Okay, finally.

I think we're finally finished celebrating my birthday.  We finished it off yesterday with a girls trip to Ikea which is 2 1/2 hours away from here.   Me, my daughter-in-law and my daughter went and spent the day there.  Ikea had sent me a coupon for 15 dollars off and a coupon for a free meal on my birthday so I took advantage of both.  I went mostly to shop for an entertainment center but we had to take the smaller car, so I didn't actually come home with one.  I did get a good idea what I want and I can wait until the next time (I think) to go get it.  We mostly had a good time.  I had an asthma attack right in the middle of the store which made me feel bad for an hour or so and my legs got tired so I did a lot of sitting while they shopped.  I came home with some pillows and a few other things, not as much as I had planned on, but I'm full of ideas, so maybe that counts.

Today I am blessed to get to have lunch with some of my homeschool mom friends that I haven't gotten to see for a while (we need to work on that) and then it's back into the car to go take my daughter to the doctor this afternoon.  So, 2 busy days off work, then back to work tomorrow and then the weekend!!  I'll finally

get the house cleaned and something cooked.  Probably.  I knew this was going to be a busy week, but it really takes a toll on the housework when I'm doing stuff like this.  Oh well.  It waits.  It will be there when I get time.

Celebrating!

I'm celebrating my birthday a ton this year.   Lots of fun!  Friday night my brother took me out to eat.  We had a great time.  I tried a maple bacon burger at Cracker Barrel.  It was extremely good.   We got to sit and visit for a while and it was great.  Then on Saturday, my actual birthday, my husband cooked for me.  He made fried fish, fried onion rings and hush puppies.  All of these are something I can't really get gluten free unless we make it at home and I am not much of a fryer.  I don't really fry anything other than some chicken occasionally.  It was really, really good.  We finished it up yesterday.   Yesterday, I took a break from all the celebrating, went to church and visited my aunt in the nursing home and then today, my daughter-in-law is going to cook one of my favorite things that she makes, fettuccine alfredo and my daughter is going to bake my birthday cake.

Since all of these celebrations have involved very fattening food, I will be back on my diet on Tuesday!!!

So yesterday,

I had to get an eye exam in the town where my son is in college.  After school and the eye exam, we met up at the hair salon to get our hair cut.  As I am sitting there making small talk with my stylist, I hear my son over in the next chair, outlining all the merits of homeschooling for his stylist.  Later, I asked him how that conversation got started and he said she asked him where he goes to school.  He answered with his college name, but then she asked where he went to high school and she told him.  They had quite a long talk.  My haircut got finished and I went out to the waiting area to wait for him. When she brought him out, she apologized and said she was sorry it took so long, but that they were talking.  It turns out, she has a 1-year-old and is thinking of homeschooling in a few years.  :-)

I don't have a picture of this event so I thought I would share some of my recent art projects. :-)

Whew!

These 2 photos are taken on the same day.  Snow on the peach tree and then a cardinal that posed for me in the back yard.  

I survived my week of working 40 hours.  It wasn't as bad as I thought and it definitely wasn't as bad as that week I spent last week working at the Montessori school.  With that one, I hadn't worked there before so it was totally new and it was a much more active job, so I was tireder more tired.  The main problem I had this week is that my Sjogren's syndrome flared and my eyes were so dry that one night I couldn't sleep much.  I finally got some moisturizing eye ointment for my eyes and was able to sleep.  With this job, I've been there a while and it's pretty low pressure; I'm not dealing with any 3 or 4-year-olds, it's quiet, etc.    I did get to do some types of reports I had not done before and go into the cutting room and see some things that were interesting, but I can't go into details.  I also made some mistakes and had to redo a couple of things.  Overall, though, not too bad.  I'm looking forward to only working a few hours next week and getting some things done around the house.  :-)

The weather has been interesting here, up, down, rain, snow, etc.

The long day and soon, the long week.

Last Saturday, we were triple booked.   And it rained all day.  We had the Easter Egg hunt at church, which we were in charge of, then a lunchtime family reunion with a bunch of relatives.  My aunt from Seattle had flown in and a lot of people had come to see her.  Most of the people there, I had to be introduced to because I hadn't seen them since I was about 10 years old.  It was interesting.  Then, later that night, we had my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's wedding reception.  They got married back in the fall, but had their reception this past weekend, so that her relatives from another state could be here.  It was fun and very elegant and pretty.  By the end of the day though, I was so tired as to be giggly on the way home.  I'm glad those kind of days don't hit very often. 

Hunting eggs inside because of rain, rain, rain.  

We do have my brother's wedding to look forward to though, in hopefully, the near future.  :-P  They haven't set a date yet. 

This is an altogether busy week.   We've got Easter this weekend and then I'm going to work a 40 hour week.  Normally, I work 12 hours a week, so this is really going to be a stretch for me.  I'll have to figure out time management and I'll have to deal with exhaustion and pain.  My back and legs will HURT.  I know that going in.  I'm already on Mobic for my osteoarthritis so the only thing I can take to augment it is Tylenol.  I'm not looking forward to it.  This time last year, I was not looking forward to working a week of day camp at the Montessori  school.  I survived that and I will, likely, survive this.

At the wedding we had dancing.  I danced the cupid shuffle, but that's it.  I'm not in this picture.  :-) 

This week in pictures.

I saw 2 deer lying down in the back yard last week.  This is taken from inside the kitchen, through the glass doors.  It was pretty and warm for a few days and then, snow happened again.  See below.  

It snowed such a beautiful snow today with lots of snow on the branches and none on the road - just the way I like it.  I like to go out and take pictures in the early morning when everything looks blue.  

My daughter and I built a snowman at home.  Youngest son built a snowman at school.  The roads were clear all day though.  It was great.  

Our 2 big bags of game at the game store where we play.  We had 2 game nights last week to celebrate spring break.

My green desserts at the St. Patrick's day potluck at work.

Great article.

This is a great article about some of the things that are wrong with our school system.
9 Elephants in the Classroom.

More March.

Remus (my grand-dog) before his recent hair cut.

March is marching right on and we're halfway through.  Youngest son is on spring break and I'm hoping that he will get some things done around the house that need to get done.  Our garbage service will pick up bulky items this month so I'm hoping that he will get the bulky items from the last year to the end of the driveway so that they can be taken away.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love the work of the trash collectors?  When we were first married, the system was that we had to take our trash to the dump ourselves.  We had no garbage collection here and now that we have it, I am so, so, grateful for it.  Also, we didn't have city water or phone service when we moved here.  We're not as old as this sounds, but we moved to a very rural area and it took a while to get everything here.  We still can't get cable TV, but we really don't want it.  

Anyway, I digress, back to March.  I'm hanging in there at work.  It's less stressful since one of the people left the office for another location.   I'm still getting used to the pathology specific terminology and the computer system but I'm starting to not feel completely stupid all the time, which is a good thing.  :-)  

A recent game of Hero-scape after Monday Night Dinner.  

Our daughter is supposed to work at her old job for a couple of weeks in April, but they actually called her to come in this week and be a sub for someone who is out with the flu so she's working this week as well.  I'm hoping that old flu is over soon. It's been a bad flu season this year.  The youngest 2 of our kids went to Comicon last weekend.  I enjoyed hearing about it and living vicariously through them a little bit, but as much as their feet were hurting that night and the next day, I'm glad I didn't go.  

Kentucky castle on the way to Comicon.  Click on the picture to enlarge it so you can actually see it.  

Oldest son and his wife were thinking they'd have to move out of their house-sitting situation pretty soon, but they got that worked out and they are staying near us.  I'm happy about that.  They come over on Monday nights so we get to see them often.  It's wonderful.  

We've had several small snows this winter including a couple this week.  These were the kind that did not obstruct driving, but just looked pretty --- exactly the kind of snow I like.  We've been playing a lot of board games at home and with friends.  We had our homeschool board game group last night.  Somehow along the way, we've picked up a few that aren't homeschooled, but they fit right in and contrary to popular belief, homeschoolers are good at socializing, so we've been having a good time.  We had a nice sized group of 8 last night which was perfect for dividing into 2 teams and playing some of the smaller player number games.  Good times.

Snow!

Cosmo and Remus in the snow.