Buying a home

The time has come for us to finally buy a home. It has been an absolute whirlwind. I believe it was December 7 when we went to an open house to check out a house we have been eyeing for a year. They originally wanted what we felt was too much for the house but a few weeks ago they dropped the price to a more manageable amount.

We went with the intent of just taking a look at the house. We really weren't in a buying mode, or mood. Ha. After one look at the house we thought, we HAVE to try to get this house.

Here's a picture of the house...

The house is by no means a beauty on the outside but it is so exciting on the inside.

4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a full finished basement and enough storage for 3 families! There are things to fix up, like the decor in this kitchen...

...but the house is clean as a whistle, tight as a drum and absolutely ready to move into. I will even have my own dedicated craft room.

So here we are, on the road to home ownership. In a way this helter skelter pace is best for us as if we had time to sit and ponder it we would inevitably decide it's too much or too something and not go through with it. In a sense we were jolted out of our apathy and I think that's a good thing.

Now you know what our Christmas gift is to each other. Merry Christmas to all!

Life, in general

Life has been so busy and messy lately. I am feeling a sense of melancholy and I am not sure what will fix it. I think I need a break from the day-to-day.

I also need to get my craft on. I am not doing much of anything creative and it is causing me to wilt inside.

I am heading out of town for the weekend, alone. I am hoping it will be a good chance to recharge my batteries.

On being home alone

I talked about this topic on my MySpace blog but I have been thinking about it so much lately that I think it's worth another blog post.

Today, thanks to many people, I am home alone. I LOVE being home alone. In fact, I like being home alone so much I imagine myself retiring to my own little house or apartment when I grow older. Thing of it is, C. imagines the same thing.

So how do you work that out that a husband and wife, who love each other by the way, both dream of someday having their own place and just visiting each other occasionally?

We joke that we should buy a duplex and each have our own side. We even agree that we should call each other first before dropping by. (That part is actually a joke-I think.)

The problem with this plan is that most people look at us like we are insane. Apparently most people are not sitting at home thinking of ways to have separate abodes unless there is divorce involved. Here's the thing though, we don't want to divorce. We do have fun doing things together. We have fun talking to each other. We want to tell each other about our days, our finds, our jokes, our stories. We don't want anyone else for those things. We just want to go to bed in our own bed, in our own room, in our own house.

Since neither one of us is independently wealthy the reality is that we will always share a house. Just don't be surprised when you find us with separate bedrooms within that house.

Ahhhhh.....love.....isn't it funny?

I love that man...

That man would be my husband. I really do love him. We rarely keep track of anniversaries, other than the big one that happens once a year (which we have actually been known to forget-how bad is that?) but I have been thinking about it a lot lately as we approach our 21st year together.

What do I love most about him? Probably the fact that as hard as I am to live with he keeps on making the effort. Whenever he makes me bat-shit crazy I try to remember to stop and think about the fact that for every weird thing he does I have my own weird thing that drives him nuts. Somehow we have mostly been able to overlook those things.

And we are not some Pollyana couple who thinks we are immune to any sort of difficulty or heartbreak. It's just that neither one of us has the time or the energy to be worrying about bad things that "might" happen. Our philosophy has always been that we trust each other until we give the other a reason not to trust.

I actually did have a boyfriend before I met C. and while I was really just a child and very naive I thought I loved that boy. He had me convinced that love was demeaning, belittling, violent, heartbreaking. In fairness to him he was just a child too and must have grown up with that. However, even as a teenager C. was completely different from this boy.

C. has ALWAYS encouraged me to be my own person. He didn't want an appendage, he wanted a partner. He wanted me to be strong and independent and always encouraged me to have my own friends. He never wanted my world to revolve solely around him. And it's not as if this man grew up with a perfect parenting model. For those of you who know his story it's amazing he is even half the man that he has turned out to be.

So yeah, I love him. I am glad that I will be celebrating my 14th year of marriage to him this year and our 21st year as a couple. I wouldn't want it any other way. We don't have all the answers and most of the time we don't even know the questions but we keep on trying. Day in, day out.

I love you, C. Thank you for being mine.
Shana Marie

Glass, Twilight, Crafting

I have a lot to talk about but I think this is going to be a short post. As with everyone else, life is busy right now.


I was at a work conference last week in Tacoma. I wanted to go to the Museum of Glass but it wasn't open during the hours I was free so I only got to walk through the Bridge of Glass but WOW, was it awesome. Look at this gorgeousness!!!








After that the family headed to Vancouver to visit relatives. We went to the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. It was really neat. Brandon knew about almost every plane in there. He is so into military history, it's almost scary. This is the museum's website. It is home to the Spruce Goose. Quite a large plane. I wish I could have gotten a photo of it but it is just too big to fit into one frame.



The next day we went boating in the Columbia River. Talk about beautiful. Here's a photo:





And another:



We were all exhausted when we got home but it was a nice way to end the summer. As if we are actually done with summer. I think I will have to go back to work to actually get any rest from our run-run-run lifestyle.



Now on to the good stuff. Twilight. Have you read it? It's by Stephinie Meyer. It's about vampires. It's great. I read the first 3 books in the series in the past week. I want to start the 4th book but I don't have it yet and figure I better take a bit of a break so I am reading Middlemarch by George Eliot. I really recommend it (Twilight, that is-although Middlemarch is good too). It's supposed to be for Young Adults and I am sure it is (and there is a refreshing lack of sex, although it is very sexy) but it reads well for Old Adults too.



Finally, I must point everyone in the direction of a wonderful artist. She lives near Tri-Cities and she has the CUTEST stuff in the world. Crabapple Hills Studio resides here. If you look for Hocuspocusville you can see what I am going to work on next. Well, a modified version anyway. I'm not ready for quilting yet.

No knitting going on at the moment. I finished a burp rag and need to start another but I am in a reading mode, not a knitting mode. Enjoy the rest of summer. I'm off to work on some dishes.

Celebration of Life and Family Reunion

We had our family reunion this weekend but before we met at the park to do that we met at the cemetery to bury my grandmother's ashes. It was a beautiful service. Very touching and the pastor did a wonderful job. He even wore a pink shirt under his suit jacket because he knew that Grandma was so colorful.

I would like to share the remembrance that I wrote and read at the ceremony.

My Grandma

As I am sure all of you do, I have a lot of memories of Grandma and I just wanted to share some of those today.

Grandma had so much personality. Could there be a grandma with a more colorful wardrobe? Or bigger, wilder costume jewelry? Or a better sense of humor? I know that in my life she was definitely one of a kind.

I remember when Grandma lived on Viola with her awful dog, Ratfink (and was there ever another dog as mean, nasty and ugly as that one?). Yet Grandma loved that mutt so we just steered clear of him.

Her little house was always full of stuff. As a child I had no concept of wealth and I must have thought Grandma was surely rich with all of her little "things". She always had something new to show you that she had just picked up at a yard sale and she always had to tell you about the great price she paid.

And Grandma was always such a child at heart. She was forever buying dolls or stuffed animals or little toys. And you had to be careful because if you admired a toy there was a good chance she would end up sending it home with you.

I remember her white wigs. Even as a child I wondered why she would wear a white wig when she had perfectly good brown hair.

I remember she had weird peppermint liquid soap. She claimed you could use it for EVERYTHING-even for brushing your teeth. I think that may have been a joke because of course I had to taste it once and it was GROSS! But maybe it wasn't a joke?

Grandma liked to tease that she could probably take my husband, C., in a fight. She was definitely feisty. And she loved my boys so very much.

And that was another thing-maybe the best thing-about Grandma. She accepted people warts and all. You didn't have to be perfect to be in her "family". All the people who called her Ma. She could find something good to say about every one of them. I would like to be like that.

I miss her but I like to think that wherever she is now she's dressing flashy and eating dessert first.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Other people shared their memories too and it was just lovely. Afterwards we met at the park and my aunt shared some of Grandma's journal writings. To read them just made my heart soar. I never knew what a wonderful writer my grandmother was. She had such an intelligence that shined through in her words and her stories could sure make you laugh.

She wrote one little note about my dad and it was very touching. It said (and I am sure I will get a few things wrong) "D. has taken on the role of father to the other children. He has brought dignity to this family. He is such a generous person." I made Dad read it and I think he was quite touched by it too.

It was a very nice reunion. We sang Happy Birthday to Grandma and released balloons and we will all miss her. I hope that the family can continue to carry on with reunions now that she is gone. I worry about that.

I love you Grandma. Be good.

Baseball Fanatics

What a week this has been! We went to the Mariner's game on Sunday then C called me Tuesday afternoon and asked if I wanted to go to Wednesday's game. One of his coworkers wasn't going to make the game and wanted to know if we wanted his 4 tickets! But of course!!!

Off we went Wednesday afternoon to see the M's play the Florida Marlins. Once again the M's lost but we had a great time. Our seats were in the 27th row up from 3rd base. Great seats and a great time once again.

I really have baseball fever and I don't even care whether they win or not. Of course it would be nice if they would win for a change but it is just great fun to be there.

Here's a pic of Ichiro lining up to bat. Not as clear as it could be.

So now we are home for a while and I don't see anymore baseball games in our near future but there is a Stitch 'N Pitch going on August 7th which coincides with a training I have to attend in Tacoma and I think it would be just AWESOME to go watch a game with hundreds of other knitting fanatics. We'll see. I haven't fully decided yet.

And lest anyone think I have given up knitting for good I assure you I have not. Here's a little duo I just finished to go in my kitchen. The tube is one of those things you can shove plastic grocery store bags in and the dishcloth is a ballband pattern. The colors aren't exactly like my kitchen (turquoise 1950's) but will do.

Up next for our family is 4th of July then summer camp for the boys. And swimming. Lots of swimming. We got our passes to the pool again this year so if you are looking for us, that's probably where we'll be! Happy summer.

Camping picture

I just had to add this picture. It actually happened the week before the M's game, when we went camping with some friends and Grandpa. All the kids and Dad were sitting down looking at the lake and it makes my heart feel glad to have caught this picture.

M's game and garlic fries

Take me out to the ballgame...

We went to our first Mariner's game ever on Father's Day this year and what a great time! The Mariners did not win (2-6 against the Washington Nationals) but we didn't care one bit.

T.'s Cub Scout troop was given tickets by a business here in town so the boys could take their families and we all went. I think C. was surprised that I wanted to go but I really enjoy watching baseball in person and knew it would be good to go and was it ever!

Our seats were up in the upper level but it didn't matter one bit. We could still see the game and while I am sure it would be heavenly to sit right behind the M's bullpen it felt like sitting up in the nosebleed section just made it more "authentic" for our first experience. Like what it's supposed to be or like what it was back in the heydey of Babe Ruth. Baseball is supposed to be accessible to everyone and sitting up there in the top seats made it seem like everyone could be there. Hard to explain, just right somehow.

The boys and C. took their mitts to catch that "knock it out of the ballpark" hit that, sadly, never came our way. Ah well, maybe next time. And for sure there will be a next time. We just all fully enjoyed it.

Since this was my first professional sporting event (well, if you don't count professional wrestling back in the 80's that we took my grandmother to see-and while it was fun in a slightly embarassing way, I am not going to count it) I am not sure how Safeco field stacks up against other venues but I have to say I was completely impressed. It felt like the best place to bring your family. We didn't have drunks slopping beer on people, no profanity, no idiocy. Sure, there are probably times that happens but it didn't happen around us.

As for our day, we got to the parking garage about 45 minutes before the gates opened. We walked halfway around the stadium for reasons I cannot understand and ran into some of the other scouts from our troop. Lucky thing we did too because soon after we got in they told us there was going to be a parade on the field and did we want to go? Heck yeah! Here's the view the M's have when they are walking out onto the field from their locker rooms.

Out you come onto the field and this is what you see...

The M's practicing right there in front of you. Awesome!

So, we finally make our way to our seats and as you are walking through the whole stadium I gotta tell ya, you start smelling a really wonderful smell.

You walk and you smell it. Then you don't. Then a second later you smell it again. Then you don't. At one point you start thinking you are imagining this smell. I mean, truly, how can it be ALL OVER THE STADIUM!?!??? And the smell kind of scares you because while it smells a bit like heaven on Earth it also smells like it could send you running for the Pepto after eating too much of it. The smell, you ask.....Garlic, of course.

Why no one warned me about this lovely smell is a mystery. Maybe it's because you don't really walk up to your friends and start talking about your love of garlic. It's kind of a personal thing, really. I mean, we all know it is a killer on the breath so who wants to admit that they would bathe in it if it were an option? I guess most well-bred people keep the subject of garlic to themselves. Not once did anyone say, Hey girl, make sure you try the garlic fries.

And there it is. The garlic smell comes from Grounders garlic fries. Garlic fries that look like this...

And frankly, this picture is not even completely accurate because mine had like twice the garlic piled on. But I must tell you, I resisted the urge to buy them until the 5th inning. And let me explain why. That garlic smell was everywhere. People kept walking by with piles of garlic fries. I was slobbering over them. But I KNEW, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if I ate those garlic fries I would have intestinal discomfort for the next 12 hours minimum. And you know what? By the 5th inning I didn't care if I had discomfort for the next 12 years. I HAD to have those fries.

I waited 1/2 hour in line for those fries. I ate 1/4 of them on the way back to my seat. I sat down and offered to share them with C. but he said he was going to go buy a beer. I ate another 1/4. I waited. I really wanted to share because I knew C. would appreciate this taste of bliss and I knew I would give him kisses later and frankly, I didn't want to kill the man. I ate another 1/4 while waiting. At that point with only 1/4 of the fries left I felt it was just ridiculous to only offer him that small amount and what was taking him so long anyway and I ate the rest of those fries all by myself.

And the best part of all? While I was able to protect my entire family from a whole fleet of vampires, my stomach didn't bother me much at all. Get the fries. You'll be glad you did.

Schools Out!

No more recess
No more books
No more teacher's dirty looks!


I survived the first year of working at school! I LOVE my job. I would be lying if I didn't also admit that I am REALLY glad it's summer vacation time! Working with kids all day can tend to wear a person out and the thought of 3 months of downtime is pure bliss. Of course, my own kids started fighting the first day off.

I caught the blooming of my peonies this year. All three plants bloomed. This was my favorite. They smell so lovely, I wished they bloomed year-round. My gardens are an absolute mess and I don't feel much up to rectifying the situation. I didn't even grow any tomatoes this year.

My garden is a good indicator of how I feel right now. Kind of disjointed and disorganized. With gas being so expensive, and food being so expensive and just life being so expensive it is feeling a bit overwhelming lately. I am trying to take comfort in the fact that everyone is feeling the pinch these days and I am most definitely not alone.

We do have some upcoming fun. This Father's Day we will go to Safeco Field to catch an M's game. I have never been and now that I really understand what is going on in baseball (well, there are a few rules on outs and stuff that I don't quite get yet) I am really looking forward to it. T's Cub Scout group was given tickets from a generous company here in our town so that all the boys could go and take their families.

As to my other summer plans, I am going to try to learn to use my camera, clean out closets, clean up my craft space and keep up with my Weight Watchers. That's been a struggle lately. We have been eating a lot of junk during baseball season and I am trying to kick myself back into gear to lose weight.

I will write more when I am more coherent. I'm just feeling very disjointed today.

Wherein I am outed as the Easter Bunny

Like all good things, I suppose this too must end...

I thought we were going along just fine. B. has never questioned the Easter Bunny. He has blissfully enjoyed his chocolate rabbits, cheap toy chickens that lay jelly bean eggs, Whoppers until he is sick to his stomach-you get the idea.

Oh sure, he probably heard rumors at school. Kids will talk. I am sure he thought to himself, "Hmmmm.....could it be true? Could Mom and Dad be behind it all?" But this kid has got it goin' on. He knew he had a good thing and he wasn't going to screw it up. Consequently we have had 11 good years.

Along comes T. Now T. is fully as smart as his brother was at that age but there is one thing T. hasn't figured out yet. When it comes to the Easter Bunny you just keep your mouth shut and play along.

My dear boy gets up early. I know this. It's not a big surprise. I dutifully set my alarm for 6:15 Sunday morning. I figure that will give me a good 40 minutes before any child wakes up. But NO. T. hears me moving in my room and gets up to go to the bathroom. I knew he was awake at that point but it was still pretty dark in the house and I thought I could pull this off.

While he is in the bathroom I run out of the house as quietly as possible and start hiding eggs. All the time I am thinking, Gotta hurry, gotta hurry, gotta hurry. Then I start thinking, How am I gonna get in the house? How am I gonna get in the house? How am I gonna get in the house?

I get the eggs hidden away and quietly slip back in. I think I have pulled it off. Victory! Whooo Hoooo! One more year of the fantasy.

Alas, it was not to be...

After we go out and hunt the eggs C. takes me aside and says that T. saw me through the window hiding the eggs. NO!!!! We go through half the day and T. doesn't say a word. Finally he comes in and wants to tell me something.

"Mama, I saw you hiding eggs."

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did."

"Well I was just helping the Easter Bunny because he was running late."

"Huh-uh. I saw you."

"You're crazy. (yes, I know it's despicable to call your kids crazy but it can be an effective diversion-of course not this time...) I just had to help the Easter Bunny."

"You're the Easter Bunny."

"NO, I AM NOT!"

Somehow we make it through the rest of the day and as I am tucking T. into bed Sunday night the last thing I hear as I head out the door....."Good night, Easter Bunny."

"Good night, T."

The one statement you should NEVER make

Know what it is? I'm sure we have all uttered it at one time or another. Wanna guess?

"It just can't get any worse."

I didn't actually say it but I have to admit I am thinking it inside of my head and the little things just keep piling up. I must admit, this is all very minor in the grand scheme of things. Everyone has their health, my family is safe, the bills are paid, food in the cupboards, etc. Mostly it's just that I have been bombarded with little nitpicky things that are making me insane.

We've all been there. It makes me wonder how drama queens thrive in that kind of environment. You know them. Whenever you talk they always have 15 things going wrong, all at the same time, their life is totally falling apart and they seem to be blissfully flourishing in their mess. Me--I'd like to head straight for the Valium. Speaking of which, why don't they hand that out to us moms like they used to in the old days? I've had Valium once in my life when I was having terrible muscle spasms in my back and have never had it since. But from what it sounds like they used to give that stuff out like it was candy back in the day....Progress? I'm not so sure.

So what has me so crazed? Like I said, it's nothing big. But the list of little things has been piling up....

1. The alternator went out on my van exactly 10 days after my warranty expired. Is there some kind of timer that goes off telling a vehicle it is time to fall apart? You would be hard-pressed to convince me otherwise. And while we are on the subject, did you know that the dealer (it's a Kia Sedona-not that I would recommend you buy one) charges $1100.00 to put in a new alternator? Did you further know that the alternator actually only costs $170.00? As I told my husband, this is why I married a mechanic. Two days later and he has it fixed for me. I really need to tell that man I love him.
2. A student asked me if I was a hunchback.
3. Another student called me the mean teacher.
4. A third student read the word "daydream" and asked me what a "wet dream" was. Yikes! I think I did a pretty smooth save on that one though. I told the group we had a lot of words to read and we really need to keep moving. Ack.
5. Forgot to pay some bills on time. This was after asking dh to pay them then changing my mind and telling him I would take care of it. I have this nasty little habit where once I say something it is POOF, gone from my head and I figure it is handled.
6. B. is having a birthday this weekend.
7. I just found out I am not going to get to go to my craft night because dh has a meeting.
8. Moving the clocks ahead has ruined me.

So you see, those are minor things. Oh, I forgot maybe the best one. I found this cool show on FitTv called Shimmy. It's belly dancing lessons. I taped a couple of the shows to give it a try. B. happened to catch me practicing and went screaming from the room yelling, "My eyes, my eyes! They burn!" Brat!

The very next day here is the comic I found... Zits

I hope you can read it. My mom called me specifically to tell me about it. Thanks Mom. It is pretty funny. B. got a big giggle out of it.

I'm off to sleep. I have to try to wrap my brain around being a nicer person.

New camera

Here I am sitting down to type on the blog when I should be going to bed. Oh well, tomorrow's Friday, right?

I got me a nifty new camera today. Now the obvious thing to do would be to display a beautiful picture that I took with this new camera, wouldn't it? But Nooooooo, that's not what I am going to do. I am still trying to figure out how to use the darn thing.

Can someone explain to me WHY a simple DVD player has 98 pages of instructions but a camera with a number of features only has about 7 pages of instructions? This thing didn't tell me how to put the battery in, how to put the memory chip in, how to make a video, nothing. Nada.

All the booklet basically has is a legend showing what all the little symbols on the screen stand for. Mind you, it doesn't tell you which buttons to push to get those little symbols to show up on the screen, just what they mean if you ever happen upon them in your frustrated efforts to take a picture. So we will see what comes of that. It's a cute camera though, if that counts for anything. Let's see if I can find it. My camera (but mine's in red). Hey, that website is pretty good. Apparently there's a "fun" feature on my camera. Whatta ya know, Joe?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On to other topics. Lost another pound tonight. Brings my grand total to 16.4. This has been a long week with some emotional baggage from my job and I will be glad to leave it behind. Looking forward to some R&R this weekend and maybe some knitting.

Spring? Are you out there? Spring?

So this seems to be more of a seasonal blog than anything else and that's ok. It is what it is, right? I think I am just plum tuckered out and most of my computer time is spent on mindless drivel these days.

Work is going well. I just started Weight Watchers about 3 1/2 weeks ago. 12.4 lbs. gone so far. I have a long way to go (and a short time to get there)--sorry, I just broke into a Smokey and the Bandit song. Don't tell C. I swear to him that I HATE that movie. Along with Rudy, Red Dawn, anything with Sylvester Stallone in it, Ahhhnold, etc. I swear, that man will sit through a movie he has seen nine million times if he comes across it on cable. He doesn't even care that he comes in at the middle. He just sits and enjoys it at whatever point it starts at when he gets there. Humph!

Oh yeah, I was saying....Weight Watchers. I've done it before online but for some reason it skeeved me out to be losing the weight. I started having panic attacks and garbage like that. Why? Who knows. Obviously I have some issues with keeping the weight for "protection". So I think that means I really have to do some work this time around to make sure I am not my own worst enemy. I am going to meetings this time too so I am hoping if I run into the mental health roadblock I can talk it out with other like-minded souls.

In other news, it is Pinewood Derby race time. Everyone in the family, sans moi, has a race car. This weekend they are going to take them to a tournament? race? event? I obviously don't have the lingo down. At least they are all excited and it has been pretty cute to see C. working on these cars. I'm not sure the boys have actually been allowed anywhere near them but, you know, that's how it goes.

Soccer starts next week and baseball soon thereafter. With the start of soccer we will now be booked 4 nights out of the week, leaving only Friday, Saturday and Sunday night free. No wonder I am tired.

On the knitting front, I am knitting a simple fun fur scarf for a co-worker. It's red and I am dragging my feet on it for some reason. I need to get it finished this week. I am also working on a dropped stitch scarf for myself. It will be a year-round type of scarf. My secret pal at work gave me a ball of Hempathy yarn in a beautiful sage color (sage #07) that I wear often. I have been really thinking about how best to use this yarn and found this little gem on the net. It's not super difficult but you do have to pay attention to it. I am intrigued by it and think it will turn out lovely. I can't wait to find out who gave me the yarn because it really was so perfect.

I better scoot. I am suffering from a bit of insomnia. Not sure what that's all about. LOST is on again and it is better than ever. If you don't watch it WHY? Watch an episode then come back and tell me what you think.