name of our town on it.  Hokey, I know, but it was very exciting.  DD had some allowance to spend.  Here is what she chose to spend some of it on:

  

   

   

Note that it's "self inflating".  Wow, whoopee cushions sure have gone hi-tech, huh? Can you guess what we listened to during our car trip home?

More soon about our trip....
  
The end.
 

Hershey Kiss FAIL

 

  

I was using Hershey Kisses and Hugs to make some favors and look at the crappy wrapping job on them!  There were a bunch like this I couldn't use 'cause they looked like they came out of someone's pocket!  And these aren't "dollar store smooches" or anything - these are real Hershey brand from the regular grocery store.  I had four bags in total and all the bags had poorly wrapped candies.  I have half a mind to drive down to Hershey, PA and ask 'em what's up with this?!?  (Speaking of Pennsylvania, Lancaster is one of our very favorite places to vacation.  If you happen to see some good travel deals for Lancaster, seriously consider it, it's a great place to visit.)

  

Anyway, I'm sure if I took these to Hershey, they'd probably just give me more bags of Hugs and Kisses, which might be just as poorly wrapped.  Have you ever had that happen to you?  You complain about a product and what does the company do?  They give you MORE of the product you didn't like!  I'm not a real "complainy" person, but one time I bought some shampoo and the smell was awful - like wet dog.  So I called the company to complain and they sent me coupons for MORE of the wet dog shampoo.  Niiiiiice.  Just what I wanted, thanks.

  

Hope you're having a great Memorial Day weekend - I'll report back soon on our trip to Lake George and if I come back with an anniversary ring or not...

  

The end.

  

Ok, Just a Little Bit More Whining, and, Thursday Weigh In

 

Ok, I really do try not to be a whiner, and I probably already used up my allotted whining in my previous post, but it's just been still one thing after another.  I'm going to whine just a little more, and then that's it, I promise!  The picture above is what's left of our pine shrub.  For the second year in a row we discovered baby sawfly caterpillars completely infested it and munched away.  You know that Eric Carle book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"?  Well we had our own live performance.  Our preferred way of combatting these evil creatures is to douse them in water with dishsoap.  Last year we used a spray bottle.  This year, being I was already out of patience from life in general, I got a bowl of really soapy water and a big sponge and I just squeezed it out all over all the caterpillars I could find.  I have done this four times now.  After I let them marinate for awhile in the soap suds, I take a flyswatter and whack them off the branches.  Here are some that fell to their deaths even before I got the flyswatter.

  

 
Yesterday I decided to mow the lawn.  I always listen to my ipod while mowing the lawn.  It takes like 2 hours to mow, so listening to podcasts on my ipod really makes the time go by quicker, and more enjoyably.  Well, for some reason all of a sudden yesterday when I'd click on the iTunes icon, nothing would happen, although I could see in the Task Manager that it actually was running.  I'm not going to go into the laborious process I went through to troubleshoot and remedy the problem, lets just say that's an hour and a half of my life I'll never get back.  Why the heck did it even "break" in the first place????
 
So finally I get iTunes working again, I load my ipod and get on the tractor and start mowing.  Everything is going swimmingly until I accidentally run over a big pile of Tex's poop.  In case you've never run over dog poo in a lawn tractor, let me just tell you that it squishes itself nicely into the fat treads of the tractor wheels so that you can enjoy the poo smell for the duration of your ride.  Gah!!

However, finally, here is the good news.  I THINK the tide may have finally turned.  After mowing with the tractor I went to start the push mower.  Yes, I saved "the stick" from last year, but despite this, the last few times I've tried to start it I've had to pull many times to get it started.  Sometimes I'm more exhausted from trying to get the dern thing started then from actually mowing!  (If you weren't around last year for the Lawn Mowing Saga and the Magic Stick, you can read about it here)  Anyway, I used the magic stick, primed it 5 times like usual and....first pull baby!!!

So, now to the weigh in.  I have only loosely been doing Weight Watchers now (it's been tough but I think I'm doing better than possibly the most effective diet pill would), just trying to keep to 10 "points" during the day and around 12 "points" for dinner/snack.  I haven't been weighing in weekly, but I really am still committed to this.  I have been doing pretty good, although over the weekend we were at a family gathering and I ate like 500 chocolate chip cookies.  They were homemade, people.  Totally understandable, right? :-)  Anyway, I figured it was time to do another weigh-in and see how I'm doing and I am excited to report I have lost another 3 lbs since last weigh in and I just checked and my BMI is finally NORMAL - I'm not overweight anymore - woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lastly, today is my 15th wedding anniversary!  However, as I mentioned in a previous post, we are going to celebrate with a nice dinner when we go to Lake George this weekend to meet with the builder.  Also, I'm going to look at some celtic rings while we're up there as my present from DH, I hope I find one I like!  We'll also be doing some geocaching for sure. 
    
I'll leave you with the very last photo in our wedding album.  Lots of GREAT memories...
 

 

  

The end.  :-)

 

I am Worn out from Solving Problems

Last week was a tough week as you may have noticed by my sparse posting.  Seemed like there were a hundred fires to be put out, seemed like every time I turned around there was another problem I had to figure out how to solve.  It ran the gamut from DD having strep (and she's not a very good patient) to navigating a tension filled family event planning process to an elusive spider that is making random appearances upstairs that is terrorizing DD (it's a big fat black creepy one that I'm kinda squeamish over too).  Now I am sitting here praying the phone doesn't ring from the school - DD stubbornly decided not to cooperate this morning and had no breakfast despite my repeated attempts.  So then, not surprisingly, her stomach hurt.  Likely from hunger pains.  Well, she is not going to miss school because she decided not to eat breakfast and now has hunger pains.  So I drove her to school and basically told on her to the nurse and her teacher who both agreed to DD's chagrin that she should have had breakfast and suggested she try to make it through until lunch, which is early, luckily.  So I left her there and hopefully she'll survive.  Please, please phone, don't ring!!

I'm just stressed out and worn out from all the problems and the drama, you know what I mean?  I could use a glass of wine, but it's too early for that.
 
The end.
   
 

Goin' to the Adirondacks To Look at Our Place and Rings :-)

 

Some people dream about Orlando vacations, but not me! :-)  

   

Well, this is what our property looked like last time we visited it in February.  The snow SHOULD be all gone by now, ha ha.  However we shall find out for ourselves in a couple of weeks when we go up to the Adirondacks to meet with our builder.  DH and I sat down and went over some plans I had culled from a tall stack of books and magazines and we've sort of come up with a rough plan for our "cabin".  I just can't wait to go back up and see our "place" again!! :-)  (If you're not a regular reader but are interested, in the right column if you scroll down a little there is a section called, "Some of My Better Posts" and the story of our Adirondack property is linked there.)

  

Also, on May 21st it will be our 15th wedding anniversary!  I didn't get any sort of "milestone" gift for our 10th, but I told DH I'd like something special for our 15th, like a nice ring probably.  But I don't want to just go to the mall and pick out something, I want it to be special.  So while we are up in the Lake George area I will be keeping my eye out.  There is a store there called Molly Malone's that has Irish / Celtic gifts that I want to check out.  DH's family is from Scotland and I find Scotland and Celtic history to be really interesting, so I was considering maybe a ring with Celtic knotwork.  I like the trinity knot and also the love knot patterns.  Anyway, Molly Malone's sells wedding jewelery, so if they're open for the season I want to look there.  There are also a bunch of gift shops that carry jewelry made locally, so I can see if something catches my eye.  Any ideas or suggestions are welcome! :-)

  

The end.

 

Ok, My Mood Just Improved Significantly - Look What I Got!

If you saw my last post I mentioned I was feeling very grumpy (had nothing to do with DH btw).  This sure cheered me up!  DH just totally surprised me with it in honor of Mother's Day tomorrow.  It's my favorite kind of bouquet - all "wildflower-y".  Wasn't that sweet of him?  Thank you, thank you DH!  Yay me!!!
 

  
The end.
 

Photos from our Field Trip to the State Capitol in Albany, NY

I'm not feeling very talkative today, which is probably a good thing, because I am in a very bad mood.  So I'll keep my mouth shut and share some pictures from my DD's fourth grade field trip to the State Capitol that I was lucky enough to be a chaperone on.  Enjoy!
 

 

    

 

  
 

      
 

    
 

    
 

    
 

    
 

    
 

    

   
The end.
 
 

More Thoughts Too Short for a Whole Blog Post

Have you ever gotten a funny word when you're leaving a comment and you have to type in some weird combo of letters to prove you're human (like captcha)?  I get a kick out of the "words" they make, so I saved a bunch of the ones I've gotten lately - may fave is "mosemo":

hypenc
warya
squangsh
gramiat
pestie
lopsynal
mosemo
compe
diestr
defersil
solychyl

  
I am too scared to ever try a diet pill.  I'll just be fat if it comes down to it.
 
I recently signed up to get an email every morning from Chuck Swindoll (Insight For Living) and I really love these daily doses of Christian insights.  They're not too long to read but they always make me stop and think.  A good way to start my day.  If you're interested, here's the link:  Insight for Living

Speaking of Christian things... To the particular segment of Christian homeschoolers out there who feel compelled to insult and make fun of those of us who went to public school and / or send our children to public school:  maybe you didn't cover it in your schooling, but there's something called The Golden Rule which states to treat others as you'd like to be treated.  It's a biblical principle, by the way, in case you didn't know.  Matthew 7:9-12 "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."  And call me crazy but I think this verse just might apply too - the one about loving your neighbor as yourself from Mark 12:30-31: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself.  There is no commandment greater than these."  I'm pretty sure you wouldn't like me to make rude comments about homeschooling nor would you like me to make fun of your children - why is it ok to do that to me?  Since when is making fun of others you consider lesser than yourselves a Christian principle?  I would LOVE for someone to justify this to me!  If you feel that passionately, you should consider praying for those in public school and their parents instead of insulting them - that seems to me, a publicly schooled ignoramous myself, to be a lot more in line with what Jesus would have us do and probably more productive.  (And fyi this is coming from someone who has the utmost respect for homeschooling, mind you.) 
 
(Wow, I guess that one could have been a whole blog post.)
 
Who doesn't love the happy summer smell of lighter fluid on charcoal?
 
DD and I have very fair skin so we spend a good portion of the summer applying sunscreen to ourselves, which to me is a giant pain in the butt, but very important.  I wish I had a booth similar to what I believe is used for spray on tans - you could just step in, whoosh, and get covered from head to toe in 5 seconds with sunscreen.
 
Moo Cow is sitting here next to me and she says to say, "Hi!" to you all.  Moo Cow *is* homeschooled, by the way.
  
The End.
  

Modern Technology Helps Me Bring Home Right Thing From Plumbing Store

Due to circumstances beyond his control, DH had to send *me* to the plumbing supply store to get something.  Normally I hate when on occasion I have to go to an auto parts store / Home Depot / hardware store etc. and buy something I know nothing about.  In this instance I had to get a water filter and DH didn't really know what the "official name" of it was to distinguish the exact one we needed, and I wasn't sure how I was going to come home with the right thing.  However, I had a lucky brainstorm and I asked DH to take a picture of where the filter goes.  I went to the plumbing store with my camera, showed the guy at the counter this picture and I said, "I need a filter for this thing!"
  

  
And yes, I came home with the right filter!  Probably saved me and the guy at the counter about 10 minutes of questions and a lot of grief. :-D
 
The end.