Busy week

Sorry I haven't been around much. I guess I just haven't been in the blogging mood lately. Posting everyday in March must have worn me out because I haven't done much here in April. Plus it's a busy week this week.........I've been working one day a week lately. Now this week I'm working 4 in a row. It's all or nothing!

Tiger turns 9 on Monday. Where does the time go? I'm not much for throwing big birthday parties for the kids. So she has invited 3 of her friends over on Saturday to go out for pizza and games and then spend the night. Four 9 yr olds at once is more than enough! Then, lucky me gets to go in to work for 6 am on Sunday morning. That ought to be fun.

I'm beat, off to bed for me. I hope to try to pick things up a bit here and post a bit more than I have the past couple weeks.

PhotoHunt: Unique/Funny signs

How do you spell wood??

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Weekend Recap

Friday Night Concert

Friday night I got together with some friends to go see the Nelson Brothers perform. They did a tribute to their father Ricky Nelson and mixed in a few of their own tunes. I had a nice time. I'd love to share a bunch of pics but I only got this not so good one from my cell phone.

I decided I would just take my small digital that fits in my purse. Well, I didn't plan ahead at all. I haven't used it in a while so I picked it up when the show started, composed the shot and ..........oops, dead battery. So then I dig around in the pouch and..........oops, no extras. Some photographer I am!

They hang around after the show so anyone interest can say hi, get something signed and get a pic with them, so we got in line for that. I bought their CD and got that signed and a friend took the picture. I have to wait for her to send a print otherwise I'd share that too........well, if I look halfway decent.

Tennis anyone?

My kids participated in a tennis Rapid Rally tennis competition on Saturday morning. It's a skills competition where they hit the ball against the wall as many times as they can in 30 seconds. I'm proud to say that Tiger got 3rd place in her age group. WooHoo!

Skowt scored 1st in her age group and will advance to the regional competition in June! She was just beaming. I think she has found something she really enjoys. She had a lesson later that morning and then we had to go practice again in the afternoon.

Sad news

Tiger was bumming this weekend. Her Beta fish died sometime overnight on Friday. I think that affected her performance in the tennis competition, she didn't hit the ball nearly as many times as she had in the past. Not only that but we also lost her hermit crab on Sunday. Hubby noticed on Sunday morning he was out of his shell, which is not a good sign. By the afternoon he was dead. She wasn't as upset about that though. Now she is asking for everything under the sun as far as pets go. Unfortunately, she won't be getting anything. Hubby and I are just not pet people and I know whatever we got we'd end up having to take care of.

PhotoHunt: Thirteen (13)

Running a little behind on my photohunt post today. I had a hard time finding something to photograph that fit the theme. But I remembered an old photo I had so I decided to go retro today and embarrass myself in the process with a pic of me on my 13th birthday.

This is me with one of my favorite birthday gifts of all time...Rick Springfield's "Working Class Dog" album and an "I *heart* General Hospital" mug. I had some rough times around that age and Rick's music is what kept me going. I wore this album out!

And no, my kids did not get a hold of the pic and scribble on it. Twenty years later on my 33rd birthday, I was lucky enough to get the photo signed by Rick himself!

Hubby & I and another couple went to an out of town show he did on the night before my bday. We made a weekend out of it and booked a hotel for the night. It ended up being the same hotel Rick and the band were at. So the next morning as they were heading out to catch their flight hubby *made* me ask if Rick would sign it. It took all the courage I had and if hubby wasn't there to encourage me I probably wouldn't have done it and would have been kicking myself in the a** for the rest of my life!

I was actually able to tell Rick the story of the photo and he wished me a Happy Birthday. I think I floated home that day.

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My first passport

Went today to get my first ever passport. Hopefully that will mean lots of traveling in the future. Ha! I'm so funny. Hubby and I are going on a cruise in November so we thought we'd get it taken care of early. Since they are good for 10 yrs. I told him that means he can take me on a few more out of the country trips to get some use out of it. Maybe, if we ever win that lottery.

I don't know why I didn't take and bring our own photos. The ones they took there suck! We both look orange. Just as bad as my driver license pictures, they always suck too.

We've been busy the past week planning three trips we have coming up this year. We're going to the WI Dells in May, Massachusetts to visit family in August and the cruise in November.

Looking forward to lots of fun and having some stories and pics to share......stay tuned.

Things have changed

Gone are the days when I you stick your head out the door and yell out into the neighborhood for your kids to come in for dinner.

Tonight I just called Skowt up on her cell phone.

Photo Hunt: Twist(ed)

Taken last September. This is part of a fence surrounding a cemetery in the area.

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My "baby"

I forgot to mention last night that I picked up my camera yesterday. Finally. Of course they took the full time they told me to clean it.

She appears to be just fine. I still have yet to test it well to make sure the spots are gone. The weather was just nasty yesterday do no outside pics. I tried a few indoors with plain backgrounds and didn't see anything. Nothing worthy of posting, just pics of the walls! lol I already deleted them. I usually noticed the spots on pics including the light blue sky so I will try again when the weather gets nice. Which could be awhile.......sigh.

Off to work again today for me. Have a great day!

I've created 2 monsters!!

When I was a pre-teen/teen I loved buying all the teen magazines. You know the ones, Tiger Beat, Teen Beat, Bop, 16 magazine etc. My walls were covered with the posters and pin-ups from those mags.

Well, yesterday I decided to have a little fun with my daughters. My mom and I tease them once in a while about liking Zac Efron or the The Jonas Brothers. So I bought a couple of the mags with big fold out posters and found one of Nick Jonas and hung it up in Skowt's room directly in front of her door so she'd see it as soon as she walked toward her room. I was just curious to see what she'd say and figured she'd take it down.

She came home from school, walked in her room and yelled "MOM" like I knew she would. But then she asked where it came from and I showed her the magazines and she got all excited and started picking out more pics to hang up. She helped me pic one out to pull the same prank on Tiger.

Later in the afternoon I had to take Skowt to the orthodontist and stop at the grocery store. She just had to go by the magazines and get 2 more(with her own $ this time!). Then Tiger came home today asking when we could go get some more magazines.

Uh-oh! I think I created a couple monsters. I did it as kind of a joke now I think they are hooked........just like I was at that age!

Getting nowhere fast

I had plans to get a bunch of stuff done around the house today. Why is it that as the day goes on the list just seems to get longer and longer? For every thing I cross off I find two more that I want to get done! So frustrating!

So I decided to take a break and play on the computer. Probably not a good idea.

I had to bring my camera in over the weekend to get it cleaned. I've been noticing some spots on some of my pics so I think there is some dust on the sensor. I'm pretty sure it's not the lens because I got the same spots on different pics each taken with a different lens.

I took it in on Saturday, he told me it would be done by Thursday. He'd call if it was sooner. That's 5 days without my baby!! It's never spent the night away from me! I hope she's OK! lol

Photo Hunt: Glass

*sigh* I wanted to share these old glass milk bottles. My grandfather used to be a milk man, back in the day when they still delivered these bottles to your doorstep in the early morning. These are from the farm that he drove for.

But....... being the procrastinator that I am, I waited until the last minute to try taking some photos. I'm not real happy with how they turned out. This is the best of what I got but it's not the original.

I'm on my laptop right now and haven't taken the time to install my new Photoshop Elements on it. So I went to a site called picnik.com and found a "1960s" setting that I applied to it. I thought that was kind of fitting because of the age of the bottles. I like it better but still wish I would have maybe had something to fill them with so you can read the writing better and not see the writing on the opposite side show through.

Live and learn, I guess!

Close to home

Yesterday there was a big explosion in town. They are doing some construction on the main road through town and a gas main was struck. A local church and the adjacent home were both destroyed.

You see stuff like this on the news in others towns and think about how tragic it is, but when it happens right in your own town it's kind of scary. This church is blocks away from where hubby works, just a minute away from Skowt's middle school. Hubby said he felt the affects of the blast at home. Right across the street is the community center where we sign the kids up for Rec dept. activities. I've been hearing that local businesses in the area of the construction are concerned about this happening again.

Luckily there were no fatalities. There were a few minor injuries and another person is still in the hospital tonight but in good condition. My heart goes out to the members of the church and the family who lived in the house that was destroyed.

I put a couple pics on my photoblog, a before and after (I went over today to have a look).

I have the news on now, they knocked down the rest of what was left standing today after I took my pics. There was also debris found in a town about 20 miles away....amazing.

Things can change in an instant.