Good morning to you all. Since we are at #26 thought I would start a new thread. Hopefully, you all are either still sleeping or just getting up so we don't double post one.

Kelly over the last 3 years has really been into cooking. She has taken numerous cooking classes at our cooking school with and without Tom and with and without Thomas. She started married life a dismal cook, eating mostly across the street at her inlaws. She has turned into a fine cook and loves doing it. She made some nice dishes at Thanksgiving and even her dad tried some things he wouldn't have ordinarilly tried. So I am very proud of her for all the effort she puts into her cooking.

Oh, I didn't tell you that Thomas entertained us at the party playing piano. You should have seen Jack's face. Thomas played the theme to the Peanuts cartoons, I believe the piece is actually called, "Linus and Lucy" and Jack was sitting there with his mouth hanging open. It is a pretty jazzy piece and fast and Thomas was going right after it. He did a great job, but I think his granddad didn't realize just how well he really does play. You wanted to get up and dance!

Thomas's Arrow of Light is tonight. I didn't realize until Kelly told me that it is the equivalent of the Boy Scout Eagle. Not all boys achieve it so it is a real accomplishment. I am so glad he likes scouts so much. He loves going camping and such so it fits right in with his extra time.

I have to get around and get the boys their valentine's day things so I can ship to Jackson. Alicia says Jackson is all into Ironman now. He is going to go through all the super heros I guess! I am going to try an get him a couple books as she said he likes the stories. I guess I will get Thomas a visa gift card so he can buy apps for his phone. He has everything else!

Over the weekend we bought, "RED" and "Secretariat." We watched "RED" on Saturday then the other one last night. I loved "RED" when we saw it at the theater as it is a great "seniors" movie and the horse movie was spectacular. They did a fabulous job on it I think. He truly was an amazing horse. I wasn't particularly interested in watching it, but I was knitting and then got absorbed in it and was glad I watched it as it was really good. If you get a chance rent them both if you haven't seen them.

I am trying to patiently wait for my new computer. This one has become really slow as it is kind of obsolete and the macafee virus program slows it down even more. I keep it cleaned up, ie spam stuff and adware and such, but it just doesn't have enough space anymore. Jack wanted to buy a certain computer from Dell, but miss "savealot" got on the computer at Dell and found a better deal for less money. I didn't need a new monitor, keyboard or mouse, though both come with the hard drive so that saved us even more. We bought a Dell Inspiron 580. I got us free shipping, a free upgrade from a 1 year warranty to a 2 year warranty, and a free upgrade from 4 to 6 GB ram with a whopping 1TB hard drive so it will be super fast now. It also has a 15 month macafee virus program installed along with windows 7 and a wireless card built in. We saved about $40 from the one Jack wanted to buy and his didn't have free shipping, only had 4 GB ram, 700 GB hard drive, 1 year warrranty and no virus program. Our total came to around $740, which isn't too bad!
I told him he needed to trust the supershopper and he said, "oh, shut up!"

Maggie: Fortune has a grooming appt on Friday since Jack's dr appt is that day and he is taking the whole day off and then his yearly is this month so I hope I can schedule it for the 21st because that is Presidents' Day and Jack is off again. This keeps me from having to get dressed at 5 am and take him to work! It is still quite warm here and will stay that way for a couple days then back into the 30's for a couple days then back into the 50's and no more snow hopefully!!!

Jean: I have always cleaned my dryer lint catcher everytime too. Jack took off the wire cover to the vent outside and put his hand up there and pulled stuff down, but there is a complete blockage somewhere so I hope they can get it cleaned out. I would bet it has never been cleaned out and the condos are 30 years old. Anyway, I am hoping that Sears can do the job where ServPro dropped the ball. Nutella does taste like a milk chocolate but it has hazelnut in it. Like I said, Jack hates it, but I love it. Unfortunatley, it is not diet friendly!

Susan: I have always liked pot pie, but I think shepherd's pie is better. I prefer the mashed potato over the crust I think. Like you, it is too much crust. Jack won't eat either so we don't have them. I have to stick to just veggie soup or stew without the crust or mashed potato!

Jack was down 3 lbs and I 2 this morning and that was with eating out and such. Hopefully, things will now settle down for awhile.

You gals have a good week this week and try and keep warm if you are going to have cold temps and snow some more. I sure hope we are done with that stuff for the year! Faye

Good Afternoon, Flowers! We are having "weather" sort of -- it was misting when I went to church this morning, and freezing drizzle by the time I got there. We have a canopy drive through so the custodian, secretary, and I all parked underneath. It is not as slanted to get to the cars as at the main entrance to the office. We balanced on the first try today. Ta Da! I hope I can do as well when the secretary is gone and no one else will know answers to my questions! It was raining again when I left church and I stopped at the grocery store on my way home; I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't too busy.

"Gma" -- Thank you for starting the new thread today! I think it would be fun (?) to take some cooking classes. Our Community Ed. used to offer them and I signed up for a pie making class taught by an older good cook from our church. There weren't enough signed up so they cancelled it. Thomas is definitely a very talented young man. Scouting is such a good program and teaches valuable lifelong skills. Maddy is selling Girl Scout Cookies and has sold over 150 boxes. I'm glad I don't have to deliver those although Beth said alot of them were from where she works. I understand zip, nada, nothing about computer innards! I just went into the local store and told the guy what I used on the computer and that I wanted a new one. So far he has been able to fix any glitches from his computer while I watch here at home. to Jack for losing more #s! It's not fair that men can lose easier and faster than we can.

Maggie -- What tragic happenings for your dog groomer! This is definitely a soup kind of day in my neighborhood! Bob has a meeting at 5, and they usually serve cheese, meat, crackers, and veggies so he won't be hungry when he gets home. I think I will have soup for supper!

Susan -- I hope you are having a nice weather day!

The dishwasher should be finished and I can unload it while I wait for the washer and dryer to finish. Have a nice "rest of the day and evening!"

Jean -- from Iowa!

Good afternoon, ladies! A chilly 36 degrees and overcast today but It supposed to be 65 on Wednesday. It looks like we are back to our more normal winter weather.

I did water aerobics and silversneakers this morning. Tonight is Bible study so a busy day. Tomorrow I have to work both jobs so probably won't get in to post again until Wednesday.

Faye, you'll love the new computer. I like Dell myself and we always get them for work. I skip the warranty upgrades because computers rarely fail in the first 3 years. I wonder what Thomas will end up doing when he is an adult. He is so talented in so many areas! Have you ever thought about sending Jackson one of the story books from Hallmark where you read the story and it records it. Then he can have Nona read him a story, too! Is Jack's appoint for his knee?

Jean, Ohio used to be like that weather in Iowa. I'm glad to be in VA now.

Maggie, I'll say a prayer for that family! So much to happen all at once.

I'm cleaning the kitchen this afternoon, so y'all have a good day!

It is snowing harder now. I guess the weatherman was really serious this time.

Susan -- We posted just a couple minutes apart this afternoon. The wind has picked up and it's supposed to blow all day tomorrow. The snow is light so I'm sure there will be drifts in the morning. You've had a busy day with and Bible study tonight. The years we lived in Ohio had very mild winters but I know they've had some humdingers since we've been gone. I think the whole weather process has changed over the years.

Good morning ladies. I imagine Maggie and Jean are buried under snow! I know that South Bend was going to have possible 10 foot drifts because of the wind so I am hoping you guys didn't get the wind along with the snow. It is supposed to be very windy here today then the temps are going to be 30 degrees cooler.

Poor Fortune. He didn't eat again yesterday so I kept an eye on him thinking the food I had bought is either too fatty or rich or something so dumped it. Well, we went to get a sandwich around 4 pm because of the arrow of light ceremony last night, came home and there was bloody mucous all over the house and drops of blood in the kitchen and blood on his backside and down his legs. I totally freaked! It was almost 5 so I knew my vet closed up shop at 5 so I hurried and called. There were no vets but there was a vet tech so we hurried over there they did a fecal test and she checked the bloody mucous. It came back clear of parasites but a lot of bacteria, which she said is most likely gastrointestinal. She said red blood in a dog from the rectum indicates irritation against the rectum, brown blood is intestinal. This was reddish pink. She put him back on Flagyl and another med, gave me an instestional soft dog food and told me no food for a couple hours then only 2 tbls. He didn't eat all night, just laid on a blanket on the floor. She did tell me that he definitely had an upset stomach because of how his mouth looked and I noticed that though he wasn't throwing up, he would kind of drool mucous. He was very out of it all night and I slept in the recliner with the light on over the sink so I could watch him all night. He didn't have any more bloody bouts or diahrrea but wouldn't eat. This morning he was willing to jump into my lap so I knew he felt a bit better. I got his food and sat and fed him and he did eat this morning so that makes me feel a bit better. I am just going to watch him and if he takes a turn for the worse I will take him back to the vet. Right now he is sleeping.

I didn't get to go last night, but I made Jack go. I was afraid to leave Fortune by himself. Jack took some nice pictures of Thomas so I at least had those to look at. Jack said the ceremony was really nice and he got to talk to Thomas's new scout leader and he said he really liked him. He is going to be in a big troop that has money and can do a lot of things.

Maggie: Jack has a really nice laptop and loves it, but I just don't like the laptop. I prefer a desktop as Jack did ask me if I wanted a laptop or replace the desktop with a bigger hard drive and such. I have a nice 16 inch flat screen monitor so don't need a monitor and have a wirelees mouse and keyboard which I like a lot. What a horrible thing to happen to your groomer's family. I hope her husband is ok. My salon has this horrible fancy antique benches which you are afraid to sit on. I understand wanting people to think your salon is upscale but these things are totally awful.

Jean: I heard that some girl scout troops are limiting the number of cookie types they sell as the economy has really dumped sales for the last couple years. Jack and I have always wanted to take some of the cooking schools cake decorating classes but we haven't yet. The cost can be pretty high like $160 a person for a class and we can always find other things to use the money on. Hope you are buried under the snow and able to get out if you need to.

Susan: I am really anxious to have a new computer that is faster and such. We have had this one for about 6 years and it has sort of become obsolete at this point. I have thought about doing a Hallmark book for Jackson, but I haven't been able to find any as we don't seem to have the "gold crown" stores we used to that have all that stuff. The one at the mall only handles cards and a few knick knack things.

I am totally nauseous this morning more than likely from lack of sleep. I have the guys from Sears coming today to clean out the vents so I hope my tummy just settles down in awhile. I have been trying to have either oatmeal or high fiber cereal with yogurt for breakfast. I have lost 2# in the last week, which is good, but I am not concentrating so much on the scale just the food so I can stay on track.

You gals have a nice day. I am going to zone in the chair for a bit then go upstairs and clean up and get dressed. Faye

Morning girls! Kind of quick post this morning as I have Sears going to be here at 8 am and I am not showered and such. They came yesterday and cleaned out the vent, but about 2 feet up from the floor the vent is plugged and so they are coming and cutting out the wall and fixing it today. UGH, more money out! It cost me $134 to have the vent cleaned out. They found a bird's nest and tons of pine needles on the outside vent so at least that is all cleaned out now. I guess it is always something. I am hoping they can keep it around $300 like he said. I just don't know why the other company didn't find this out, but then they were kids who didn't know what they were doing.

It is cold here this morning, but the rain has moved on. South Bend got slammed and is under a snow emergency, which means no cars on the road and businesses, schools and such are closed. Chicago got it so bad they closed schools for the first time in 12 years! It is still windy this morning too.

Here is Thomas crossing the bridge and the boy scouts removing his cub scout stuff and putting his boy scout stuff on. Mom said she was crying and actually when I saw this, Nonny was crying too. The boy is growing up so fast!

I will have to do personals later as I need to get out of here and get a shower and get things ready for Sears to be here in a little while. Faye

Sears is here and you should see the mangled pipe. Whomever built these condos did a seriously crappy job. The pipe in the wall is completely mangled like someone went in and crushed it. I think the idiots put it in that way! Anyhow, they are replacing the pipe at the moment. Fortune is unhappy at the moment because I shut him up in our bedroom, but I don't want him underfoot or getting out of the back if they leave the gate open.

Hope you are all keeping warm. It sure is cold here. Here is a picture of the South Bend area and what they are getting.

Good afternoon, ladies! We've had some light rain today, wind and 71 degrees right now. I didn't wear a coat or jacket today. It'll be 30 degrees colder tomorrow, but this was a nice taste of spring.

I went to the Y this morning. No teacher for water aerobics again. We did our class anyway and then we all trooped to the desk for comment cards and complained at how the seniors are being treated. We haven't had a permanent teacher for 6 weeks, the workouts are varying from low impact to high (with 99% of us can't do), and our Friday class has been replaced with Water Zumba which has less than 10 students. We have 30-40 every class. We'll see what happens. After that I went over to the quilt shop and had lunch with my friend Elaine. That was a nice break.

Faye, I hope Fortune is all better again. You must have been so scared! Thomas was just a little boy when I first "met" you. What a nice ceremony.

Jean, I wish I could send you a day like ours is today. At least Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow so Spring will be early this year - somewhere.

Maggie, your food always sounds so good. You could open a restaurant!

I've got laundry to do, so have a great day!

Maggie -- We feel very fortunate to have missed the major storm also. Even though it is very cold at least we don't have to shovel it. I kind of worry about the furnace because it is 16 years old and when we put it in the guy said we would be lucky if it lasted 15 years. Our old one still ran fine except it was the original furnace and probably not big enough to handle the extra space. It is pretty amazing what modern medicine can do; I'm surprised at how quickly the dog groomer's dh was released from the hospital.

"Gma" -- The snow picture looks like it could have been taken around here! I hope that Sears was able to fix your vent pipe the way it should be and you are back in business with your new dryer.

Susan -- I don't blame you for complaining about the lack of a water aerobics instructor. I hope you get some results asap. I hope Phil knew what he was predicting! I'd settle for a 35 degree day right now! It is -7 with a wind chill of -27, it's only supposed to go down to -8.