Along for the Ride

All Hail the Almighty Wii

Seriously, where else can you putt with a wine glass in your hand (and have the chance of making it??)

 

chris actually chose this game to play against connor because he can actually BEAT him on this game. yeah, not today. connor creamed him.

after dinner, we had a family bowling tournament. chris and the kids went first and then i was to take the place of the loser.

 

interesting to me that the wii people are hard to see on the screen. tori throws strikes like they are nothing.

 

zoe demonstrating the "i'm so good at this i can stick my rear end out and still get a spare" move.

needless to say, the kids beat chris and then i took his place. yeah, they creamed me too. it's all in the wrist i'm sure, but for the life of me i can't figure out WHAT is all in the wrist! LOL

 

seriously, it's embarassing. i'm thinking chris and i should practice sometime when the kids are at school. sheesh!

A Few Pages

so my chat is over (although they still go on!) and i managed to get 2 pages done today. not bad considering i had to leave my chair for a soccer game and to buy 2 new toilets (whoa nellie do i live a glamorous life or what?)

 

3o minute masterpiece (that was tweaked a bit after the time frame). had to use 3 rectangles, 2 squares, 2 fasteners (i used staples) and the text had to be fully justified. whew. this was tough!

and then for my chat, the freebie was the graphic block title

 

we had a fun time. now i'm going to get off the computer for awhile and visit with  my travelin' hubby. he's been gone for 6 days.

have a great weekend!

Saturday Scraplift

each week at Designer Digitals, Lynn picks a layout for the saturday scraplift and then 2-3 CT members lift the page. i haven't done one of these challenges in forever, but i really loved the layout lynn chose so this week i made sure i was the first one to post that i would do it! (you have to be quick....everyone loves this challenge). since lynn lives in New Zealand, her saturday morning is our friday night...so i was able to post the page already. :)

a couple of weeks ago my FIL got very sick. very very sick. we were up in MI for the MSU v. Iowa game (we are still mourning the last 2 seconds of that game) and while we were there, he was admitted to the hospital for legionella pneumonia. it was really scary. by sunday morning, we were all in detroit at St. John's Hospital and he had made a big recovery. one of the good things that came out of the scare was that we got to spend a few hours with the family. and that meant our sweet niece leah.

 

lots of new goodies on this page that are all 30% off this weekend during the big sale.

and don't forget about the all day chat tomorrow. i will be hosting at 7pm EST for a random inspiration chat and i have a fabulous freebie to giveaway AND a $5 DD gift certificate. so stop by and say hello!

DD 4th Quarter Sale

The final Designer Digitals quarterly sale for 2009 is just around the corner! It means 30% off EVERYTHING in the ENTIRE store!

The sale begins tomorrow, 5th November, and runs through the 10th November, with a full day of chats on Saturday 7th November, Digital Scrapbooking Day. Join me at 7pm EST where I'll be talking about random inspiration with an exclusive freebie for you designed by Katie Pertiet.  You can see the rest of the schedule here.

And it just so happens there's a brand new e-book in this weekend's sale!

 

There is a LOT of great inspiration in this book and I'm very excited that it is out! Hope to see you at the chats on Saturday and have a great time shopping!

Wrestling

so last year, i don't think i even blogged about wrestling. i know i didn't post any photos, but to be honest, if you think photographing an offensive lineman is tough, you should try a wrestler! no easy task for this amateur photographer let me tell you.

our first meet was last night. and it was kaneland. yeah...the ones we just barely beat for the championship in football 2 weeks ago. and they are always tough but both of our teams lost a lot of our 'varsity' wrestlers (the middle school has 2 teams....varsity/jv and you compete each week for a varsity spot unless there's no one else in your weight class) and we weren't sure how it would go.

zo and i dropped off tori at a friend's house for annie rehearsal (she managed a 1/2 day of school yesterday and rehearsal before bottoming out again....so she's back on the couch today) and then hightailed it out to the middle of nowhere for the meet. only there's a new middle school for kaneland. in a totally different town (rural school) and so we actually went to TWO schools. but luckily, connor is in the higher weigh classes so we were not late to see him. 

 

on the visitor side...the ref was always in the way.

 

if you aren't familiar with wrestling (like me) this is good.

 

his arms were so sore after this match. it was sloppy (his words) and took way longer than it should have (his words) but i told him that now he had material to work with. he could go back over the match in his head and figure out what he did right/wrong.

 

ok, this looks painful.

 

no wait...scratch that...THIS looks painful.

 

PINNED!

connor was leading 11-5 when he finally pinned this guy in the 3rd period. our varsity team won by 30 points (we lost to them last year by 2) and our jv just barely lost. a pretty good way to start the year.

Sick

it totally puts a crimp in your style doesn't it? tori was tired yesterday and i figured that the lay around recovery day would be perfect and she'd be good to go today. but no such luck. she started to tank again late yesterday afternoon and was up several times during the night because she was hot, she was cold, she thought she was going to be sick (she wasn't), she wanted cough medicine, she needed to be propped up, she had a scary dream, etc. so needless to say, we are back on the couch again today.

 

so instead of going to zo's classroom to read baggie books or working the book fair at their school over lunch, i'm home with tori doing more laundry in the hopes of ridding her bedroom of germs and catching up on my loose ends.

of course i've thought of a few more since i posted:

buy the library book that we lost - we lose one every summer thanks to zoe

plan the october picture lady presentation that i'm finally doing this thursday.

work on a belated anniversary gift for my parents (had a great idea, no follow thru)

track down my sister's rockin' anniversary gift that i ordered 3 weeks early and it still got lost in the mail. need to get in touch with amazon.

off to work on my knots and all things healthy. i see chicken noodle soup in tori's future....

Tying up the Loose Ends

i don't think it is actually possible to start a new year completely fresh. there are always loose ends that need to be tied up. but for me, there are lots of loose ends. because by barely existing the last few months, i left a lot of things undone or partially done. and what i found was that the thing i was worst at was finishing. so my focus is on finishing things. checking them off the list and then throwing out the finished list.

so this week is a week of loose ends and project wrap ups. such as:

putting together the yoga calendar (this is not exactly a loose end....this project has just finally gotten to the point where i can do my part of it but it needs immediate attention)

getting chris's expense credit card account cleaned up. forgot to transfer money from his first expense report 6 months ago (probably spent it on groceries or socks) and so we owe the account. finally figured out how much.

get 2 new toilets. this is just a project that we've been waiting to have the money to do. we've got a guy coming over this week to take care of this for us. just as soon as i pick out my bowls....

putting the laundry away. can't remember the last time i did ALL the laundry all at once. now i need to get the rest of it sorted and put away. of course, tori just cleaned her room and found an entire bin of dirty laundry for me.....so maybe i'm not so caught up.

need to make a check list of little home projects. nothing big (like toilets) but things like WD-40 the master bedroom closet door, the pantry doors, new lightbulb for the deck light, re-hang the quilt over the couch in the family room, put our smoke detectors back up...they've been off the ceilings for a couple years now due to a short that kept making them go off all the time. should probably fix that.

so here's to tight knots.

and just so this post isn't all words...here's my latest page...

 

supplies can be found here.

Happy New Year!

that's right. i'm starting a new year on november 1st.

see here's the thing...this year has been difficult. (job loss, weight gain, death of my grandmother, turning 40, poor health for me, almost losing my FIL to pneumonia last weekend, dropped balls, forgotten appointments, etc) so i decided that it needed to end. and just like that i'm making it happen. i have never been very patient so why not? i feel like i'm not dragging towards the end of the year now but that i'm on the upswing. and i want to be on the upswing for christmas this year. remember last year? yeah, i'm not going to do that again.

today is the recovery day before i hit the ground running tomorrow. i had planned to hit it running today but a sick kid (tori) and after a very long week of sleepless nights i'm only at about half mast myself....so it's a laundry, blog post, take a nap kind of day. oh that and making lists. see, that's part of my new year plan. lists. so that'll start on monday along with regular blog posts, catch up blog posts so this blog can still continue to be a family history document, more info on topics that i've been researching or learning about and lots more scrapping as i can now share my sb pages again (everything i've scrapped in the last few months have gone to projects)

so i'm excited for it all to begin. i haven't felt this good about a restart in a long time.

and while i work on getting all my ducks in a row, here's pictures (and a page) from last night's halloween festivities.

 

supplies can be seen here.

 

a zebra, a 50 girl and a um, masked/caped/scary dude.

i don't think the girls even knew connor did this...

 

zoe the zebra and sarah the cowgirl. a perfect set! zo lost her tail along the way. which is a bummer because a backside pic would've been really cute.....

 

this is blurry but the story is great. this guy was HUGE. scared the beejeezus out of milo. he came to the door alone and said nothing. all he did was pull his skeleton hand out of his cloak and GIVE ME a pack of peanut m&ms (my faves!) and then he left. i don't think i've ever been "treated" on halloween before. oh, and i believe i know who you are (your daughter told my son) but your identity is safe with me reaper. :)

ok, back tomorrow with the new game plan.

i hope your new year is fabulous beyond your expectations.

peace.

Undefeated! Sold! Little Orphan Tori!

Whew.

It's been a very emotionally exhausting (but good) weekend.

I think i need a weekend to recover from the weekend.

So, up first was connor's championship football game v. kaneland on saturday morning. it was a glorious day for football. crisp fall day with sunshine and a light breeze. oh, and mud. because the sunshine was new and the fields had not had time to dry out. boy howdy was there mud. i took over 180 photos at this game. figured it was my last shot to do so and who knows if they will ever be undefeated again ya know? so here's a quick run down sans editing...there's no time to get those all edited right now.

 

i thought it was a bit chilly for "kick butt" short shorts but they were loud cheerleaders!

 

the first half was NOT bulldog football. we couldn't get anything going on the offense and if it weren't for TWO goal line stands...kaneland would have won this battle. connor's easy to spot at this game...he wore red socks.

i call this "cleats in mud...a still life"

 

i think this was a reverse play of some sort. and yes, i messed with camera settings and accidentally bumped camera settings due to the stress of the game so not all of these are clear shots. but it's a nice block by connor...

 

at halftime it was 6-0 kaneland. but the bulldogs were back in the 3rd marching down the field and tying the score. i moved into the end zone for a few shots. he really wasn't the only one on the field, but he's on the left side (weak) and there wasn't always someone lined up directly in front of him. typically they were to his left.

 

a better overall shot as we were driving for yet another score.

 

we almost didn't pull this victory out. they were driving with less than 2 minutes to go and had a TD pass called back because the QB was over the line of scrimmage and the last play of the game was a pass that was batted down on the goal line.

 

bad pieced together team photo because i don't have a wide angle lens and there were 50 people taking pictures of this crew. connor is right above the word "crew" in 2nd row (and he's crouching down so the other guys can be seen...he's not that short)

 

whew...totally blew out this photo but that is the school plaque.

 

57 & 58

steve & connor

offensive left guard & offensive left tackle

they are also in scouts & wrestling together (and he's going on philmont with chris and connor too)

 

holy cow does he need a haircut!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

ok, at the game, we got a phone call from a prospective buyer of our truck who had been out to see it the day before. he called as soon as i got home (and chris walked out the door to pick up connor from the bus...WITHOUT his phone) and i made the call that we'd make the deal. it was a bit less than what i wanted and a bit more than chris' bottom line so i guess that's ok. but then i was filled with anxiety about the cashier's check. by the time they got here, all banks were closed but we copied everything, took down his driver's license and they were such a nice family i think it'll be ok. oh, and we got half the money in cash! crazy. never seen that much cash before.

so we had to say goodbye to our most favorite vehicle ever....

 

chris is actually in mourning. he's been bummed since it was driven out of our garage.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

today was a very early morning for tori and i as she had to play handbells at the 8am service at church.  it was her debut in the bell choir and she did a great job. she said she missed notes at the 8 o'clock but by the 9 o'clock she was hitting a lot more notes.

at church we learned that tori's friend lauren (7th grade) had gotten a part in the play. so tori rushed home to the answering machine to see if she had gotten a call. alas, no.

meanwhile, helen came over and she and tori got ready to attend the CropWalk which is an annual walk around the river to help raise money to feed hungry people. we were just about to walk out the door when the phone rang.....it was the director of annie jr! she asked tori if she would like to be an orphan and tori quickly accepted. so i'm not sure how much walking tori did at the CropWalk. I think she was floating most of the way. :) we will have a mandatory meeting a week from monday where we should learn more about what is going to happen and then eventually tori will be assigned a particular orphan (at this point she just is "one of them") and we'll then know if she will have any speaking lines/solos or if she will be an ensemble orphan. heh. is that an oxymoron? ensemble orphan? a group of onlies? yeah, i'm tired.

like i said....emotionally exhausting weekend....but all good.

Tonight

The bulldogs are officially headed to the championship game on saturday as they beat wredling 29-6. connor had a really good game. it's hard to stand out when you are on the offensive line but he made some great blocks for a quarterback keeper for a touchdown as well as for a 2 point conversion and a nice running play.

 

 

it was nice to be up in bleachers for a change but that put me farther from the field as well. it was freezing at the game. i seemed to have gotten a lot of blurry pics. i'll have one more chance to get some decent shots on saturday when they play for the championship. although it won't be any warmer. better figure out my settings by then.....

tori has officially survived her first audition for community theater. there are no photos as parents are not even allowed in the theater (we are stuck waiting outside in the hallway). i think i was more nervous than she was. they started by taking the first 10 kids in to learn a quick dance routine and then they performed it as a group. i'm glad they did that first. i think that helped tori's nerves. then they took them upstairs where they sang for the director and 3 others. she was supposed to sing the 2nd verse and refrain (you only get 16 measures) but started with the first verse. so she stopped and started again and then made it through.

they plan to cast 50-60 kids for this show. hopefully she gets a part as i think this would be a great experience but the time commitment is huge. she had a really good attitude about it. i don't think she will be devastated if she doesn't make it but i also think she feels pretty good about making it.

zo had soccer practice and managed to not freeze. and that we will consider a success as well.