Monday, November 16, 2009

Veteran's Day Tournament

He shoots and scores.
He'll dive for the ball.
He takes on the big guys.

Who is your favorite basketball player? This is mine.
Five teams in the 8th Grade Boys division. Two from Fairbanks, two from Anchorage and one from Barrow. Six games in three days. Come back tomorrow to see how his team placed.

Mellow Yellow Monday








Drowsey Monkey hosts Mellow Yellow Monday if you want to play along.


A few nights ago Dad played Uno with Olivia and Lucas. Lucas was sporting a shirt with several shades of yellow. He was also dealt quite a few yellow cards.

He laid them out there, worked on learning his colors and numbers, and then beat them both!

Friday, November 13, 2009

The List Will Have to Wait

We've had a stormy couple of days that has required a lot of shoveling. What follows the storm? Crisp, clear skies. Our temperatures are supposed to take a dive and it is currently ELEVEN DEGREES BELOW ZERO. That's right, -11F. I am so not ready for the bitter cold. I mean, being cold is one thing, but that bitter cold that takes your breath away. Not ready for it. What will I do when it is -40F? I shudder to think of it.
This is the view from the deck we never use. You have to be quick to catch a sunset as they happen pretty fast. Notice the snow on the railing...that's what we've gotten so far.

Here's the deck we never use. My husband calculates that I have about 316 cubic feet of snow to move (the deck is 60' X 8'). He figures my shovel holds about one cubic foot. All the snow has to go off that far end. I have a lot of work to do!

I'd like to say I did a lot around the house today, but I didn't. I shovelled about an hour. I did three loads of laundry. I drove Nick to meet his buddies to go snowboarding. Picked Elijah up from school. I took Elijah to get a pair of shorts. I picked up Grandma Debbi and then Emily. We watched this boy play this game.

Then I watched this girl play this game. (My great-niece). Then we drove Tyler and Elijah to Tyler's, Debbi and Olivia to Debbi's, Emily and Jadyn to her dad's and then I went home.


A busy day, I suppose, but it still doesn't feel like I did much. Tomorrow Elijah has games at 11:00, 1:00 and 8:00pm so we'll be down to the gym at 10:00am to start our day. I don't think much will be happening around the farm. Maybe Sunday?

How About That List?

Out of complete randomness I share this...one my biggest peeves....people who drive down the road with mounds of snow on their car because they are too lazy to sweep it off.

Wednesday my Excursion went to the shop to get the studded tires put on. I had to drive the van. I became one of those people. Yep, I was too lazy to clean it off.

The snowing and blowing started Wednesday with the real heavy stuff on Thursday.

Another randomness...I made funnel cakes for the first time and they were great.

I made a Thursday Thirteen list of things I wanted to accomplish yesterday. This was not on the list, but I had to do it anyhow. How do two little people make such a mess? This was not all of it.

I decided to tackle shovelling first and headed out while it was still dark.

I shovelled all the snow away from the front of the house and dragged this shelter across the yard all by myself. Let me just say it was damn heavy and not the brightest thing I've done lately, but I get tired of asking for help that never comes.

My idea is to pile the snow out in the drive and then my husband will get the plow truck running and push it away. Or not.

The snow just didn't let up and that concrete (and all the rest of it) was buried a few hours later so I get to start all over today. (Nick just shovelled the stairs and sidewalk as a trade off to go snowboarding. Yes!)


Roscoe helped me. I really had to pay attention because when he comes bounding full force if you aren't ready you'll end up on the ground.

A lot of my photos were like this: dogless. He's pretty spastic.

I did four loads of laundry from my list. That wasn't all of it, but it was a start.

Olivia and I went back out into the night to do a little more shovelling. See how it is all covered again? Such pretty white.

It really was clear down to concrete, but by the time I could get my camera out of my pocket it was white again! After 3.5 hours of working outside I gave up for another day.

Another item on my to-do list was to bathe four dogs. And we did.

This is Olivia with Sally.

Rusty...

Ruby....

Roxie.

All so silky soft and smelling so good.

One of the other items on the list was to work on hockey Cd's. And I did. I burned 24 Cd's and printed 48 labels. Now I need to make the highlight DVDs (just random shots from the season put to music) and burn those. I think I'll get this done before Thanksgiving! Ya!

So what didn't I do?
2. Bake cookies. The kids did break open the mint chips and ate some so that's kind of like having cookies.
4. Clean out my truck. Nick had it most of the day so that wasn't really possible, but he just cleaned it out while I typed this so it got done!
5. Take the bed out of Lucas' room. Didn't bother. Homer didn't get home from work until after 8:00pm so it wasn't like we were going to work on the room anyhow. He works too much.
6. and 7. Quilting and sewing didn't even enter my mind. I really wonder if I ever have time for that.
8. Call about school photos. I did call at 4:02pm to be precise. They closed at 4:00pm. That's my luck.
11., 12, and 13. I totally failed. No ripping up of cabinets, the wild birds were left on their own and by the time the evening ended I was too tired to soak my feet. I just went to bed.

Elijah starts a basketball tournament tonight so I'll be watching him and my niece play. I just ran Nick to town to hook up with Adam, Trey and James to go snowboarding at Birch. I've go 1/2 an hour and it's back to get Elijah and shop for shorts for tonight's game. I seriously doubt I'll get anything done past more shovelling. I'll let you know if I do.

I do have to admit I'm glad I put "the list" out there. I know for a fact puppy baths would have been skipped last night if I hadn't listed it. I was tired and wanted to sit, but I was driven by "the public list". I think I may do this more often.



Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Thursday Thirteen


Have a list of 13 things you want to share? Go here!
Thirteen things I should really do tomorrow:
1. Shovel the sidewalk and stairs. We are supposed to get 2-6 inches of new snow depending on where you are. I think I've already got 3 or so.
2. Bake cookies. I picked up peanut butter chips, peppermint chips and creme de mint chips tonight at the store. Lots of cookies!
3. Catch up the laundry. Not sure what the deal is, but I'm several loads behind.
4. Clean out my truck. So many shoes/coats/boats/toys/clothes are making it hard to find a seat. And there are nine!
5. Take the bed frame out of Lucas' room. Then it will be empty, we can pull up the carpet, finish up the trim, re-carpet and it will be all done and ready to decorate. Yea!
6. Being preparation for the quilt I'm making someone for Christmas. Time will run out before I know it.
7. Pull out my flannel and find the pajama pattern. We were going to buy some pajamas for the girls tonight. They wanted $36 for a shirt and pants. I don't think so!
8. Call about ordering school photos for Nick. He neglected to bring home the form and now I need to see if I can still order them.
9. Work on hockey cd's. I finished burning 36 cd's with 2523 photos for the basketball parents and handed them out at the banquet. Now I've edited 2007 photos from a past hockey team and will give those photos to the parents. I should have done this two years ago, and the guilt rides on my shoulders all the time. I will finish them this week!
10. Bathe four of the dogs. They don't smell so great.
11. Start ripping apart the old kitchen. Looking forward to having a big bonfire with the cabinets. They are so not worth saving.
12. Fill the wild bird feeder. I bet they ran out of seed awhile ago.
13. Take time to soak my feet. My feet are so dry, cracked, calloused and nasty. I've got to start taking some time for myself.
Check back tomorrow and I'll let you know if I actually did anything on this list! :)

Dogs on Thursday: New Bed

Share your pup on Thursdays!







Roxie and Rusty love that I put the big dog bed in the chair next to my computer. They want to be as close to me as possible.
After 423 photos (not really, but it felt like it) this is the best I could get of all four together. How do you get your dogs to pose for photos? Mine just aren't trained well enough to sit still especially Ruby (green collar) and Sally (pink collar). They will be two December 27. Will they ever calm down?
This is how Roxie likes it best...the bed all to herself. Rusty would rather give it to her than lay next to her. Ornery little dogs.

This Way Thursway!

Come on....share a sign!


First time I've seen this version of a dog sign.

Tell Me Thursday: Pitch Black Dark








Do you Wordless Wednesday? Tell Me about it on Thursday!


Wednesday I shared the view from my truck while Elijah gets on the bus. Every morning at 6:32am we drive 1.2 miles up Isberg and .3 miles down Chena Ridge to sit in his father's driveway and wait for bus #36. At exactly 6:42am every.single.day the bus pulls up. This is a photo of the bus coming up the Ridge. It's dark. Very dark. No yard lights. No streets lights. No moon or stars. Just pitch black dark. I feel bad for the kids who have to walk down dark driveways to stand on this dark road in the bitter cold. (The bus will keep running at -40 or -50 or whatever insane temperatures we get). My son sits in a nice warm truck.

This is my drive home back down Isberg road. Pitch black dark. There are only three driveways off of this road and only one house is actually next to the road giving light. My house is the closest to this road, but my actual driveway is off of Bluegrass. I'm sure you can Google that if you are interested.

I'll be glad when my moose lights are actually on my truck so I can light up the world!

Wordless Wednesday




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