Is that to much?......

My youngest sprout received a gift card to the land of Many Toys. We finally were heading to a town that had the store to spend our money. Was inside we walked around a little bit and found somethings. I said that is fine lets look around some more to see what all is available.

We finally spotted the exact gift we wanted, but still looked around. Is that to much? Is that to much? Is that one to much? All through out the store, my response was either yes or no. If you want that one you have to put this back. No I will keep that one. After about a half hour we were checking out, carrying our barbie gift all the way to the car.

There is nothing like a gift card to burn a whole in a 6yrs pocket. When we got home the sprouts had a good time playing with the new addition to their big collection of toys.

The little things.....

Now that the sprouts and I have been through the flu like crud that has been going around I thought I would do a post.

Things have not slowed down that much lately. My youngest sprout is a year older now. So a big celebration was had at my sisters. Of course all the snow melted before the party again this year so plan B was in place. Roller skating and a movie. All the kids loved it. I was under the weather but made it through the weekend. Nothing like taking your own box of tissues to the movie theatre for a kids movie.

Communication between the former spouse and myself has been a lot better. Kind of scary sometimes but very nice. He had been very good at keeping track of additional stuff now. That is an extreme plus. I do not have to remind him anymore. Not sure if it is a coincidence or not, but this new communication all started when I told him that I thought my so called online friend was his wife. After the online friend and I had it out for about an hour, I have not heard from her since, and he has been great at doing his fatherly duties.

He even took the sprouts to the doctor to get checked out. Before he would just tell me that he thought they were under the weather and probably should go see the doctor. I thought he was going to do that to me one day, but he ended up doing it all by himself. He made the appointment and everything. I was impressed.

I hope everyone is keeping warm so far this winter. A minus 2 to start the day today, but it is a balmy 12 degrees now.

Hey I am still Here......

What a busy Holiday season it has been. I have attended three family Christmas gatherings, been through Two snow storms of over 9+ inches of snow, and one New Years Eve gathering. Not to bad, now I just have to get back to normal live. I have managed to get the tree down, now I need to get it put away. I traded trees with my sister after the holiday season.

Biggest surprise I got for Christmas was from my ex. He is giving me a load of wood to burn for the winter, as soon as I run out of the load I just got in November. It is a nice offering from him I will have to admit. They own a firewood place of business. He owns his own heating and air conditioning business as well and charges me for that when he works on my furnace and air conditioner. Go figure that one out!

I hope everyone is having a great new year!

Brrrr it was cold!!!

Saturday night it started with the freezing rain and continued on and off for a few days. Also late saturday night early sunday morning my furnace decided to stop working correctly so I had to shut it off. Luckily I have a fireplace and have been running it as well so I put some more wood on the fire and it maintain the temperature for awhile. Sunday morning the sprouts dad dropped them off and we got ready and headed to church. There was a little bit of ice on the roads but they were not bad. However the further north I got the worse it got, but we made it safe and sound. I had to hang around my parents house for the day because the sprouts had the childrens christmas program that night at church. While waiting it was freezing rain most of the afternoon. We headed to church and saw a wonderful program with about 30 children participating. The sprouts and I headed for home. Since the fire ran out because we were not there the house was a chilly 61. I started a fire and it got up to around 66. We all slept on the couch in front of the fireplace. Monday morning the furnace was diagnosed and parts were summons. The schools were cancelled because of the ice. I went bowling that night with the furnace not fixed yet. Upon fixing the one part it was discovered that another part was going to be needed. SO, another night without no heat so to speak. I had no idea how cold it was in the house when I got home because the thermostat was shut down as well during the repair. I do know that it was 59 when I left for bowling. I started a fire again and slept on the couch. Luckily I did not have the sprouts with me, they were with their dad for a scheduled visitation. Tuesday I slowly got ready for work. My heated office looked better than hanging out at home today. Schools were closd again because of ice issues possibily. They could have gone today but decided otherwise. It really did not matter to me today because I did not have the sprouts this morning. ALthough it did cause the music program to be cancelled again. Finally in the afternoon I had heat. The last part was gotten from the supplier and all is warm now. I just have to get back into the swing of things and get stuff done. I have my family christmas this weekend and then the extened family christmas the following weekend and I still have to finish buying for the sprouts. They wish to have everything they see on TV. :)

FINALLY!!!!!

I have finally got all the papers in my office filed. There were some dated back three years. That was when my divorce was final. I had one stack of papers that was probably 18" high if not higher. As of this afternoon, there is not one paper to be filed in my office. I have a lot of room in my office now. A little poetic justice you might say. I have been given the responsibility to supervise the people that I did not like working with at work. They are actually all for the supervision. I thought that was kind of odd but what ever. So far things have been going smoothly at work now. Not much new happening on my end. The snow has finally made an appearance. Normally I would be head over heals over that, but I have injured my foot some how. I have inflamed one end of the arch in my foot where it attaches itself. There are two points it attaches itself, one is in the heal and the other end is just below your toes near the ball of your foot. People most inflame their heal, not me I have to inflame the other end. So anytime I walk on an uneven surface that makes contact with my arch it is like stepping on a Lego block in the dark. So snow covered sidewalks and such are not that great for me right now. Hopefully this will heal quickly, I am getting tire of it. I finally have a few days this weekend to my self. The sprouts will be at there dads. Because of the holidays I have had them the last three weekends in a row. So hopefully the weather will be nice so that I can get some things done. This is the last weekend I am going to have to go shopping without the sprouts. Hope You Are Having A Great Day!

Update on spooky story Part 2

Well, I never got the information on where to meet this person, so we never met. Of course later she says she sent me that information, but never sent a hey where were you message since I never showed up. Of course that could be because she never went there either. On November 9th I decided to end the so called friendship. I was not the one that initiated it in the first place. I actually refused the online invitation and she kept sending me an invite until I did accept it.

I sent a quick message that asked how her vacation was. She did not get the drift of that message because she played the I am not the person you think I am roll. I stopped and talked to my ex on my lunch hour that day, and we discussed a lot of different things. The up coming holiday schedules for everyone, the sprouts events they have coming up. It was a very pleasant conversation. Then I told him what I think his wife is up to or has been up to. I got the deer in the headlights look of course. I told him that this person had contacted my sister as well and that I have never given out her ID to anyone and the only way this person would have gotten it was from his list. He claimed that he has not been chatting online for a very long time. That I believe. I told him that she has been logged into his account though because he has come up available on my list and I know it was not him because he was at work where he cannot chat online. And there is no way to get around that at his work that I do know as well. He said he will ask his wife. I told him that doesn't really matter that I do not believe a word that either one says for the most part. It was a very peaceful conversation, I did not loose my temper I laid out everything I knew and headed back to work which is all of a two mile drive.

After I got to work about 20 minutes after I had finished the conversation with the ex guess who pops online to chat. Yep, my so called friend. I knew that would happen. That is when she wanted to know what my message about the vacation met. I did not explain it. She started right in on me, saying that I have not moved on in my life and that I am jealous of the ex's wife and that I am like one of those crazy people that go around shooting people. I need to see a counsellor because I am crazy. I seem to be so much living in the past and don't move forward in my life. Blah Blah Blah.....

After bantering back an forth for a bit, I finally asked her about knowing who my sister is, without giving away that it was my sister. Here came the lie. She said that she had no idea who that person was never her of that person. I told her that was funny because that person was on her friends list. She said yes that she was, but that she just clicked ok to accept her so that she could get on with her job. This person continued to ask my sister to be friends online even after she kept declining her.

So we banter back and forth for about an hour which was about 59 minutes to long for me. Funny thing is that my "friend" gave up on the conversation she finally ended that conversation abruptly after I had said something. And she has NEVER done that. I was always the one to end the conversation, mostly because she kept pissing me off. After going back and looking at some of the archives between us. The person, never gave up on anything she kept needling and needling and needling at things, and would never give it up, until this last conversation. Interesting I think.

Anyways I have not lost any sleep over this. I am glad I decided to file for the divorce. I have so moved on in my life, and being Jealous of the ex's wife has never entered the picture at all. She has nothing to be jealous of.

I have seen the ex's wife once since this all happened. The ex and I have talked several times and all since this has happened. He has actually gone out of the way to make conversation and actually be on top of things since all of this started. Kind of strange but nice now. I had to drop the sprouts off at his house yesterday and she was there, she made an big effort to stay out of eye contact with me which I though strange, because it was her house. I stood just inside the doorway. I hate even going in and I wouldn't have except I had to sign one of the sprouts planner for school which he kept at his house for the weekend, so I had to go in to sign it. Her brother was just inside of the doorway as well, and yet she stayed out of eye sight for me, not that I was trying to see her either. She carried on a conversation with one of the sprouts. The sprout said that I was signing her planner for school and the wife said what your dad cannot do it. I wanted to say apparently not because he did not sign it last week when he had them. But I just went about my own business. The sprout said that I was signing to show that the sprout read over the holidays. The kids in class get a party if they read for so many days in a month. The wife said that was nice that I remembered to do that. It is not a memory issue. It is a parenting issue.

So there you have it. I am glad it is over. My sister and I were going to set her up but I did not want to play the game. I have played their games for to many years. That is one reason I end one of the games when I filed for a divorce. Now I ended another and hopefully the last one.

E Y E check ups....

I thought it would be a good idea to finally get my eye check, since I had not that for several years. I also decided to get the sprouts checked as well, since their dad kept telling me he was going to do so, and never made the appointment. I got us in last Friday, the sprouts had the day off from school for fall break so that worked out well.

Word of advise. Never take your sprouts with you at the same time to get your eye checked. The assistant took all at the same to the the room and she started in with the oldest sprout, while I finished up some paper work. The assistant went through the read this line on the screen on the wall, and went through some other tests. Then it was the youngest sprouts turn. It was a first time visit for the youngest sprout. Then it was my turn. So as I was reading the letters that I could make out on the screen in front of me, I hear from the chair in the corner. My youngest sprout say, "Mom, you missed a letter."

That would probably be one reason that I have a new prescription for lenses.

Pumpkins and Spooky stories....

Well here are some pumpkins for this year.

The University of Michigan Pumpkin

The University of Texas Pumpkin

The Oklahoma State University Pumpkin

The Happy one was done by my 8yr sprout, the other is my 5yr sprouts. The white dots are clear pegs that let light shine through for a added effect.

This is my pumpkin for this year.

I still have two more university logos to do. All the university logo pumpkins have been given away as gifts. Hopefully I will get a picture of one of my stainglass pumpkins as well soon.

A spooky story sort of. I had a online friend that I talked to long before my marriage went south. I have not talked to this person for some time most of the summer and on and off before then. She just kept making me mad a lot, and I did not want to put up with it anymore. I did some digging and some thinking and I think that this person is my ex's now wife, former other woman before the divorce. I could always count on this person trying to chat with me a day or two after something controversial may have happen between my ex and myself. Sure enough something might have depending on how you look at things.

This past Tuesday there was a major fire in my city, and the former spouse is a firefighter. Although he was not on duty the day of the big fire, it was an all call for pretty much every firefighter in the county. I could see the column of smoke billowing from my office window. Turns out I was less that a mile from the fire. The fire started around 10am, and it was not suppose to be my night to have the sprouts. I did start to wonder if he was at the fire and if they would be done in time for him to pick them up for their swim lessons later that evening. I did not call him to find out. I just waited to see what he would do.

He did call me at work around 3pm to let me know that there was a big fire today and that he probably would not be able to get the sprouts in time for their lessons and could I possibly do it. I wondered where his wife was because she usually takes care of the sprouts for him most of the time anyways, but was glad he asked me. I returned his call and told him that I would take the sprouts to their lessons but that I would have to leave at 6:30 because I had a meeting at 7.

He thought that would be doable. SO I began to figure out how I was going to get all their swim stuff around in time and go pick them up and head to swimming in the half hour I have from the time I leave work to the time swimming starts. I knew where on suit was at home I had no idea where the other one had a suit at. I figure the suit would not have a matching top and bottom, but I found a one piece that fit and grabbed two towels and out the door I went. When I stopped by the house to pick up the stuff the fire alarm went off again for a potentially large fire again at a different location. I was thinking now there is no way I am going to make my meeting.

He left a message on my phone when I was picking up the swim stuff to make sure that the oldest got to her lesson and put the youngest in the child care. They have different lesson times. I got the impression that I could leave after I did that and that he would be there to pick them up. I called him back and left a message on his phone telling him that I was not leaving the sprouts until either he or his wife showed up. He called me back and told me that he would be there before 7 but probably would be after 6:30.

He did show up just before 7, I got their stuff out of my car, and gave it to him. He got the youngest out of child care, and I helped the oldest get dressed since her clothes were in the ladies locker room anyways. He and I chatted a few minutes about the next two weeks schedule and we went on our separate ways.

Yes, I was late to my meeting, but I was not mad about it. Anyways my friend contacts me on Wed which I expected because she always did that. I finally told her who I thought she really was. The only way to clear this up was to meet face to face. I have offered that before and she has backed out of it. So I let her pick the date and time, and I agreed to both, especially since it was going to be on a weekend that they were going to be on vacation. She played the did I get booted routine when it came to the location. SO the location has still yet to be determined. She says she sent me offline messages on the location, but the only offline messages I have gotten from her was the one where she tells me she sent me offline messages. So will see what happens in the next few days.

What a tangled web you weave when you try to deceive.

The next few days should be interesting.

Woo Hoo an Anniversary.....

NOT!!!...

Today would have been my wedding anniversary, today it is just another day. At the end of the month will be the anniversary of my divorce...I so love October.. NOT!

Halloween is approaching soon. Costumes have to be got yet, since their dad has plans on being out of town this year, I get to help the spouts with their costumes. This would not be such a hard task, if they would just decide what they want to be. LOL. I have plans on carving about 8 pumpkins this year, hopefully I will get to start them this weekend. I have been working on mass production of some stainglass Halloween pieces. Everything has been slow going because I just have not been in to mood to do anything.

I have been looking forward to this weekend. I am hoping to get a lot done, since the sprouts are spending the weekend at his parents house. A complete weekend for me, sprout free. Most people would enjoy a weekend to themselves. I am not even that excited about it anymore. Before he asked me if the sprouts could spend the weekend at his parents, I was going to tell him that I was not going to be able to have the sprouts for him this weekend anyways. Only because I am going out with a friend on Saturday night, and I did not want to have to find someone to watch the sprouts for me then. And, I hardly ever get a complete weekend to myself, so I was going to pick this weekend. But, I am in such a mood that it really doesn't matter if I have the free weekend or not. I am looking for to Saturday night though. My friend and I are going to listen to a lady speak at a local church. I have heard her before, she is a speaker in the divorce class I took a few years ago. This "seminar" that she is speaking at is for everyone, married, single, divorced, widowed...so it should be a fun evening. We both are looking forward to it. She and I have decided to make an evening of it. We haven't seen each other in awhile, so it will be fun. Hopefully!

I mentioned earlier that I was going to carve about 8 pumpkins. Most of them I plan on giving away, that should be fun. Same with the stainglass pieces, I am hoping to get about 20 little stainglass pieces done. Yes, I could sell them. God knows I could use the money. But, it is just more fun an exciting to give them away. I just have to get them done. The sprouts have some arts and crafts stuff they want to do, so I have to make some space for that at the house. That should be interesting, since my house looks like a tornado went through it. Since my grandma passed away about three weeks ago I have not landed at home long enough to do anything with the house. I have had to do laundry early in the morning, just to try to keep up with that. I have been helping my mom with some of the stuff she has had to do finalizing issues from the estate. My younger sister could have helped her out more easily than me, but she has her own agenda to be on, but is always at mom and dads asking for money for some stupid thing. That is another story.

Well, I hope everyone gets a chance to catch the fall colors. Until next time, HAVE A GREAT DAY, AND A BETTER TOMORROW!

Forgot to tell you....

I really hate my job. The only reason I hate my job is because of the people I have to work with, or the two people that I have to work with in the office of 25 people.

I am the only engineer at this company and my main responsibility is to generate prints for the six plants that we have and to make sure that the sample parts that we manufacture are correct before I send them off to the customer. I have other duties as well, these are the main two that take up most of my time. I do not have another person that helps me out. I use to have a college student but then they graduated and of course it is cheaper not to hire another one.

I do have the flexibility to leave and pick up sprouts from preschool, now kindergarten and return back to work. It is not that far for me to do that and that was usually my lunch hour. My boss knew that I was doing that as did his boss the Vice-President of the company. Well there are two women that work up stairs for my boss who apparently think it is their job to keep track of me as well. (Side note: my boss cannot stand working with them either)

They are always commenting on my coming and going even when I came in after hours when we had a second shift. I came in to get some work done on a new project we were trying to get the business for and had some 50 prints to generate for it. I finally had it when I went on a long weekend with my sister and mom and came back to a message on my answering machine from my boss saying that they were at it again.

I finally decided to hide my time card, except on Wednesday my time card had been moved and it was not even near the location I had put it, not to mention that I hide it behind the salesman's card who was on the road that week, so I know he did not touch it. I keep it in my office now. My boss know this. Before taking 2 of my allotted 3 days for my grandmas visitation and memorial service, I sent an email around to certain people most I just added to the list to make it look good, explaining why I was going to be gone. Not that I normally do that but apparently some people feel the need that have to know where I am at all times.

I only got a funny response from one of the plant managers. The next day one of the girls downstairs came up and asked the girls if they wanted a complaint free world bracelet to wear. Of course the girls up here took offense to that as well. One of the girls thought she was being harassed. Of course no else thought that way, but again they were not the reason for the email in the first place though.

When I came back to work after my grandmas memorial there was a hand written note in my mailbox from the owner of the company, and stapled to it was a copy of my email, except the to and from parts had been removed from the version he had. He wanted to know who I addressed the letter to, and what was going on. I only needed to let the HR person know, which she did and I sent the email to her as well.

I have not responded back to him, and probably won't unless he brings it up.

I am still here....LOL

After a very long two weeks things are back to normal I think. My oldest is now 8years old. A strawberry shortcake was the requested theme. A good time was had by all.

The family began bickering about stuff. Nothing like a death in the family to bring out every ones ugliness. The memorial service was very nice. I think grandma enjoyed it. I did get up and say a few words. No one that spoke could get through their part. Grandma had such an impact on a lot of peoples lives.

I have had a couple of nice conversations with the former spouse. That was nice, f course the wife was not around either, so that made it even nicer. He even called me today to let me know about the oldest homework, that got done last night. He never calls for stuff like that. I am still up in the air on whether to call and let him know stuff since his wife check his email now, or send an email still. I am not thrilled that she can preview it and prepare him on what to do first. I will still think about this one. I did mention to him that I was not that thrilled about not being able to talk to just him about the kids.

I finally get a weekend to myself, what will I do?

I am sure I will find something.

To My Grandmother.....

A little tribute to my grandmother who gave up her life here on earth to be at a better place this morning. What a life she lived.

When she was born her mother carried her around on a pillow because she had a heart condition and wasn't suppose to live long at all. Always out to prove everyone they were wrong about her. At 94 she has seen ALOT in her life. From going to school in a horse and wagon to seeing people travel by plane.

She was an identical twin, just like I am. In this case it was everyother generation. I always enjoyed listening to her stories of her life. Living through the depression and having nothing to baking 17 pies in one week before Thanksgiving at the age of 92 and her family not seeing one of those pies. They were all given away. She would turn around and bake 7 more for the family dinner.

Everyone has some regrets in their lives that they wish they could have another chance at. I have no idea if my grandmother had any. She always talked about the things she did to help others, and still get things she wanted to do done.

My only regret is that I did not get to see my grandmother lately, within the past month or so. I saw her at the family reunion July 29th and what a time she had then. She could hardly walk but was as sharp as a tac that day. I wanted to take the sprouts to see her this past weekend, but did not because my cousin was in town and went to see her. She got really tired if lots of people came to visit her in a day. So I gave the day up and now I am glad for that but sad still the same. Life will go one in our family and we will all be better people when looking at back and remembering the good times we had when grandma was around.

Back to the working world...

A great labor day weekend for all. At least it was for me and I hope it was for you as well. The only work I had to do was drive and walk all day yesterday. Saturday I took the sprouts to one of their appointments then we went to mom and dads to celebrate to only grandson of the families first birthday. He was not all that excited about getting his hands dirty with frosting, but eventually he caught on for a brief moment. Then the presents were opened and he was having a great time. He is such a character.

Sunday I took the sprouts to church, and they had to behave in order to go to a fair on Monday. That may be taken as a threat by some but if knew these two sprouts you would under stand. I occasionally run the computer at church, the one that puts the words up on the screen an such. Well Sunday was my day in the rotation, the two sprouts have joined me before up front when I have be manning the computer, and they were not angels then. The pastors wife took them back downstairs for me. That was awhile ago, but that telling them they have to be good works for now. After church they went to mom and dads and I ran home to get the annual school fundraiser information so that my family can take part in the fun since they were all down for the weekend. We all headed to a relatives for a family gathering on my dads side. This is always interesting of a time because we hardly get together on that side. He has two sisters and we went to one of his sisters house because the other sister was in town from her house in the west. We had a good time. The kids had fun playing outside all day. There could have been a few less mosquitoes, but all in all it was a nice time.

Monday was fair day. The sprouts were good so my family went to the fair. This fair was an hour away. It is the fair that my mom went to when she was growing up. It is a really nice fair. The sprouts rode rides all day. Mu dad took my niece and oldest around and I took my youngest around. They never quit. My youngest didn't even fall asleep in the car on the way home. The other did. I even tried to but the youngest kept waking me up.

So today brings me back to the great office of a loving kind....NOT. To start the day off I had the sprouts with me this morning because the school had its first fog delay of the year. Hopefully that will not happen often.

Bowling has started again. So live is not all that boring anymore. Kind of challenging since I threw a 192 in my first game, which is not really good to establish an average on, but I am sure I will get that down to a manageable number.

That time of year....

School has begun finally. I now have two sprouts in school. This makes my morning a little more easier. Would be much more easier if the schools traffic flow was fixed to something that worked more efficient.

The youngest sprout and I met the teacher yesterday morning per the teachers request, instead of at the open house. This was much nicer because then I did not have take her to the evening open house to hang in her sisters class room. She would have been bored to death and would have pushed all of my buttons before we were done. She was excited to meet the teacher and got to play in the room and get familiar with it while the parents went through the rules for the year.

Thanks to the most upstanding people in the area, parents are no longer allowed to walk the child to the classroom or even enter the building unless it is official business. If child forgets gym shoes, parents drop them off at the security office and that is as far as you get. That will be interesting when the science fair comes up and the kids have big displays to bring in. Oh well will cross that path later.

The oldest sprout and I met with her teacher at the open house last night. Should be an interesting year for her. Hopefully getting all the information that comes home from school will happen this year. The teacher has a totally different way of doing that so I really have to keep on top of sprouts stuff. She is a second grader and will have a planner and all info will be in the planner. If I need to send a note to the teacher I have to put it in the planner. Not sure how that is going to go over with the ex.

Today all went well. I dropped them off and they headed into school. The oldest was going to walk the youngest to her room for the first few days then she will not need to do so. I picked up the youngest at lunch time and asked how her day was. I got "Not Good" usually that means we hit someone for something stupid like looking at us....lol. She was just mad because they did not get a snack or get to go out for recess, rain came rolling through this morning. Hopefully a nap a daycare will change her mood and make for a nice evening for me.

With the high heat index these last couple of days and no central air working in my house, the ceiling fans and a window unit have almost made it bearable to stand for the evening. I am not a very warm weather person. I prefer snow be on the ground. Hopefully this weather will be moving on soon. I will be escaping it this weekend and heading back up north for the weekend.

A girls weekend is going to be on the agenda. My mom, my twin sister and I are heading to the upper peninsula of Michigan for the weekend. We did invite my younger sister and she opted out. No tears here for her not going. We are going to partake in the local seafood fest. That is the only reason we are going. Driving nine hours for seafood. or nine hours to get away for a brief time. Either way we are all looking forward to it. The weather is suppose to be sunny and high 70's perfect for me.

Reality has set in again......

The party (vacation) is over, back to reality (work). The sprouts and I were on vacation last week. We traveled to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a relaxing week at the family cabin. My twin sister and her family, along with my mom and niece were there as well. My dad and younger sister had to work. They are working on rebuilding a large orchard that burnt down on July 3rd, and it is apple picking time. The cold storage unit for the apples is not finished yet. My dad is only responsible for the electrical part of the rebuilding of three new buildings.

We arrived at the cabin Saturday night, mom and my niece came in Sunday. We had no big plans of leaving the cabin much at all for the week. My aunt called and said that there would be a power outage on Tuesday and Thursday for an hour in the afternoon. With only one TV station available to us on the TV this was not a big issue.

The weather was perfect for the week, mid 80's or less, sunny blue skies. No rain at all. Lots of fishing, mostly for me. My sister would help the two 5yrs and 7yr catch fish, but I had to do all the baiting of the hooks and releasing the fish off the hook and back to the water. She drew a line when it came to that. Eventually towards the end of the week, I could actually get some fishing in myself. It was fun watching the kids catching the "big one" some where so small I could not get my thumb in their mouth to get the hook out. I did get the hook out though.

There was little "Chip" and "Dale" chipmunk hanging around the cabin all week. There are weeks when no one is at the cabin so it is not like they are use to people being around. We have an A frame cabin on a full walkout basement. I was outside the basement door on Friday taking care of the kids water shoes, when "Chip" came running down the sidewalk and right between my legs from behind me. That startled me just a bit. I turned around to see "Dale" heading back up the hill and "Chip" was just sitting at the end of the sidewalk looking at me. That was about the extent of the wild life, for the week. No bears, or spotting of a moose, there were two deer spotting's but I see them here at home.

The sprouts had a great time. They got to go for a canoe ride, compliments of me or me and my sister. That was a challenge to get the two 5yrs and a 7yr to not lean over in the canoe. Of course we then had to deal with the I have to go potty out in the middle of the lake, or the I want to go back now and we have not even been in the canoe for 5 minutes.

Everyone had a great time, the kids got to enjoy a big playground, and see a great lakes freighter up close getting loaded. They evening got to walk to the beaches of Lake Michigan on the way up.

I woke up this morning, with the dreaded task of getting ready for work. Tonight I have to mow my yard and call the tech support guys to get my Internet working again. I came home and have no Internet upon starting up my computer. That would not bother me as much if I had air conditioning in my house working but I no longer have that either. So now I have a warm house and no Internet. That equals a cranky person with an addiction to the computer and no fix in sight. Hopefully that will change tonight.

A good time was had by all.....

I have finally recovered from a long two weeks worth of helping my mom get ready for a family reunion. This would be a reunion from my grandmothers generation on down. We use to have this every year, for as long as I could remember as a kid. One of my favorite events to look forward to during the summer...NOT! Now I helped put one on, NEVER THOUGHT THAT WOULD EVER HAPPEN.

This all started about two weeks ago, when some of the relatives in Seattle, WA called and said they are coming our way and would like to see my grandma and her twin sister and some others. Hence the reunion begins. The Seattle people are going to be staying at my parents house for the weekend. It is just one of the families coming from WA. We stayed at his moms house when we were in Seattle a year ago. So Mom starts making the phone calls to let people know this is going to take place and when. I get the job of getting the house ready. My dad has had shoulder surgery so he is a wing down for 5 weeks and mom has a bad leg so she can not do alot of the work either. My twin sister is two hours away with a 10 month old and a 5yr so that was out as well. My younger sister lives closest to mom and dad and is practically at their house everyday, except these past two weeks. When she know there is work to do she will not be there. That left me. The sprouts and I went up the weekend before and we cleaned the garage on Saturday. They loved pushing the brooms around the garage floor. I cleaned all the walls and ceiling of the garage and all the windows and doors as well. I also got the front porch and back porch cleaned as well before I called it a day Saturday night. I had to take the sprouts back home Saturday night because their day was going to pick them up Sunday morning after he got off work.

Sunday morning, I head to church early to get the computer ready for the service then we attended the church wide picnic for lunch then back to mom and dads. Mom had to leave with my younger sister for the rest of the day and evening to catch a show that my sister got tickets for. That left me with a list of things to get done. Clean the three bathrooms, move all the furniture out of the grand living room and vacuum the floors because the carpet was getting cleaned the next morning. Wipe down some chairs, clean some tile floors, dust,...blah, blah, blah.... Got it done on Sunday. Left mom and dads at 11pm.

Was back and forth to mom and dads all week. My younger sister helped on Tuesday night to restring the lights on the flag pole. It is a two person job and dad is a wing short and I was busy doing other stuff. Her daughter was moving the yard because the mower that dad has take two hands he has only one available. She was covered in dirt when she got the yard done. We had not had any rain for months here but that does not seem to bother the weeds in the yard. On Wed. night my younger sister was commenting on how she help put up the lights on the flag pole, like what more do you want. I told her if she was looking to compare check lists of things done bring it on. My dad about died laughing at that one.

Thursday night, I went up and got all the final touches done. Ready for people to arrive for the weekend.

Friday night, the sprouts and I head up to mom and dads. We finished up a few more items that mom wanted done again. The guests arrive from Seattle, and the pizza party for the evening begins.

Saturday we head back to mom and dads, for just a small family gathering for lunch. We brought my grandmother out to the house. She is on hospice care and in an adult foster care house, now. We just cannot take care of her. My aunt who is a nurse and her husband brought grandma to the house. Grandma about sat on the ground when they tried to get her in the car. She just has no strength anymore. But she was glad to see the people from Seattle. She was asleep by 3pm though. They had a hard time getting her back in the car. Her twin sister came as well.

After they all left we relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, kind of. We changed the sitting arrangements for the reunion tomorrow, so that my grandma and her twin sister could have comfortable chairs to sit in for the day instead of my grandma being in her wheelchair all afternoon. So, back to moving furniture again. They got the two reclining rocking chairs for the day.

Saturday night, my twin sister and her family and the sprouts and I head to my house for the evening. I stopped by the store to pick up some stuff for cinnamon rolls and dip for the veggies that I had to cut up this afternoon. I also had to cut up all the fruit as well. Yes I know I can buy it all done, except the store let me down on that, so I had to do it the old fashion way. I got all the stuff, we got all the kids asleep finally. I called it a night as well.

Sunday we all got ready and headed up to the festivities. I realize that I have forgotten to make the cinnamon rolls when I am about a mile from mom and dads. Then my mom asked if I brought the veggie dip. Forgot that. My twin and I offer to go back and get it. We got shot down. We have a tendency not to be right back. LOL. So we improvise. People start to arrive. I was apparently left in charge of getting all the food that we had out on the table. The reunion was a potluck. I felt like I was on one of the food reality show challenges. I got it all out there.

Grandma and her sister were there in their height of glory. Two 94yr olds dressed to kill for the day. They knew everyone. It was a perfect set up that we had for them as well. People could just pull up a chair and sit and chat with both of them or just one of them as well. My grandma who was asleep by 3pm yesterday afternoon, was awake the whole time today. People did not start to leave until about 5pm.

We all realized that was probably the last time grandma would be able to get out. She realized that as well. She has come to terms with how much work it takes to get her out and about now. It is not because we do not want to, she just cannot stand anymore and it gets hard to move her. We were all glad to have her here for the reunion. That was the first time any of us has seen her so awake for such a long time, and alert as well. There were three people there from her generation and she called them by name as well. We all had a hard time sending her back to the home on Sunday night. Her twin sister was there saying good bye to her as well. My grandma has congestive heart failure and it is finally winning. We have finally reach a point where changing meds might help in one area but will hurt a different area. Yes, it is a matter of time. But again, A good time was had by all, and it is those times that we will all remember.

Why is it.......

Last week flew by for me. I had the sprouts all week. They went to vacation bible school at church so we spent the night at my parents all week. That way I could drive back and forth to work and mom could take the sprouts to church. Why is it, that is was easier for me to be to work on time when I had to drive 25 miles through the country then when I had to drive 2 miles in the city? A good time was had by all last week.

We celebrated my nieces birthday this past weekend as well. It was a little early but she doesn't care. A pinata was the main entertainment for two 5yrs and a 7yr old. That pinata did not give up easily either.

It is know wonder that I do not like speaking to my younger sister. She has done nothing but complain all weekend. Of course she has complained to my mom about my twin sister and I but she will not say anything to us thought. She complained about my sister not getting our niece anything for her birthday last month. She has the gift and just forgot it when she came down. Niece was not around for her birthday, and they usually have a dinner for birthday but that never happened either. Then she complained about my sister and I planning a vacation together. My twin sister and I have kids the same age. Mine are 7 and 5, hers are 5 and almost 1. The two 5yr olds are 6 months apart. We try to get them together at least once a month if possible. My younger sister as a 13yr old, who babysits for me this summer. My twin and I are planning a spring break vacation for this up coming school year. It will probably be the last vacation together for spring break because her daughter will be in school next fall and will have different spring breaks. We live in different states. We invited my younger sister to go if she would like. She is mad because we plan everything and she either takes it or leaves it. I prefer the leave it, but I do not get so lucky all the time. She was mad because last year she went to Seattle with us and it was like this time or not at all. We had a scheduled bowling time and fit the Seattle trip in around our bowling. The rest of the family was going and she was the only one who had not been out there yet. She will never go anywhere unless there is a First National Bank of Mom and Dad near by. She and I are in the same boat except in many ways. We are both divorced, we both have children, we both have a house and car. Well I have my own car, she gets alot of her cars from dad mostly. The difference is I do not depend on my parents as much as she does. Granted my parents have helped me out, but I do not factor them in if at all possible. My sister factors them in all the time. My twin sister and I know this, my mom knows it, and she knows that it has not gone unnoticed between my twin and I as well. That is the way my younger sister will always be. Guess what we told her that we were going to beat our family cabin up in Michigan and that she is welcome to join us that week also. I am hoping Margarittaville will be set up for the week. :)

I have the day off today, which is nice again. The sprouts and I are going to tour a candy factory and hopefully catch the Fort Wayne Wizards baseball game tonight. Weather permitting. It is raining right now.

A Terrible Weekend......

My not so lovely weekend started on Friday night. I drove a couple of hours away to meet a friend, we talked for a long time that night/morning. We met for breakfast had a great time. We went to a water park, found a nice spot to park our stuff, friend went to use restroom and never returned. Car was gone from parking lot as well. So home I went but not making a phone call to said friend and expressing my displeasure with choices that were made. Especially since friend just got out of hospital a week ago from having a stint put in artery of heart. I later found out friend was OK, but friend did not tell me that personally though. Don't have to worry about that person when Christmas comes around. On my way back home I called and chatted with the sprouts. I have not seen them all week because they have been camping with their dad at a local campground. I have talked to them about every other day. They both informed me that my dog passed away. He must have passed away Thursday night, Friday, or Saturday morning. That was really hard to take at the time. He was actually my ex's dog, but ex never took him after I asked him to leave the house. We each had a dog, beagles. I got mine on my birthday and a few months later we picked up his at the pound. Both dogs were about the same age. They loved each other, and were fun to be around. They both loved to go for walks and play outside. We had to put mine down shortly after I found out what ex had been doing most of our marriage. That was very hard at that time. I took care of the other dog for awhile, but he got to demanding after awhile. I live in town and have a fenced in back yard with lots of shade, but if I was not home before dark he just barked, and that pissed off the neighbors. I finally asked my ex's mom if she would like to take care of him. She loved him and had lost one of her dogs, so off to grandmas he went. At least the sprouts got to see him. I missed him. He really loved the walks more than my dog did. It was hard to hear the sprouts tell me that he died. It was not a big thing to them, they are only 7 and 5 and did not know him very well, like I did. So my Saturday really sucked! Sunday was not much better. I went to church early to get the computer set up for the first service in a record amount of time. Then I went and picked up my grandmother with my mom and we brought her out to the house for a few hours. She has been in an adult care home for a couple of weeks now. My aunt that is a nurse and can take care of her has been gone, and no one else in the family is really capable of taking care of her. I am about the only one able to lift her. My dad is having surgery on his shoulder this week, so he is not able to lift her now. She enjoyed the day at the house. She was glad to get out. But then she started in on how she hates it there, and that they yell at her, so now the family has lots of decisions to make and will be making them ASAP. I absolutely hate being caught in those decisions.

Family Matters.....

My parents were suppose to go on vacation together to the great family cabin in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They were going to meet my Aunt and Uncle there. The plans changed a bit while I was bowling in NC. My dad has to have surgery on his rotator cuff next week, so he has pre-op things to be done this week. Mom was not happy after all he has been dragging going to the doctor for a few months now, and now he decides he has to get it done. My mom left for the cabin on Sunday, so I spent the day with dad after church. In some ways we are close in other ways we are not close. We both are pretty up to date on current events and have a little bit of knowledge of each other professions. He is a master Electrician, he can wire a house. I am an Electrical Engineer, I have no idea how to wire a house. I can make a plug for you that plugs into the outlets of your house though. We have never been real close, he has no idea of all the stuff that went on before my divorce, he does know the reasons behind the divorce and that is all. That is all he really needs to know. Some of the stuff would probably cause a family feud.

Of course he had to work for a little bit in the afternoon, so I cleaned up the house a bit and washed the dishes so that he would have enough forks for the week since mom was going to be gone. He eats frozen dinners when she is gone. When he got back, he and I went out to dinner and then grocery shopping. I think dinner was just a bonus for me to go shopping with him. I pushed the cart while he stocked up for the week. It was nice to hang around with him for the day. I have not done that in years. He was joking that some people might think that he fired my sister and hired a new girl to work for him. My younger sister is his only employee, and has red hair. I do not have red hair. We were traveling around in his work van as well. I play along at times. Gives me something exciting to do.

Tonight I am golfing with my Uncle. This should be interesting, since he and I have never golfed together at the same time, we have been in the same golf outings but not on the same team. After words we are having dinner at his cottage on the lake and my dad is coming over for dinner as well. I just hope I do not hit a house tonight like I did a few weeks ago.

I hope my air conditioning is fixed today. It died on me again last Friday. At least it has not been to terribly hot. I finally got screens in my front and back doors to at least let some air flow through. The windows are painted shut. My air condition repair man was my ex, however he was not that interested in fixing it this time, considering he worked on it a month ago. SO, I have found a new guy. My ex referred my to something that might come out on Saturday. I am not interested in paying premium time for a weekend. Then my ex called me today to let me know he is having a guy stop buy to look at it today, he probably has the part I need according to my ex. I told him, I already have a guy lined up to look at it. I am not sure if my ex just did not want to do it, or did not want to do it because he was on vacation. Yet, he was making service calls while he was on "vacation" because he told me that he might be dropping the sprouts off at daycare to make some service calls. They are suppose to be camping with the sprouts this week in the county.

Everyone have a safe Independence Day!

Back home in Indiana......

Have you ever had that feeling of wondering if you are ever going to get home? I had that feeling yesterday.

On Tuesday I flew to NC to bowl in the women's national bowling tournament. All went well getting there. A side note though, I have never seen so many lazy people working at the airport. I want their job. I got into NC in the afternoon, my twin sister and her family picked me up we did some sightseeing then headed back to my cousins house for the rest of the day.

Before we got ready to bowl we took the her sprouts to the pool for a little cooling off in the 90+ degree weather. Off to the bowling center she and I went. It was the team event which started at 7pm for our squad. There were people at the bowling center that had serious issues with the dress code rules. People that should have got written up didn't and those that should not have gotten written up did. I have never seen that before. Then there were the rookie attendees that were mad because you could not drink beer or liquor while bowling in the tournament, so I had to listen to that the whole time, because the team we were bowling against did not like that rule.

The team did OK, my sister and I did well, all three of my games were over my 146 average that I had for this tournament so that was a good thing. I was happy with my scores for the team event.

Wed. we hung around my cousins place for the day, then got ready to bowl again for the doubles and singles portion of the tournament again at 7pm. In order for us to make the bowling center on time we had to leave at 4pm. Mind you this center was at the other end of town just off of the bypass that went around the town. Traffic in Charlotte, NC can come to a stand still for no apparent reason and does so, everyday. Had to factor that in.

So we endured the doubles and singles event. When the sixth game came along I was ready for the agony to be over with. I was actually to OK, not great but OK. The last game however, was my worse at a 112. I was not happy but you will have that from time to time. We had to hang around after it was over with to see if we won any money in the side events that we entered in. We won some the night before, but did not think we would be that lucky tonight, but you never know, everyone else might have had a bad night as well. Turns out we did win some. That was the only highlight of the evening. We got back to my cousins house at 1am Thursday morning and I have to be on a 7:55am flight for home. I got a lot of sleep...NOT.

I got up and ready to go, and woke up my brother-in-law and we headed to the airport. We got to the airport just after 6am, and was waiting in traffic to get to the departure area, I finally got out of the car and walked up to the doors, and we were not even up to the sidewalk at the start of the departure area. All I had to do was go up to the kiosk type in my info and get my boarding pass. I got into the airport around 6:30am and finally got my boarding pass just before 7am. The place was packed for of happy travelers that were stuck there over night because of the storms that went through over night. Now I have to find the end of one of the 4 security lines, as opposed to the lines of people for check in. I start to realize that making my 7:55am flight is going to take a miracle. The security line I was in went past two front doors of the airport before evening turning into the maze for happy travelers before getting to the security people. I made it through security at 7:33am and was not even near my gate yet. I finally made it on to the plane with about 7 minutes to spare. Otherwise I was going to have to call my sister to come and pick me up and I was going to have to ride home with her.

I land in Cleveland to discover that my flight to Chicago is delayed, and later discover that it has a maintenance issue, and by the time it makes it to Cleveland and ready to depart for Chicago my flight out of Chicago will have already left. I am screwed. There are people in Cleveland left over from the night before for Chicago so all flight to Chicago are booked on all airlines. They are correct if your flight is delayed or cancelled you are screwed for days or it is going to cost you lots of money for a new flight. Since my parents dropped me off at the airport on Tuesday I had no car to pick up. I called them and updated them on my status and they headed for Cleveland and picked me up. I was at my house by 6:30pm originally arriving around 3:30pm with golf at 4:30pm. I missed the golf but at least I made it home the same day. There are still people stuck at the airports.

The airlines have no plans to deal with mechanical issues, and they do not care either about that. The people that worked the ticket area in Charlotte, need a few customer service lessons as well. That was just by observing them.

I am glad to be back in Indiana today.