Saturday, November 29, 2008

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

There's something about a clean refrigerator...

How's that for a catchy title?  

This morning I cleaned out the fridge.  I removed everything (well, I didn't do the stuff in the door...I just realized I forgot that part).  Dismantled the shelves, washed them in hot soapy water, dried them, threw out the expired stuff and replaced the good stuff.  It looks so nice.

Lil Sis and I went out for lunch to celebrate our hard work.  She didn't really help, but she likes to celebrate.  We also got a few things at Wal-Mart and then went to our favorite grocery store to buy stuff to refill the fridge.  In the spirit of celebrating the upcoming holiday, I caved to Lil Sis's request to use the cart that looks like a truck.  She rode for awhile, then we needed her compartment to hold all the stuff and she was eventually ejected from her driver's seat.  She was very helpful in loading up the cart and counting gallons of milk (3) and cream cheese blocks (5).  I may have overdone the cream cheese, but I firmly believe that you can never have too much cream cheese in the house this time of year.  There's hash brown casseroles to make and dips, and cream cheese frosting for pumpkin bars, etc.

We bought a spiral ham (the smallest one I saw) and ordered a fresh turkey (12 lb) that we'll pick up on Saturday for our Sunday dinner.  We decided to make two meats this year.  Not sure why, we just wanted to have options.  I think we'll also have some leftovers.  We're cool with some leftovers.

Wow, when I began this post, I thought, what am I going to post about?  And now, I'm wondering, how can I babble about the refrigerator for this long?

Yesterday, when Big Sis unpacked her backpack after school, she showed me a turkey she had colored that was attached to a paper.  On the paper, she wrote "I am thankful for family and I am thankful for God and Jesus and friends and food and waddr".  I asked her what the last word was... it's 'water'.  I think that's a pretty awesome list.  Note to readers:  she goes to public school.  So I think this is extra cool!

Saturday, November 22, 2008

I'm Here!

I'm back.  I didn't really go anywhere, I just haven't posted.  The above photo was taken on our way to Omaha recently, when we stopped at a rest area to geocache.  We found the cache and we were supposed to take our picture with the camera enclosed in the cache, however, the camera was full, so we used our own camera.

To celebrate the end of the first trimester, Cool Daddy-O took a day off work and we went to the zoo in Omaha.  It was a fun day.  After the zoo, we found our first out-of-state geocache.  It was pretty easy.  We tried to find a second one, but ran out of daylight.  It was in a wooded area, it was getting dark and our gps was acting weird.  

We have spent the past few weekends doing some deep cleaning, preparing to host a family Thanksgiving dinner.  Today's task was washing windows, doors, and curtains.  To celebrate the completion of this task, I spent a couple hours at Target.  

Well, that sums up my excitement.  We're watching the Iowa Hawkeyes trounce Minnesota.  It's pretty exciting!

A Snickers update:  we've been visiting the vet regularly.  For now we've changed his food to prescription diet food and he's recently started taking Amitriptyline for treatment of "litter box incontinence".  Things are improving, but not yet perfect.  We'll continue this treatment and hope for continued progress.  

My new promise to myself.  All future cats will be female.  No future cats will be persian.  I've owned 3 and haven't had such good luck overall.  Their personalities have been AWESOME, however, the health problems, not so much fun.

Current gas price: $1.61. How low will it go?

One more thing:  I'm going to make an effort to post a bit more often.  

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Hope & Change

Two words we've heard a lot lately!  The time has come.

I live in a divided political household and have many friends with differing political views than myself.  I try not to jump on a soap box very often.  Allow me to jump up and down a bit :)

I talked to the girls a bit the day before the election.  We hadn't talked with them much about politics, but at the age of 6 and 4, they were able to name both candidates.  When asked who they wanted for the next president, their response was "Barack Obama".  They don't know much about platforms, etc.  I think they just like the name.  Who can blame them :)

Since they agreed with me, I decided to take them along to the polling site, so they could be part of this historical election night.  Big Sis was watchful as I colored in the ovals and made sure I colored them all in well.  She said I scribbled a bit ;)

Some people seem down right discouraged about the outcome.  This, I do not quite understand. I can recall voting for only 2 candidates that ever became president.  I've tried to keep a positive attitude through it all.

I'm very happy and hopeful for the future of our country.  I think we need someone right now who can reunite the people of our country.  I think Barack Obama has the charisma to unify and excite us to rebuild the economy, responsibly end the war, and bring jobs back to the good old USA!  I want to be able to go to my local discount store and buy products manufactured in the US again!  

O.K.  I'm jumping off the soap box now.  Thanks for reading my ramblings...

Now, I must go have a premature Thanksgiving dinner at church.  There's a turkey calling my name :)  

I have a lot to be THANKFUL for!