It snowed and other things that make me happy.

It started snowing as I was on my way to work. It proceeded to snow for about an hour. (Nothing stuck, as the ground is too warm.) I love snow. I think that it is the greatest thing. K- saw it at school and it was the first thing she told me tonight. My kid has my love for snow.

I was well enough to return to work and plod along full speed ahead on my nature tree. I'll be working a partial day on Thursday to finish decorating it.

K- got her report card today. It was wonderful! Other than being a doofus and forgetting her address (she came home and admitted it to me last week), she did a great job! After I made some more sight word cards for her from the list that was included with her report card, I counted what we need to review and there are 81 words. No kidding!

I won a Santa letter from We Are THAT Family. K- will be so excited! Thanks, Kristen!

Speaking of things Christmas, our Christmas cards arrived today and I LOVE! them!

My mother-in-law made beef vegetable soup and sent some home with me tonight. It was very thoughtful and hit the spot.

My drug cocktail seems to be working for me. 2 Advil, 1 Oscillococinum, 3 Vitamin C and 1 Mucinex every 12 hours. I certainly feel that need right now. I also feel that my bed is calling my name.

Now if you'll excuse me, my bed and I have a date. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Smiles in my day:
- See above, please!

Have a great day!

Works for Me Wednesday: Operation Christmas Child

A holiday tradition in my family is to put together a box for Operation Christmas Child. We always choose to put a box together for an older boy, since they are the ones that have the least amount of boxes donated.

What do we put in our box? Games! We put some card games in that would be usable for children who might not speak our language. We put dinosaur puzzles, musical instruments, toothpaste, a toothbrush, floss, soap and a pop up towel, school supplies, lollipops and a book. You want to be certain not to include any war type items, nothing liquid (that could leak if broken), no medications and no chocolate. (My post from last year more thoroughly details do's and don'ts.) We try to put decent things in the box because these are poor kids who have nothing. We also like to put our items in a plastic lidded box, as opposed to a shoe box. It is another way to add to the gift.

Collection dates are November 16-23. Click on the Operation Christmas Child link to find a collection facility in your area.

Smiles in my day:
- Though I missed work today because of fever and feeling like gunk, I tested negative for H1N1 and strep. Though there is no antibiotic to give to me, I should be feeling better in 7-10 days. My smile? Hubs took very good care of me, as he always does when I am sick. He made me soup, got me chips (tortilla chips were the only thing that sounded appetizing), kept taking my temperature and bought me a Cure CD while he was out. Such a sweet guy. I think that he was thankful that I bit the bullet and got the interior of my nasal passages and my throat swabbed so that he can go to work and say that he did NOT have H1N1.
- Hubs must not have had H1N1 and he will be returning to work tomorrow. He took Tuesday off, but felt well.
- K- was able to go hang with Grandma and Grandpa today. She got a full Grandma day in, which she was really sad that she might miss because of my being ill. Grandma took her to McDonald's (the drive thru) and swimming. It was a great Grandma day! I am so thankful that my mother-in-law kept her. It gave K- a fun day, rather than having mom sleep and have her watch far too much TV.

Have a great day!

Tales from the Trenches: A PSA

Use a pot holder or risk being branded by the toaster oven. Class dismissed.

Argh:
I think that it is safe to say that Hubs has fallen ill with H1N1. He called me today at work to tell me that he had a fever. His fever was 99.8 F, but he still had a fever and he has a very busy week. He called off for Tuesday to lay low and get well. He started feeling bad on Saturday night, but reported that he was feeling a bit better this AM. Hopefully this passes by him quickly and passes by me completely. Unfortunately, I have an incredibly busy two weeks at work.

Smiles in my day:
- I wore my hair down today and many people commented how much they liked it. I usually have it pulled back in some way because it gets girl curl crazy. Grant you, I had to pull it back in a loose pony tail later due to nearness to ceiling halogens (burnt hair smells nasty and I do it every year), but compliments were lovely. Makes me re-think pulling my hair back all the time.
- K-'s babysitter is getting married and was able to finalize the church and hall this past weekend. She was kind of sweating that. Now everything else can fall into place.
- K- has no school on Tuesday, so she'll be spending the day with Grandma. K- and Grandma haven't had a full day together in a while.
- I bought the game Gnip Gnop for Hubs tonight. I remember the game as a kid, called Hubs and asked him if he remembered it. He didn't, but told me to buy it for a sick present for him. Now, I don't know if you are familiar, but it's another game that I'm certain that my cousins had. We pronounced it Ga-nip Ga-nop. I know that the 'g' should be silent, but even if it is supposed to be (g)nip (g)nop, I'm still going to pronounce it Ga-nip Ga-nop. Hee, hee! I found the Gnip Gnop commercial on YouTube and I do pronounce it right! (Ping pong spelled backwards.) Look!

Have a great day!

Our dentist would be proud and other fine stories of the weekend

When your child with dental issues fetches a haul like this on Halloween weekend . . . . . . you bribe her with a bag of good loot in exchange for all but 30 pieces. We weeded out the non-sugar items/special treats. Then we had her choose 30 pieces, one for each day for a month. I traded her up for a bag of good things that I knew that she would like. The CD set is a sister set to one we already have and she loves. The CD set was $1.99. I scooped up the Barbie outfit for 97 cents, the dry erase print book and cheese dippers for $1.00 each at the dollar store and the stickers were on clearance at Walgreen's for 24 cents each with the Cow Tale as a check out bonus. She was happy with the trade and the dentist will love us, too!

Hubs is down with a cold, but still fully functional. In order to keep his germs to himself, he decided to skip church. He slept in, then took down all the halloween decorations including the haunted house he built with K- in the basement. Her play area is freed! :)!

I took K- to her very first roller skating party tonight. One of the girls in her class invited all of the kids to her birthday party tonight. Only a few of them showed. I don't know if that is typical or not, but K- was happy with the kids who did show up. It was the first time K- was on roller skates. She started with the spastic skate feet. She rolled over both of my feet multiple times, and I'm glad that I opted to wear the thicker leather Birkenstocks as opposed to my fabric Sauconys. She had so much fun. Truly, she was on the floor more than she was on her feet. I discovered that she did better when I wasn't with her, than when I was. Everytime she fell she laughed, so that was a good thing. Girlfriend is going to be bruised, though. I know that somehow she lobbed into my thigh and left a long blue bruise on it. But, she was so polite, very good and had so much fun. I was thrilled for her.

I have an odd scalp issue that has returned after a couple of years break. It's like I develop cradle cap in spots along my hairline in front. I know that hairspray can aggravate it, so I'll have to go without hair products for the week, and I've had to return to using an intensive dandruff shampoo instead. My scalp will chunk, chip, flake and seep. Oh, it is quite an attractive issue to have. I could see it coming on last week, but thought it was okay. I hate the scalp issue. It's gross.

I'm not a pocket diver when it comes to the laundry. Normally, everything is fine, though I have been the victim of a pen exploding and more laundered Chap Sticks than I can count. (Those will leave lovely grease deposits on your clothes, regardless to the fact that they are capped.) I decided to throw K-'s coat in the wash before we left for the party. I came home to transfer the coat to the dryer and found that K- had a tissue in her pocket. Duh! I knew that! Still, I didn't check the pockets and should have. I'm hoping that the dryer bounced all of the tissue remnants off of the coat.

K- has school Monday, she's off Tuesday because of voting in the schools, then back to her regularly scheduled educational days. (They can't control who comes in and out of the schools on election day, so they moved the Columbus Day holiday to voting day, in order to be certain that the kids are kept safe. K-'s school is always completely locked, with visitors having to be buzzed in and to check in with the secretary.) Hubs works a few 11 hour days, so I hope he is feeling better. I'm decorating another couple of trees this week, but will be on the long haul decorating gig next week.

In the meantime, smiles are included above and I'm tuckered. It didn't hit me until I sat down, but my bed is looking really good!

Have a great day!

My template is out of whack.

I don't know why. Then I decided that I would see if the other colors of the same template would do the same thing. The answer is yes. The problem is that I flipped back over to the color that I use and now it's deciding to hiccup and not let me change the font or the title color.

Argh.

Evening update:
I think that maybe Blogger was having a bit of a fit, as the template was fixed tonight and I could tweak my preferences again.

With a police escort and the high school band . . .

. . . K-'s elementary school Halloween Parade was a success. The rain clouds were looming. The crowds were large. We had about a mile to walk with 550 kids. We made it, though. We had a fantastic time. What a neat thing to do with the kids!

Smiles in my day:
- The parade with K-!
- Lifting the H1N1 quarantine for K- to visit my soon-to-be 92 year old grandmother. Apparently, my aunt and grandmother really missed us!
- I ordered our Christmas photo cards tonight. By going through My Points, I had free shipping and I had previously earned a free 11 x 14 poster with Snapfish. I ended up saving $14.97 and now I have the lily print ordered to put on the not-yet-painted kitchen wall! My husband was very glad. The Christmas card photo this year was a little more painful than it should have been. I was a woman on a mission. Sorry, honey.
- It warmed to 70 F later in the day and at 10:45 PM, I still have the bedroom window open! Those days will be gone soon. We're enjoying them while we can.

Have a great weekend!

The characters of our Halloween

K-'s pumpkin. She hollowed it out herself, with help only to open it up and later remove some strings. She carved and carved. We have Hubs' pumpkin on top and mine below. Hubs had to work late, so I was kind and hollowed his pumpkin out for him. I really don't like cleaning pumpkins. My pumpkin is the non-traditional one. You would have never guessed it, right? My other non-traditional pumpkin. I just don't have it in me to do the triangle thing that Hubs did. They all look nice, regardless of the shapes cut into them. I forgot to get little tealight candles, so right now we are lit with some lovely beeswax votives that my mom bought me many moons ago. The yearly photo. Hubs and K- trick or treating in my parents neighborhood. See that costume? My friend Laurie made it with me when K- was 2. We made it extra long figuring that she could wear it a couple of times, but I never thought that we would get one more stab at the re-run. I admit that K- was supposed to be Padme', but it just didn't pan out. She was cool with the butterfly though. She likes flying around in it. Opening up the goodie bag from Nana and Grandpa Big House. (AKA my parents. Hubs' parents live in a condo. Mine live in an old farm house. K- has been calling them that for years and it stuck. What does she call Hubs' mom? Nana Cheese. Nana's daily snack of cheese for K- earned her the nickname.) And away she goes. (You can see her coat peeking out from under the cape. It is a bonus to the cape, though. It is warm, but she can wear it over a thick winter coat and no one knows!) One more trick-or-treat. We have our neighborhood trick-or-treat on Saturday evening, but wouldn't you know, it is supposed to rain! We'll still go. We have rain gear.

Smiles in my day:
- Being able to trick-or-treat in my old neighborhood with Hubs and K-.

Have a great weekend!