I just thought since it is a brand new year we should start over with the numbers so that is what I did.
I certainly hope all of you had a lovely start with this new year and will keep a good attitude about your weight loss efforts.
It is raining and raining here but everything is so green and the cows around here are loving it. There is lots of snow in the higher elevations which gives us a good water supply. I am so thankful that we are getting rain this year for it has been little the past few years.
Maggie: I don't think anyone realized you started a new thread. I posted they should come over here so don't think everyone is ignoring you!
Gloria: I don't think I could go back to living with a lot of snow. I supposed if I had to I could adapt again, but these ole bones don't like the cold anymore.
Jean: Why do they bother having classes if they are 17 minutes long for heaven's sake, just cancel school for the day. I am sure you guys have snow days slotted into the year, right? We don't here so the kids HAVE to make it up on lesser holidays or at the end of the year. They get off more than any kids I know and have to be at the bottom of the pile in the state with the dumbest kids because they never have to go! They get off a fair day in Sept, Something in Oct, 4 days at Thanskgiving, at least 2 weeks at Christmas, MLK's Birthday, which is the 17th this month, almost 2 weeks for spring break and on and on and that doesn't even count the days off between report card periods etc. They also get out of school the first or second week in May. It is no wonder these kids can't pass proficiency tests and then to top it off, we had 22 schools that were slated for the state to take over because they did so poorly so what did the state go and do, changed the proficiency tests and made them easier for kids to pass. DUH! Thank goodness I have no children in school anymore and my grandson is going to private school starting first grade (he has to go to public kindergarten because he has this supposed learning disability with his writing skills and only public school provides resources for this) Personally, he is 4 1/2 and I think it is all about MONEY!
Well, ladies, need to put clothes in the dryer and get some yeast rolls going too (I use the top of the dryer to raise them and it works great)
It is a rainey day again here in the mountains. I love the rain. The rolling hills down the moutain look like Ireland. The snow is down to 3000 now and we sit at 2000 and haven't gotten any but a few flurries as of yet. That is fine with me for we are not in the snow shoveling mode.
FAYE isn't it something that they made those tests easier to pass. It didn't make the kids any smarter or help them one bit. In fact it could actually hurt them in the long run for they won't measure up to the other folks out in the work force to compete for jobs. I never did approve of OBE and helped fight against it when we visited some frineds out in SD when it was coming up on the ballot. In the olden days those who graduated from the 8th grade had the equilivent of a college education. The system has gone down-hill ever since. I hear that the Baptist convention has called for everyone to take their children out of public schools until they put God back in them. A lot of home schooling will be going on. I know if my kids were that age again I would home school them. Who in their right mind would want their child to get a lousy education. I'm hopping off my now. Did I tell you I sold my glass village? Yeppers it now sits on a happy ladies piano. I am currently making some night lights and then will soon start on a new village. I am planning a small fishing village to enter the fair this year.
Everyone have a lovely day. It is Friday so prepare to have a great weekend.
Happy Friday! It's been another cold day in my corner of the world and is supposed to be down around 0 tonight.
It was a crazy day at school and I'm not sure whether to blame the weather, the beginning of a new semester, or what. I kicked one kid out of study hall because he wanted to sleep and I was determined that he wouldn't -- I was subbing for another teacher so when I wrote him up he should get a Saturday School out of it. DH says I should have taken his chair away and made him stand up the whole period. LOL That would probably be considered "abuse." I also wrote a girl up and I felt kind of bad because she has a bad home life and I've always gotten along with her. She came in with a chip on her shoulder and announced, "I've gotta go pee!" I started to ask if it was an emergency and she walked out of the room. (She had walked right past the restroom on her way to class.) When she returned I told her she would owe me 15 minutes after school and it was downhill from there. She tapped her foot and snapped her gum the rest of the period. I finally told her to spit the gum out and she refused. At the end of class she asked me what would happen if she didn't make up the 15 minutes and I told her I would turn it in to the office and her parting comment was, "go ahead." So I did. I hate ending on a sour note like that but she was being so obnoxious.
Beth and Maddy are coming tomorrow and will stay overnight. It seems like it has been a long time since we've seen them. I'm looking forward to it even though I know I won't get much done while they are here. We probably won't get to see Ian for a couple more weekends. They are having Christmas with Amanda's family this weekend and then Jason and Amanda are leaving for a trip to some place in Mexico. I refuse to take days off to babysit, unless there was an emergency, and since we watched him a year ago, I didn't offer to do the weekend this time. They won't get back until late Sunday night and I didn't want to be at their house having to drive an hour to get back here for school nor did I have any place for him here if they were delayed getting back.
Maggie -- I didn't realize you had started another thread. Sorry!
"Gma" -- The only classes that were 17 minutes were the morning classes so that each teacher could at least touch base with their students. The afternoon classes were all regular time. We do have to make up any snow days and that's another reason why we will have so many late starts and early dismissals. It is VERY rare for us to cancel completely. Our private schools will send their students who need modified math and English classes to the public school for those classes because they can't afford to hire full time special ed. teachers for all of the grade levels. Don't be surprised if T would still need the services in first grade and be transported to a teacher who is qualified to help him. I don't know how they determine who needs the extra help in today's system but we just booted a kid out of the program because his ITED scores were way too high and he was open enrolled from a neighboring district. He's been labeled as needing resource services since grade school when in fact he is just plain lazy. No one knows how he got this far without someone (teacher, special ed. consultant, guidance, etc.) noticing his test scores and he's a junior. I'm glad I wasn't in charge of him!
Not much planned for the weekend except to do some laundry and chase down the fur hunks with the vacuum.
Morning ladies!! Hope everyone is having a good weekend.
Maggie: Our school system is horrible. The one Kelly went to in Indiana was wonderful but to be honest, it was shored up by the fact all the wealthy and upper middle class lived in that school district. They want to combine the city and county, well our Tammany Hall mayor wants to so he can control the whole thing himself, but the county is fighting consolidation of county and city all the way and it honestly wouldn't work here. I promise that I will try and remember soon to get you a pick of my dd's house so you can make her one for Christmas or her birthday. I felt so bad I hadn't had one made for her for Christmas that I gave her the little treasure box you made me. She loved it so I know she would love a replica of her house.
Jean: Man, I would never have even come into class with gum let alone mouthed off to a teacher. Times have changed, huh?
I am getting ready to go out and walk. I only missed Friday of this week as I had what the old folks used to call piles, if you get my drift. Getting back to eating right caused some big problems with digestion and intestinal stuff and then caused that problem, but it is better though not completely.
I got the upstairs cleaned yesterday and am shooting to get the downstairs done today. Noticed my candles grayed up my white lace curtains in the dining room so put them in the washer early this morning.
Good Afternoon, Flowers! It is a cloudy day, but warmer, in my corner of the world. It was misting on the way to church and I was afraid we might be in for some freezing drizzle even though the weatherman didn't say that. There was nothing happening on our way home and so far it's just a gloomy day.
We checked out the church nursery "just in case" and went on up to church. Maddy likes music and any time the organ played or the choir/congregation sang, she would clap after the music was done. I tried to get her to clap after the sermon was done but she wouldn't. Our service is mostly older people in the 70s/80s range so they were all interested in meeting her afterwards. Most of them knew Beth as a child so it was fun.
I have a sinus headache and could easily take a nap. Lunch is done and cleaned up. My house was picked up but is no more . . . Maddy is down for a nap while DH and Beth are watching football.
"Gma" -- Times have definitely changed! There are still some nice, well mannered students but there are way too many that are ill mannered and have no respect for authority. Some really hate having to deal with female teachers and buck the system all the way through. It never crossed my mind to talk back to a teacher let alone ignore their requests. We didn't chew gum in school either. The speech teacher has a "can of chores" and if a student is caught chewing gum, they draw a chore -- usually washing desks, sweeping the floor, dusting, shredding papers, etc. It usually only takes once and they don't do it again.
Not much else is newsy. I am not ready for tomorrow to be Monday -- the weekends go by much too fast! I hope you all are having a nice day -- I'll check back later!
Morning ladies. It is cloudy and cool here but supposed to warm up nicely.
We had a quiet weekend. Just puttered around the house a little. Watched some movies, nothing much else. We can't seem to find a church here that is to our liking so we usually do our sermon sitting at home and watch the religious channel. We like John Hagee from San Antonio. That guy can preach up a storm.
I guess we are back to going on vacation to Vegas. Jack says he thinks I really need to get away from everything and just enjoy myself so we decided to take a shorter one. We plan on going 6 days and one of the things we want to do is take in a Magic Show, guess we are going to Penn and Teller because Jack thinks they are funny. I wanted to go to a music concert so I let him pick the magic show. I was hoping Franki Valli would be playing at the hotel we stay in but looks like the same guy that was there when we were there for Jay's wedding is there again, Neil Sedaka and then the weekend we leave, Englebert Humperdink. ICK ICK ICK! So I saw that Elton John has a concert called his Red Piano and hold on to your hairnets girls, the tickets are $180-250 EACH! So, besides the fact Jack doesn't like him, we ain't a gonna be a goin to see him. Barry Manilow is in town and his tickets are like $145 for good seats. I guess I will just keep checking back to see if anyone is going to appear. Celine Dion is there but I don't care that much for her. We aren't going until August so I have time
Well, I need to get things finished here and get my behind out on the sidewalk.
Good Afternoon, Flowers!
It's been a "ho-hum" Monday in my corner of the world. The sun has played hide and seek all day and it is a damp cold outside at 15 degrees. The weatherman says we are going to have snow showers, rain, and freezing drizzle off and on for the next three days. I hope he is wrong! At least we can shovel the snow to get out if just snow happens. I notice that it is staying lighter later so that must mean that spring is on the way!
"Gma" -- I've never been to LV but I never dreamed that show tickets would be so expensive! I would hate to pay the price and not be sure about what kind of a show I would be seeing. Do you like a traditional church service or are you more into the contemporary with the band type service? Our church offers both and there are several churches in our area that do while some are strictly one or the other. It's hard to pick a new church, I think. There have been times when I've threatened to head down the street to a neighboring church but then I think of my parents and grandparents -- all were born and raised in the same church and I don't want to break that tradition. For the most part I'm happy with our church.
Not much else is newsy that I can think of. I think I will head for bed early tonight. Playing all weekend has worn me out!
It is a good morning as I am back on line. It has been a hectic computer weekend as on Saturday nite my computer told me that Norton was not working. I had a subscription til April 28 but got it on line so had no CD to reinstall. Called and was told that if I bought 2005 and installed it I could cal them and they would add on the appropriate months. Well......I did and this AM I installed it and it wouldn't take because although the instructions said it would automatically uninstall the old one it didn't. Called again and this time had to uninstall it via their instructions....only took a hour. Of course in the process I had to lose all my cookies so to come in here I had to reregister. It is a good think I keep a list of all passwords and ID #'s.
It is not to cold today and should have some precip tomorrow. But so far all that has fallen we have been able to cope with.
FAYE: You will have a spectacular time in Vegas....DH saw a show on the TRAVEL channel re: all the new things in Vegas. Sounds like a lot of changes, some good and some not so good. A lot more 'girly' shows are there now. Can miss those. Also the prices are, as you said, out of sight. I am envious but you have fun and tell all when you return.
JEAN: Of course your house is not picked up....Maddie was there!!!! If I know the smaller kids are coming I wait til they leave to pick up. It's better than doing it twice.
Gloria in MA.....got to run...work other than computer fun is calling.
Morning ladies! It is raining but warm here today. I got rained on when I went for my walk, but it stopped fairly quickly. Ended up soaked though!
Jean: We like traditional services. I am pretty tired of churches that seem to think that the only people that matter are the younger ones so they jazz up the services to try and get them to come in (though they still don't seem to) and we end up not knowing what the songs are. I LIKE the songs in the hymnals! Don't get me wrong, when we were members of the church in Indiana, when I sang I did a lot of Sandi Patti stuff, Gaither stuff, but give me the old stuff anytime. I am not big on preaching to the masses about how to get richer, etc either. My sister is big into that kind of stuff and personally, I don't think the Bible talks about how to get rich! Umm, didn't the rich man go to **** and ask Lazarus to give him water from heaven? Don't get me wrong, money is fine and we need it to survive, but I don't go to church to listen to, "How to better balance my checkbook!" No kidding, her church, in CA, which is huge did a series on stuff like that! The problem here is you have black baptist churches, then Southern Bapt churches and that is it. They have one independent baptist church here but it is full of NUTS who chastised my husband for allowing his wife to work! That was it, so long brother, when you tell my husband he should get me in line. We do just fine with our marriage the way it is! I have nothing against SB, but we visited at least 10 and found them all to be pretty liberal in their theology and we just don't believe that way. I do miss church a lot and try to get my sermons from tv to keep me in line so to speak!
Gloria: The new age of computers is fabulous, but when the darn things don't work right it is a pain in the behind! Our pc, which is about 5 years old, had Windows ME installed in it and has never worked properly because of it. We need to cough up the money and get a Windows 2000 upgrade, but I am cheap!
Oooh, I got a catalogue in the mail yesterday that had 4 pages of I love Lucy stuff. I was in hog heaven, though they had a chair (they called it a casino slot chair, but it was like a bar stool chair) they wanted like $250 for! They have a cute comforter I would love to have to put in the spare bedroom when we fix it up, but it is $170. I guess I will just have to keep buying the cheaper stuff like eye glass cases and whatnot. I have several lucy things that family and friends have bought me including a really nice Hamilton Mint Porcelein Lucy Doll dressed in her Carmen Miranda outfit. My sister bought it for me one year for my birthday. They have a cute checker set I would like to have to put on the table upstairs in that room. The checkers are all hearts.
I don't have to worry about spending money in Vegas on an expensive concert. No one is going to be there when we are! I have a sneaking suspicion maybe dh had a hand in getting them all out of town that week! So, we will go see those dimwits Penn and Teller and even they are $75 apiece. Jack wanted to see Blue Man group, but they are WAYYYY over the top. I think they look idiotic. As for the boobs and bun places, looks like they are mostly if not all down in the Fremont street area and well away from where we hang out. Though it is not really a place for kids, no matter how hard they tried to do that a few years ago, you can go there and not be a gambler and still have a lot of fun. They have a couple Guggenheim museums, a Madame Tussaud's, a shark thing, a lion habitat, and lots of other stuff that is free to see. We didn't go on the gondola ride last time, so we are going to take a ride this next time and go into Madame Tussaud's. The one in Vegas has I Love Lucy in it.
Well, guess, I need to get some lunch in me. I have been trying to eat a good breakfast then have bloody mary mix without the booze for lunch with a little cheese or crackers or pretzels something like that and try and keep it under 300 cal.
Everybody have a good day........MAGGIE SWEETY, HOPE YOU AREN'T SLIDING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN WHERE YOU ARE!
Good Evening, Flowers!
The weather is trying very hard to do "something" tonight! When I left school this afternoon, it was very foggy and there was a fine frost on my car. The weatherman says we will have a mixture of freezing drizzle, rain, and snow during the night and through tomorrow. It is supposed to be below 0 for a few days and I'm not looking forward to that.
Gloria -- I hate it when the computer is on the blink! I had trouble downloading Norton too, and had to do it twice. I didn't buy the CD but did it within a time frame where it didn't cost me any more. I had to uninstall "him" myself. I really like Norton better than McAfee . . . or at least I think I do.
"Gma" -- My feeling on the contemporary church service is that I don't go to church to be entertained and I really don't care for what I call the "dog and pony" show. I enjoy Bill Gaither in small doses. I guess I am really stuck in my ways and DH keeps telling me I need to loosen up!
I need to fold a load of towels and decide what I am wearing tomorrow. I wish we wore uniforms! Have a wonderful Wednesday, Flowers!
Good Afternoon, Flowers!
The weather has gone around us so far and we just have the fog. I was kind of hoping for a "no school" day. *sigh*
I had blood work done on Saturday morning and the nurse called with my results. In August my first glucose test was 107 and the second one, where I had to drink the stuff, was 108. I figured that this one would be sky high since it was so close to Christmas and I'd really not been very careful in what I ate like I should have been. The # was 98 this time. My BP #s are up and down so maybe it is just my body chemistry. I go back again in 3 months.
We finally got the area rugs that we ordered before Christmas. I never knew it would take so long to have a piece of carpet bound. We still have a piece of molding (?) that needs to go by the French door and then that part will be done. I still am not crazy about the floor but maybe the rugs will help.
Not much is going on in my corner of the world. Hope you all have a relaxing evening. I have bell choir practice tonight.
Jean: I am sure the area rugs will help a great deal. Not with clean up, but with the overall look and feel of the room. Still have all that kitty hair to deal with.
I got out and walked in the rain this morning. Got pretty soaked, but don't want to get out of the habit. I read an article by trainer Jorge Cruise and he said 10 minutes of strength training will really increase your metabolism and help to burn fat so I am trying to do that everyday now for about 10 minutes or so. I use 5 lb weights and do 20 reps of each exercise so am pretty wiped out when I am finished.
Thomas is coming over today as his mom needs to go into work for awhile. He has to go to the doctor regarding this writing problem and Kelly figures he will be in a bad mood after that. OH, JOY! When he is crabby, look out! I went to the store at 5 am this morning and bought what he likes to eat for lunch so we are good to go there. I bought some skinny cow ice cream sandwiches because he likes them so much and they aren't terribly bad for me.
I see it is almost 9 so I need to eat breakfast and get a shower so I am all ready for the boy when he gets here.
Good Afternoon, Flowers!
It's a very cold day in my corner of the world . . . -7 on my way to school and -1 on my way home this afternoon. The sun was shining brightly so it didn't really seem that cold to me. It's supposed to be even colder tomorrow.
"Gma" -- I'll be curious to know what the doctor has to say about T's writing. I hope that it is something that will improve with time, practice, and encouragement. After all he is pretty young to be writing complex compound sentences let alone be able to diagram them. I hope you two have a fun day together!
Not much new or exciting from my corner of the world. I am so ready for Friday and today seemed like it should be Friday! The kids are squirrelly and I'm blaming it on the weather, I guess.
Jean: We had a grand time, though she didn't bring any toys for him, games or anything so I had to figure out what to do with him with bad weather outside. Most of his toys here, are toddler stuff and he is pretty much past that and with this writing thing, doesn's like to color, use scissors and the like. I asked him how his dr appt went, (guess they have to rule out a physical problem before labeling him with a learning disability.) Anyway, he said, "Well, Nonny, they didn't stick a needle in my hand and I didn't get any shots." To him, I guess that was a successful dr appt.
Well the darn neighbors are at it again. Yesterday, I put my niece's wedding invitation regret card out for the mailman and came out to check on the mail and the mailbox was open and the card gone, the mailman was down at the other end opposite our side and the way he delivers I knew he had not been by yet and here are the two little brats from next door playing with mailboxes. Little snots took the card and went across and shoved it through the mailbox across the street. At first, they refused to tell me what they did with it, pretending they didn't do it, but I really lit into them and told them they were to show me immediately what they did with it and they finally did. Thing is, some of the condos have mail drops where the mail drops clear through to the garage floor (the regular looking mailboxes are inserted into the garage wall but cutting out the garage wall and fitting the box in the hole and the backs taken off then a box put where the mail will drop into the garage so people can't steal it) and this was one of the houses. She had her gate locked so I took their little butts right home and raised the roof. All he said to them was, "Are you postman?" GRRRRRRR! The lady across the street who knows them, told the uncle to tell the boys she was going to take a switch to them if they messed with her mail again!
I guess I need to go because I have chores and a walk to get in. Very chilly here this morning so it is sweatshirt and pants for me after several days of t-shirts and capris!
Steel Magnolias #1 of 2005
now. 
Did I tell you I sold my glass village? Yeppers it now sits on a happy ladies piano. I am currently making some night lights and then will soon start on a new village. I am planning a small fishing village to enter the fair this year.
I refuse to take days off to babysit, unless there was an emergency, and since we watched him a year ago, I didn't offer to do the weekend this time. They won't get back until late Sunday night and I didn't want to be at their house having to drive an hour to get back here for school nor did I have any place for him here if they were delayed getting back.
from Iowa!
I hope he is wrong! At least we can shovel the snow to get out if just snow happens. I notice that it is staying lighter later so that must mean that spring is on the way! 
For the most part I'm happy with our church.
Have a wonderful Wednesday, Flowers!
