Happy New Year!

Out with the old and in with the new! 

2010 brought many changes in our family:

• I finished school, finally earned my BA in Elementary Ed
• Dante got engaged in April
• Rosanne graduated high school a year early and started college for Criminal Justice
• Dh & I celebrated 24 years of marriage at the cutest little log cabin
• Dante & Margaret announced their pregnancy

2011 promises to be just as exciting:

• the birth of my first grandchild in June
• Dante & Margaret's wedding in September
• hopefully a teaching job for me

Other changes I plan to make/things I plan to do include getting healthy (will hit the gym more & eat less), reading & writing more, mastering knitting (wearable) socks and knitting a (again, wearable) sweater, as well as completing Project 365 (taking and posting a photo a day) and blogging more. I will take a daily photo anyway, but I might just post them once a week. To that end, here is the first photo of 2011:

ok, I did not actually take this shot, dd did, yesterday, 1/1/11, but it does tell a short story of our life, one that involves goofy slipper socks. lol  Don't her tiny, size 6 feet look huge?

And here is the one for today:

46 degrees outside in January--it's just not right.

goofballs!

I love my kids so much. They always make me laugh. Tonight they were being goofballs in their hillbilly winter hats. Ignore the donkey-like wheezing...I laughed so hard I had to use my inhaler. lol

ok, so I suck at blogging

I saw this blog (http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/ )


on a message board and thought it might get me going again so I borrowed an entry and made it my own.
 

FOR TODAY


Outside my window...  there are leaves...lots and lots of leaves...that will all need to be picked up and disposed of this weekend...guess who will be doing that?

I am thinking...that I love having these random furlough days, sleeping in, doing whatever I want!

I am thankful for...my health, my family, my home, my job.

From the learning rooms...(if this applies)  I have no idea what this is about, but I do love to learn and am constantly striving to learn new things and better myself. It drives me crazy when dh says something like "I'm fine the way I am," because really--who cannot stand some improving??

From the kitchen...the smell of popcorn that dh had for breakfast (it was leftover from the Bruins game last night--go B's!!)

I am wearing...my 'jammies,' sweats and a t-shirt

I am creating...fingerless gloves and a slouchy hat

I am going...to buy myself a new winter coat today--hopefully the purple one I saw in an ad

I am reading...Choice Words by Peter Johnston (it's about how our language affects our students' learning)

I am hoping...to spend some time with all my kiddos this weekend

I am hearing...construction from the nursing home being expanded around the corner

Around the house...is a lot of dog hair that needs vacuuming, which, btw, is dh's job and he has been slacking

One of my favorite things...books, and I am surrounded by stacks of them. I really need to purge!

A few plans for the rest of the weekend:  leaf blowing, splitting & transplanting some perennials, and putting the gardens to bed

Here is picture for thought I am sharing...it's a view we enjoyed on our little anniversary trip up to Pittsburg NH a couple of weeks ago. I just love living in the beautiful state of NH!

Ten More Tuesday Ramblings

1. wow, it's been a while since i've blogged!
2. this is my last week of summer break, back to work on monday.
3. jury duty ended yesterday...8 weeks of calling in...never had to report once...cost me over a grand in lost wages and missing out on a fun white-water rafting trip.
4. i have not gone kayaking even once this summer! : (
5. dd leaves for college soon. another : (
6. meeting my sis & her kids today for lunch and shopping!
7. frantically trying to finish eat, pray, love so I can see the movie.
8. still need to send cards & gifts to nieces & nephews who graduated in june.
9. haven't scrapped in a long time, but have been doing a lot of knitting and reading this summer.
10. have not exercised nearly enough. off to do some right now!

Ten Random Tuesday Ramblings

1. second day of summer school down, 10 to go. have some of my favorite little kiddos in my class.
2. dh cleaned  the vinyl siding & shutters-brought the color back-house looks brand new!
3. dd back from NYC-had the time of her life-now she wants to live there.
4. pool is finally clear after several weeks of treating it!
5. I exercised quite a bit today, toning/strengthening in the pool with water weights, and 2 laps around the neighborhood, with some running thrown in. (feeling that already)
6. I'm getting a lot of reading done this summer--it's wonderful!
7. still angry that I couldn't teach this summer because of jury duty, especially since I happened to see the teacher's contracts today (huge disparity in pay).
8. is very tired of this hot weather and very thankful we have a pool to cool off in
9. first night home & dd is sleeping over at a friends house : ( I missed her.
10. I'm actually signing off and going to bed early tonight.

Good night!

People just suck

Suck. Suck. Suck. Someone broke into my son and future dil's house yesterday and stole their big screen tv. They love to watch movies and they worked so hard to save money for that thing and someone just walks in and takes it as if it belongs to them. Thankfully nothing else was stolen, although there were 2 laptops, a blackberry, a gps and a blue-ray right in the same room. They were just after that television. Probably sold it for a couple hundred bucks to some poor sucker who can't even use it because the idiot took the wrong remote. Worse--they know who it is, they just can't prove it. And the very worst part--it's a family member. Disgusting piece of slime. I could easily kick him in the balls and spit in his face.
I sure wish I could afford to buy the poor kids a new tv, but even so there's no way to replace their sense of security. I'm so angry and sad.

Shoes!

I was going thru the photos on my computer the other day and happened to notice several different shots of various shoes: snowshoes, clogs, cleats, workboots, etc. so I thought it would be fun to make a collage of shoes. Some were copied as is and some were cropped out of larger photos, so the quality isn't very good. What disappointed me is that I couldn't find any pics of dd's toe shoes or tap shoes.