By Special Request... A New, Though Delirious Post

Alright, alright, I know it's been awhile, and Jenny so kindly requested a new post, although she hadn't commented on the last one to let me know she'd even read it. Honestly, between the whole wife/mom/Gymboree teacher thing, (not to mention the daughter/personal chauffeur thing), I've been just a little wiped out this week. I'm thinking from Jenny's post that she must've hurt her back, and I'm hoping she's alright. But anyway, apparently, she needs to be entertained, soooo here is a new post.

Nothing has been too exciting around here, at least nothing to top the hawk story. G has since spotted him again, with yet another squirrelly snack. It's funny, cause we were wishing there would be a way to control the squirrel population in our neighborhood (the wooded area behind the yard is crawling with them), so maybe the hawk is the answer to our wishes. I've been job hunting very diligently, and also trying hard to get my shopping done. Tomorrow we'll exchange names as to the nieces and nephews and see who we're shopping for. I might be nuts enough to try to shop on Black Friday. If I can go without the kids, I'm there.

You've probably guessed I'm gracing my family by not cooking our Thanksgiving Dinner. Actually, we are doing the turkey, but that's because my mom's oven at her new apartment is sort of smallish; a bit too small for an 18 pound turkey. Mine is huge and has this nifty temperature probe so you know when it's reached optimum doneness. But other than that, I'm not cooking, a fact which I'm sure, the whole gang is very thankful for. I did dress AvaKimmy up for the occasion, though I didn't place her in the kitchen, as that would sort of be a lie, since I'm not cooking, and it might cause my siblings not to come, if it led them to think that I was, in fact, cooking the feast.

I'll try to post again tomorrow night. Right now, I'm going to bed. I have to pick up the turkey at mom's early enough to get it into the oven no later than 8 am.

Nite-nite

A Very Eventful Saturday Afternoon!!

I guess it's been a while since I've had a really cool story to share with you, but yesterday we had a crazy day around here, which actually turned into something blogworthy.

Let me start this off by saying that on our ride to the trailer every weekend from April through October, we've seen hawks soaring in the sky and they really are quite a breathtaking sight. And, no kidding, I said to my friend Susan just the other day how beautiful they are and how much I miss seeing them since camping season is over and we won't be taking that ride for awhile. Well, I guess one of them heard me and decided to pay us a little visit.

As I said, yesterday was a crazy day right from the start, because we bought R a new bed and we had to dig out the mess which is his room to be able to disassemble the old bunkbed and bring up and build the new bed. G was waiting in his ever so (im)patient way and R and I were trying hard to sift through the stuff that was no longer wanted or needed. So anyway, while we were doing that G decided to clean out the gutters on the house and to try and fix one that has been leaking. While he was trying to do the repair he asked me to come out and hold the ladder for him as he had to be above the gutter to be able to see what he was doing (a bit higher than he would've needed to be just for cleaning them) and he was afraid the ladder might kick out at the bottom with him so high on it. As I've grown fond of him through all the years we've been together, I, of course, was happy to help him with that. So I held the ladder while he did the repair, and those of you who know me are probably well aware at how freaked out I was with him being so high up there, but we got through it. I went in to finish digging out R's room and G moved the ladder over to continue cleaning the gutters, promising me he didn't need me to hold the ladder for him anymore, because he didn't need to be up quite so high and was confident from that height that the ladder wouldn't kick out on him. R's room faces the backyard and we have an above ground pool with a deck and then behind our yard is this wooded area with a little branch of the river running through it. So R happens to look out the back window and he says "Hey, what's Daddy doing back by the pool?" I think I sort of growled at him to let Daddy do what he's doing and that he should be staying focused on what we were doing. I sent him downstairs to take out a bag of the stuff we were throwing out and when he got down there, G said "Hey R, come out here quick!" So of course he went outside, and I'm sitting there waiting for him, getting aggravated because I thought the kid jumped ship on me and then G calls up to me "Kim, hurry up and come out here!"

I go out there and there is a huge hawk sitting on a dead branch in the wooded area behind the house. It seems it had swooped down and grabbed a squirrel and flown back up again, nearly knocking my beloved off of the ladder. It went to a tree behind the house, and of course G ran for the camera and started snapping away while the hawk enjoyed its snack. I'm posting the least gross of the pictures, but this hawk was terribly obliging, because it actually took it's meal (aka victim) to a closer branch after awhile, so G was able to take even better pictures. Oh, and btw, I figured out how to post pictures so that if you click on them in the post they will enlarge for you, and with these I recommend that you do that, they really are quite something. To get an idea of the size of how big the hawk was, click on the photo below to enlarge it. A Blue Jay landed on the branch just below it, and you can use it as a reference. That hawk was huge!

So, it was a very eventful afternoon. We did eventually get R's new bed put in and he slept there quite snugly. As to our "visitor" thank Heaven G saw it coming toward him, or instead of running out to look at a hawk I'd have been calling 911. And to whatever hawks might be reading this, I've had enough visits for awhile and I'll happily wait to see you soaring in the sky on our way to camp next spring.

Like Sands Through The Hourglass...

I'm typing this actually from G's laptop (his laptop computer, I'm not actually sitting on his lap)because he started playing an online game called World of Warcraft with some of his friends, and now I'm lucky to get a minute to check my email and check for comments on here. Occasionally I get to run past Jenny's or Spanky's sites, and drop them a note saying I was there. It wasn't a big deal while I was sick, but now that I'm feeling better, I've been waiting my chance and it seems like it never comes so I decided to steal his laptop and get busy. I am feeling lots better in general, but I'm still a little run down, so I've been falling asleep fairly early.

Anyway, while I was sick, I was able to have alot of tv time, so I spent it getting caught up on episodes of Days of Our Lives... I love that show, but I rarely get time to watch it, so I dvr it and for awhile our hard drive was nearly full, and I had about three months worth of episodes to watch. So I started watching them and as of today I'm all caught up!!! Of course last week I did have a really crazy dream. It didn't have any of the Days characters, but it did involve disappearances, faked deaths and memory erasure, and I'm sure any of you whose ever watched the show would agree, that subject matter had DiMera Plot written all over it. But it was a really cool dream. It was one of those dreams where you watch it like it's a movie and you know the whole time that it's a dream, although the "you" in the dream doesn't know it's a dream. But it really was cool, and I was very very upset when I was awakened by a certain 10-year-old boy just as it got to the very cool resolution. Anyway I guess it was the combination of the cold meds and watching so many episodes in a row, but it was a really great dream.

On the reality front, I'm currently looking for a part-time job. I'm still at Gymboree and have no plans of leaving there, but I need to make a bit more money, and although there are hours available at Gymboree, they aren't available at times when I have someone available to look after K, so I've been looking for something part-time and retailish. Which is why AvaKimmy is all dressed up to go on an interview, but is standing in the mall parking lot. I'm actually trying to avoid the mall. At Christmastime, it's so impossible to park that by the time you find a spot and get to your store, you feel like you've done a full days work. Anyway, there are some little shopping centers in the next town, and I think I'm going to try to get something in one of those stores.

Anyway, I have a very very cranky, tired little girl here, so I'd better go see what I can do for her. She feel asleep in the car between my mom's house and here (literally 4 blocks away) and then curled up under the computer desk and went right back to sleep. I told R to practice his saxophone before he started playing video games and she started freaking out. G made her go upstairs, till she calmed down, but she's still pretty upset, so I'd better go see what I can do for her.

TTFN

Under the Weather

Hi again everyone. This will be brief, I think, because right now my head feels like it's going to explode. R came down with a sore throat and he toughed it out through a marathon day of Trick or Treating on Tuesday. He stayed home from school with it on Wednesday, and that afternoon, I started sneezing and I've been a mess ever since. I really feel awful, so I'm going to get my little girl fed, then I'm going to try to get some rest... not easy to do while caring for a three year old.