In Memoriam: Rocky—April 1993-February 9, 2009

Well, Rocky has finally decided that he had had enough. He died this afternoon about 4:30. He had hidden himself under our bed. Jeff found him, wrapped him in a towel, and placed him on top of a heat register. Less than an hour later, Rocky died. So, now he's out with Eddie in our backyard. Rocky never really got over Eddie's death in Feb. 2005. Jeff dug the hole last November when we thought we would have him put to sleep.

We think he had diabetes. He drank tons of water all the time. He also had a voracious appetite, but kept losing weight. He didn't seem to be in any pain, though.

We first got him in May 1993 as a very small kitten, maybe six weeks old. Jeff opened his office door to find the girlfriend of a colleague's son standing there with this little tiny white kitten in her arms. He hadn't even been weaned properly yet. We think that his mother figured out that he was deaf and kicked him out.

Rocky loved to watch things fall. He chewed on glass objects. When in the right mood, he would sit on your lap forever. He hated being picked up. He was only secure against a body or a lap. We will miss him terribly. The girls are a little confused right now, but at least they have each other.

The best way to get photos of Rocky was when he was asleep. I'm sure I have some somewhere of him awake, but these were on my computer.

Clearly, I'm an idiot!!

Well, I should never have posted about the three car situation. I blew our Saturn's engine yesterday. I was less than two miles from a gas station where I could fill up and get oil for the engine. Needless to say, I didn't make it! The engine block has a hole in it because I'm an idiot. We just had the Saturn in for service and I meant to call and have them do an oil change, did I remember? NO! Did I not pass numerous gas stations, WalMarts, Targets, etc. to buy oil? But, no, I had to get to 72oo South to fill up and get oil.

I have never felt so stupid in my entire life. I road in a tow-truck—certainly not on my "to-do" list for my life. I had a love/hate relationship with the Saturn. It got good gas mileage, but was soooo loud and small.

So, instead of three cars we are down to two. After the gymnastics meet at the U tomorrow, D and I will stop and clean out the Saturn. It has the rods for my punches in it, as well as, some other things that I would prefer not to lose. And yet another car goes to the Kidney Foundation. I really don't think that Jeff is willing to pay $2500 to $3000 to put a used engine in the car.

When I told one of my classes today, a student (who I see every day) asked if I cried. When I said no, he wanted to know if I swore a lot. I replied in the affirmative. Now I want to cry. But there really is no point. I cried when the station wagon was hauled off. I learned to parallel park in a Colony Park station wagon. I can park anything!

So, we are back to two drivers and two vehicles. Maybe later we will buy another small car for its gas mileage. Over the last two days the Grand Voyager hit 30 mpg! with 1000 lbs of drywall in the back.

Guess what I will be doing this weekend? Hanging drywall! And working the daddy/daughter event for Girl Scouts. Neither my dh nor my dd are attending. Well, D might attend as a PA, but not with her dad. Neither of them thought the event looked interesting. I tried in Service Unit meetings to make it more appealing. But did anyone listen to me? No, of course not.

Well, since it is the wee hours of the morning, and I have to read 150 junior Language Arts exams tomorrow, I had probably post this and head to bed.

I hate hate hate February!!!!

Last call

Deirdre and Sarah taking an order from a neighbor. All cookie orders have to be in by tomorrow (Wed., Feb. 4). If you haven't order any yet and want to— drop me a comment.

Cars

We have three cars and two drivers. When we bought our Honda Oydessy, we decided to keep our green Plymouth Grand Voyager. This meant we had three cars and two drivers. This semester we are doing the car "musical chair" game. On Mondays and Fridays, Kate drives the Honda and Jeff the Grand Voyager. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays Kate drives the Saturn and Jeff drives the Honda. At 15 1/2 years old the Saturn still gets 35 miles to the gallon. It makes more sense for the car that is driving 500+ miles per week to be the one that gets the most gas milage. Jeff drives carpool on Tuesdays and Thursdays and needs the Honda. Kate has class on Wed., and Thurs., and drives the Saturn. The Grand Voyager is full of drywall at the moment, so it has no seats besides the driver and "killer" passenger. Sort of hard to drive carpool with no seats. :) Amazingly enough all three cars are being driven each week!

Great Game

What a supremely awesome Super Bowl. I wanted the Steelers to win and they did! Great emotion here. Screaming could be heard many times. Freaked poor Greymalken out enough that she left to go sleep in our bedroom. What an up and down game. Felt sorry for the Cardinals.

Cookie Rally

Yesterday was the Cookie Kickoff for Girl Scouts. I happen to be in charge of it, again. We start selling cookies next Saturday (Jan. 17). To rev up the girls and help them learn about the cookies, we hold a rally. As usual the girls took home a bunch of paper products. They made ribbons for a cause, thought of ways they could package cookies to sell more, tasted cookies (including the new one Dulce de Leché), sang a song about the safety rules, set a goal for what incentive they planned to work toward, and listed ways they could donate. This year's theme is "Imagine If …" and philanthropy is a strong part of the cookie program.

I had four of my girls at the rally. Deirdre worked with a Senior PA (Program Aide) to help her earn her hours toward becoming a Junior PA. Girls who have finished sixth grade or are 12 can become Junior PA's. These girls are a big help to running events. It also helps the girls to learn how to deal with younger girls. Some groups need a lot of help and others don't. This was D's first event as a PA.

Malynn Christensen, Sarah Jacobson, and Samantha Olsen pose with Gayle Jensen, our SU treasurer, after making the cookie chains for booth decoration. D came up with the station title "Imagine If … you could chain-ge the world". Gayle was going to retire from GS after this year, but Uleda talked her out of it. With Lynette, our current SUD, leaving as of this week, I am now SUD and I barely know what I am doing. I know for a fact that I can't or won't put the time into being SUD that Lynette has. I just can't.

As you can see from this picture D spent most of the time alone as a PA. Amanda is a junior in high school and this was her last event as a PA. D said that she (D, not Amanda) found being a PA pretty boring. She flat out refuses to be a PA at day camp. It's okay, she has to have even more training to do that. But in a few years she might not want to go around doing things at day camp; we'll see when she's 14/15.

Here is Uleda Westland, our Girl Services Volunteer (basically a liason between the Utah GS Council and the local Service Units), taking a picture of D being a PA. Also pictured are Malynn, Sarah, and Samantha. The other three girls are from Marysvale. The troop down there brought 12 girls to our rally because they didn't have one in the Fishlake Service Unit.

This is Malynn, Sarah, and Samantha making their elephants. After tracing their fist and coloring the resulting elephant, each girl decided what she wanted to work toward in cookies sales.

Here all four of the girls with their paper chain that Sam, Sarah, and Malynn made. They are standing on the stage after the rally had ended.

Of course we have to have a silly picture to go with a "nice" one.

FYI:Because of school starting, I will probably only post once a week on Saturday or Sunday.

The new "sitting" room is drywalled.

This is the from the new room into our living room. This end of the room used to be D's room.
This will be the door to the bathroom. Right now, since the sink is still on the other side of the wall and to give D some privacy, the bathroom side drywall is still in place. This picture and the one below used to be our sitting room, where the TV was.
Behind the cabinet is the other window. This is the south/west area. All the leftover drywall is stacked here. The cabinet used to be our linen cabinet. It is solid birch and extremely heavy. We haven't figured out where to put it yet.

We spent three days hanging 20 sheets of drywall. I'm exhausted and now have to go back to work tomorrow. It's pretty amazing how fast the drywall is up though. We haven't even ordered flooring yet. Plus, there's the taping and mud to do. The new sitting room is a ways off still. Probably because I didn't grow up with a television in my house until I was 13, I just have a problem with having a "TV room". I enjoy just being able to go and sit and read in a room that has a door. So even though a lot of television viewing will be done in this room, it will still be called a sitting room.

The latest on the remodel

This is where we started today. Insulation, 2 x 4's, and electrical. First we did the closet. Closets are a pain, because they have all of the same amount of work, but no space to work in.


Here is Jeff nailing the bottom on the west side of the closet.







This is the top piece on the inside. This was a challenge to get into place, but we finally got it all figured out. It's been a long time since we hung drywall. In this picture you can also see the front and closet doors in the entry area. The wall the front door is on won't be drywalled for awhile. We are getting a new front door and will install all the drywall for that wall at the same time.

And here is where we finished for today. The entire north wall is finished. I have two pictures so you can see the jog the wall makes. The jog allows for trim around the window. We have a few places now that have no space for trim and the paint job is awful, because of the small area. Besides the trim, we are putting wainscoting on the bottom part and wanted enough of it to show in the corner as well.
Tomorrow we are hanging the window (west) wall and the south wall. Both are pretty straight shots. It's the east wall that has a bunch of cut outs and doors.

Look what I found

Isn't this the most adorable picture? I found it on the internet (duh). It is of the following: "Two-and-a-half-month-old Persian leopard cub Chui, left, and her nine-year-old mother Cezi, seen in their enclosure, in Budapest Zoo, Hungary, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008."

I've never been to Hungary, but now I want to go see these leopards up close. I love large cats as well as small cats. I prefer large cats, though, to be in the wild or zoos, not up close and personal. :)

I've been updating my Facebook. I had forgotten I even joined, when I received an e-mail today from some person I never heard of to join her as a friend. I bought something from her off of e-bay about two years ago. Needless to say, I didn't join her, but I asked some people to be friends. AND I think I found a friend from high school. I haven't kept in touch with anyone since moving to Utah. Not that I was keeping in touch before we moved.

Oven cleaning

I have banished everyone to the basement. Yesterday when Jeff cooked the roast beef for his birthday he commented that the oven could do with cleaning. So, I turned on the oven to clean this afternoon. The whole upstairs is pretty much full of smoke. Luckily not enough to set off the smoke detectors. We have windows open (it's 20º outside), fans going, and some unhappy cats. Greymalkin came downstairs crying, but when I followed her back upstairs to bring her back down, she hid. Hope we never have a fire where I have to find her!

Jeff has put in the studs for the new door to what is now the hall bathroom. After we are finished with everything, this bathroom will open into our new room. I decided not to go to school today. So, I am organizing "my" room. This used to be our guest room, but we don't have guests and I need a place to scrapbook, stamp, and do homework. I need to bring down a desk that is upstairs. First I have to convince Jeff to help me bring it down. It's pretty heavy. It was built in the late 40's or 50's when a lot of furniture did double duty. This desk has three small side drawers and knee space, but it also has a pull out table with ugly rattan on it. So it's a desk/table combination. D has a desk/dresser that was my grandmère's. It is a secretary type desk with three drawers below. When the top is up it takes up almost no room, when the top is down it is the desk's writing surface. It is from the same era. I believe these were built to accommodate the many people who were living in small homes and apartments after WWII.

Yet another birthday!

Today, Jeff is 46! Happy birthday dear.

When we were pregnant with D, the only request Jeff had besides a healthy baby was for a different delivery day than his birthday. Bad enough that it is so close to Christmas, he just didn't want to share it. You know I don't blame him. Until family members started to die of old age, we had quite the holiday birthdays going. Here's the list:

• Dec. 15: Carl Gassen (my brother-in-law's father, died March 2006, in his 90's)
• Dec. 17: Lillian Coryell (my father's mother, died Aug. 2003, 91 1/2)
• Dec. 18: Deirdre
• Dec. 24: Grandma Dottie (my mother-in-law's mother, she's been gone for awhile. Awful of me, but I don't remember when she passed away. After D was born, I do know that. Pretty sure she was in her 90's too)
• Dec. 25: Brian Harris (our nephew on Jeff's side, Phyllis' son)
• Dec. 28: Jeff
• Dec. 29: Charlie Carney (my stepmother-in-law, I think that's her birthday, awful again of me, 20 years and I'm still not sure)
• Dec. 29: Linda Spencer (my cousin Jim's wife, again I'm not positive, but pretty sure)
• Dec. 31: Fred Spencer (my cousin)

Quite the collection of birthdays there in a two week time. Plus in January are four more: 5th: Nicole Spencer (daughter of Linda), 18th: Jim Spencer (husband of Linda), 28th: Barbara Spencer (mother of Jim and my aunt obviously), and 30th (I'm pretty sure on the date and don't feel like going upstairs to check my planner): John Carney (brother to Jeff).

The home remodel is moving along. Jeff has been stringing speaker wire the last few days. The new sound system will be on the south side of the new room. Wire needs to go to the speakers in the living room and the kitchen, plus the speakers in the new room. We have the most amazing speakers in our kitchen! I love being able to put on music and have it play in there, but not be blaring through-out the house so that I can hear it in the kitchen. Right now they aren't attached to anything, as we are listening to everything off of the TV sound system. Sounds complicated right?! You see Jeff builds speakers too. So, we have amazing speakers in our living room and we had speakers in our old sitting room for the TV. Now that the TV is in the living room :( all are connected to the receiver for the TV. But the kitchen ones are still (or were until today) connected to the receiver for the stereo system. Sorry, I just don't seem to be able to explain it properly.

Back to wiring: almost all of the electrical is finished. Jeff thinks we can hang drywall on Tuesday. Yippee! So, I'll be off to school tomorrow. The semester ends the Friday after we return (idiotic, I know) and I am nowhere near being ready with assignments to grade. I also need to prepare some for next semester.

D spent Friday and part of yesterday at Sarah's. They had a sleep-over and played Nintendo DS a lot. Sarah invited another girl over, Savannah, and the three had a blast. She has been pretty much reading and playing new DS games since Christmas. Last night we played Harry Potter Clue. It's a little different from the traditional game. For instance, you have to make your final accusation in Dumbledore's office. So if several people think they know the answer, it's a race to see who can get to the office faster. We played two games and if I remember correctly, D won both of them. We had a lot of fun; it's been awhile since we played a family game.

And the remodel continues

The latest update. I don't have better pictures right now. I haven't taken any (you know gone over the weekend) lately. The new wall is up (just studs right now). The old hall wall from the back of our bedroom closet is partial gone. We walk through the old closet to get to our bedroom. It's sort of a maze right now. The electrical has been a problem for Jeff as he tries to figure out what wires go where and power what. As stated before, our electrician wasn't the best. It's pretty exciting to see the way the area is shaping up.

And here is Jeff relaxing on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. He worked all weekend on the house, but had to read The Color Purple for class on Monday. After only four and a half years Rocky and Greymalkin have declared a slight truce. We gave Rocky a reprieve right before Thanksgiving. He actually has perked up.

On to me:
I was accepted into The University of Utah. My classes start on Jan. 14. I will be taking two classes Spring semester: one on Wednesday and the other on Thursday. On days that D and I have gymnastic meets than I will travel up to SLC three days in a row. I haven't figured out how I will make it through the next couple of years, but somehow we will manage. When I leave school on Tuesdays, I will have to be prepared for classes on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I need to move Scouts to Tuesdays. I will miss Service Unit meetings unless they are moved, and worse I'll miss Stamp Club for Feb., Mar., and April., maybe even May depending on my finals schedule. I can do this—at least this is what I keep telling myself. Wish our family luck for the next two years.

Deirdre is 12!

Yesterday was Deirdre's 12th birthday. According to her, she had a good day. After school was scouts. She lead the opening with questions from her P.A. training. We planned which activities we would do to earn the Cookies & Dough IPP. The girls decided as one of their service projects to create a matching game for the daisies. We will use the game at the cookie kick-off in January.

She received a Beatles T-shirt from us that she is wearing to school today. The Beatles is her favorite band. She also received Across the Universe dvd from us. We watched it over the summer and bought the soundtrack, but she also wants to be able to watch it over and over. She got a sweater, Harry Potter Scene It, and a hair accessory set from Grandmum and Granddad. From her cousin Fred she received the entire Dark is Rising chronicles. It's a great set of books. After reading the Twilight series four times in about four weeks, the Dark is Rising might seem "easy", but she will love them. She received other gifts from her Auntie Barbie, but I don't have my list in front of me. From us her big gift was a new digital camera with a case and memory cards. She hadn't asked for one, but her old was really beat-up and has limited memory card abilities.

What have you done?

To participate, just copy and paste in your own blog, and bold all of the things you have done. It's kind of fun!!

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland (does DisneyWorld count?)
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestor (does this mean the original ancestor who came over on the Mayflower or closer? Either way I've been to England and France, as well as, all the states, except Hawaii)
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language (does Elvish count—that's what my mother and sister said I spoke as a toddler)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David (I think it's at the Louvre?)
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser (um, no not really, we had to keep going on to Glacier Nat'l Park and couldn't wait for it to actually erupt)
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris (I don't remember :( )
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie (does a PBS television production count?)
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies (as a child and an adult!)
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason (are you kidding me! never in a billion years)
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial (drove past when in D.C., again no time to stop and actually tour)
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book (married to a published author, though)
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House (drove past)
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (eew!)
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury (called several times while living in Chicago, always sent home)
91. Met someone famous (Rudolf Nureyev for one and a ton of other dancers, and Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues, and Governor Thompson of Illinois back in the late 70's)
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Seen Mount Rushmore in person
101. Learned to play an instrument

I decided to participate too. I tag anyone who has the time to do it.

Our busy weekend

Last Thursday (12/11) was the Candlelight program. All the orchestras, bands, choirs, guitar, and music appreciation classes all performed. Then the candles were presented to worth local citizens. This little old lady was one of the recipients. She was so funny. She is 97 and lives in Manti. Her 97th birthday was the next day. She stood on the stage at the Eccles Center and said "I'm wearing my gardening shoes, my cowboy shirt, and my hair hasn't been combed in a week." What could the audience do but laugh. This year there were seven eighth graders with 4.0 g.p.a's from sixth through current semester to present. Some years there are only a couple. With luck Deirdre will be one of the presenters next year.





Deirdre and I spent Friday and Saturday at Trefoil Ranch. It snowed like crazy on Saturday. When we got to the bottom of 189 it was closed. Boy were there a lot of angry people. Unlike last year, there were only about 25 people there (mothers and daughters). D and I deliberately tried to pick activities that we didn't do last year. So we learned about Kwanzaa instead of Hanukkah, the Netherlands instead of Russia and did new crafts. It was a lot of fun. The girls were older this year too. There were a few 8 year olds, but most were 11 and 12. The food was pretty good too. We ended early on Saturday, so we could get on the road a little earlier. D and I drove on up to Salt Lake City to spend the night there. Because…

We had our annual tickets to The Nutcracker by Ballet West. This was the last year Deirdre wanted to the Sugar Plum Fairy party after the matinee. We have been going to The Nutcracker since D was four and the party afterward since she was six. We spent the night at Embassy Suites and did some shopping before the ballet. We were scheduled to see Beau Pearson as the Snow Cavalier and the Waltz of the Flowers Cavalier, but he hurt his shoulder in Madam Butterfly rehearsals. So we were treated to Soloist Jason Linsley in Snow and Principal Christopher Rudd in the Waltz. Both of these males are my favorites with the company. Due to Beau's injury, Ballet West has brought in a male guest artist to help with the performances. We decided that next year, we might go to an evening performance, spend the night in SLC, and then do Christmas shopping the next day on the way home.

Twilight—the series! and more

Deirdre has now read the series at least three times. It might be four. She insisted that I too read the series. I capitulated and read. I didn't like Twilight, but continued to read to find out if Bella actually became a vampire and low and behold eventually she did. I liked New Moon the most, followed by Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, and finally Twilight. I thought if they said "I love you" one more time in that book, I was seriously going to smack someone.

Deirdre went to the movie for the third time today—again with Sarah. Now, I am not a movie person to begin with, but the pictures just do not make me want to see this movie.

Remodeling is going slowly, but steadily. We have garage lights and living room lights back, and two new walls! I will post pics soon. Jeff is recovering from the flu. Both he and D have a cough. Once they get them, I hear coughing for weeks.

D and I will be heading to Trefoil Ranch this weekend for a mother/daughter Christmas bonding with Girl Scouts. We will spend Saturday night in Salt Lake, because we have tickets for the Nutcracker on Sunday. We have been going to see Ballet West's production of The Nutcracker since D was four. We usually have pretty close seats. Last year, they were the front row. Jeff has been a couple of times, but the ballet is usually a mother/daughter activity. We do season tickets and have a good time.

Happy Thanksgiving & Construction messes

The picture on top is what the living room/hall/foyer looked like on Tuesday. The bottom picture is what it looked like yesterday when I got home at 6ish. We have no electricity in part of the living room, dining room, or kitchen. Luckily all three of those rooms do have some power in the plugs. Also the appliances are on different breakers. Our electrician was an idiot, I believe. He had to come back twice after we moved in and it would have been more times, if Jeff hadn't just figured it out on his own. But we are talking electricity—the one that kills if not used properly.

Today, Jeff has been dealing with attic insulation. The drywall on part of the ceiling had to be taken down, as well as, some 2 x 4's. This means a ton of insulation has fallen to the floor. So far, he is at 10 bags of insulation to be put in the dumpster. At some point either today or tomorrow we are hanging new drywall on the ceiling. Luckily it is only a few pieces that need to go up. Although, I think I prefer hanging the ceiling rather than walls. I don't remember, I have deleted the Thanksgiving of 1995 and summer of 1996 from my brain. When we decided to try for a baby, we also decided to finish the basement. So, the summer before Deirdre was born, we drywalled. Hard to believe that was 12 years ago.

This is the first remodel that we have done that doesn't have us thinking "resale" value. We might have really changed how much our house is worth by deleting an upstairs bedroom, but at the same time we are making the remaining two rooms larger. But we aren't selling until D leaves for college, if then. Who knows what the market will be like. No matter what we sell the house for, it will most likely be more than we built it for even with the additional costs of the remodeled kitchen, both upstairs bathrooms, the finished basement, and now this one.

I have a pumpkin pie baking in the oven as I type this. I love pumpkin pie! I like pecan pie even more, but D doesn't so it's pumpkin for us. We are having Cornish Hens, stuffing, mashed yams (mashed potatoes using a yam), peas, maybe spinach souffle (I had to buy it when I saw Albertson's had it), rolls, gravy, and pie with real whipped cream. Jeff doesn't really like turkey and D hates it, so Cornish Hens it is. Cornish Hens are easier to cook than a turkey anyway. I am also about to make the honey butter for the scones for tomorrow's bake sale in Manti. I have the dough thawing for the scones. I also have Rice-Crispy treats, brownies, and maybe sugar cookies to make. This is one of our fundraisers for Girl Scouts. Besides a small profit from cookie sales, as a Service Unit, we do two big fundraisers: the Manti bake sale, and during pageant time we clean the tables at the "food court" and hand out the Sanpete Messenger's pageant insert to the people entering the temple grounds. The majority of girls in our Service Unit live in Manti. As a matter of fact, our Junior troop there lost more than half its girls to aging out (They should have come to mine, but didn't reregister.), the troop was down to about 7 girls. She is back up to 17!! I can barely get 5 to come to our meetings.

Well have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I'm off to clean and cook.

Volunteer thoughts

As the SUD-Bud for our Service Unit, I am in charge of finding ways to honor our volunteers. For our October meeting, I copied an idea that I received from Jostens many years ago. It involved M&M's as "pills". Each color represented a "cure" for a different problem. I made cute little "diaper pouches," filled them with M&M's. I wanted everyone to have at least two of each color and then a few more. They took forever to make 40 of. The top one shows the different components and the bottom one shows the finished product.

supplies used: all SU DP Ghostly Greetings, CS Basic Black, Whisper White, and Pumpkin Pie, Batty for You, Pumpkin Pie classic ink, scallop and 1 3/8 punches, misc. ribbon (from WalMart :( ), I printed the list on my laser printer on white cardstock.

For November's meeting I enlisted Deirdre's help. She doesn't like to CASE (Copy and Share Everything) ideas. I keep telling her it's how teachers function. Beg, borrow and steal ideas! She was very unhappy that I don't have a lot of patterned papers in fall colors. I tend to go for soft subtle backgrounds. I had just purchased some "holly" paper from ZIM's (25 sheets for $2), but it looks fall, not Christmas and I had another patterned "fall" color paper that she liked (also from ZIM's going out of business sale). I was going to make all 36 like the more complicated one below, but decided it was going to take waaay tooo long!!!

supplies used: SU scallop square, scallop circle, horizontal slot, and tag corner punches, orange cardstock unknown source, four different fall ribbons from Michael's, patterned paper from ZIM's, laser printer for tag.

We had a great assembly line going. Deirdre punched the orange tags and put the scallop papers on the mints and stuffed the bags with mints. I punched the scallops (those punches are a devil to use) and tied the bags closed and tied the tags on. They didn't take nearly as long as the previous month's. Then I left them at home! So everyone will get two in December.

I already have my idea planned. I am going to use my new BigShot and new Top Note Bigz die. I am doing red/white peppermints in bags with the TopNote used as the closer. I just don't have the "inspirational" saying or the stamp set decided yet. I already have the paper for the closers and the peppermints too. I need to get working on these soon too since the house is going to need my help soon too.

An update

Yes, that really is a squid on Deirdre's head. All the girls did it during the dissection lab at CIMI.

Life has been really crazy the last few weeks. When we drove up to get Deirdre from the airport we were re-ended by another driver on I-15. Some idiot stopped in the car-pool lane causing all of us behind him/her to slam on our brakes. The woman behind just couldn't get her Suburban to stop fast enough. Our van was in the shop for three weeks and it cost her insurance $4500.

Below are the before and current pictures of Deirdre's old room. We decided to remodel. So far there is no drywall in two of the upstairs bedrooms or flooring. We are down to waverboard in bedrooms and the hall. I'll try to update as we go. Or I really should say as Jeff goes, since he is the one who is doing all the work so far.


There seemed to be so much more to update, so I was putting it off. But now, I can't seem to remember any of it. Clearly a reason for updating more often.

CIMI update

"The girls had a great visit at the Long Beach Aquarium. Stephanie says they got to drag net some plankton, look at lots of marine life, and were still pretty excited to be on the way. There was also a chance that the girls were going to be shuttled to the ferry, eliminating the dreaded 10 minute walk with luggage. The girls were enthusiastically supportive!"

The above came in e-mail today from our "at home" contact. Every time a group of Girl Scouts travel, there has to be a "at home" contact person. This way if there is a problem, or in the CIMI trip case updates, this contact person does the contacting.

I ran into (not literally) Mr. Halling at WalMart. I have only met him once at Parent/Teacher Conferences. I kept asking myself "who is that man? why does he look familiar?" On the other hand he remembered me and asked how D was managing on her trip. Actually he asked "how's the world traveler?" It's interesting some of her teachers were excited for her opportunity to attend CIMI and others only saw it as missing class time. As a teacher, I know that what we do in class is the most important thing (it isn't really, but we all like to pretend). As a parent, I know that opportunities like this can't be missed.

On that point of not missing opportunities I nominated D (sneaking of me I know) as a student for the People to People Leadership Summit program. I also nominated some of my students, which is what they wanted me to do. I read about this program that was started by President Eisenhower in 1956 and it sounds fantastic. Of course I scoured the site for information regarding the cost, but it couldn't be found. I believe that by nominating her, we will receive information. All they wanted was an address, gender, and grade in school. The summits are held at places like Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, Johns Hopkins, George Washington University, and Columbia. According to the website "As a Leadership Summit Student Leader, you'll join some of the world's top 6th through 12th graders for a week of interactive and hands-on training from top college students, college educators, and professionals in your area of interest."