Tree trimming day

With a blizzard raging outside today, we spent the better part of the day indoors listening to Christmas music and puttering. Well, other than Rich's first pass at clearing the driveway that is. I spent 4 1/2 hours trimming our tree and wrapped up writing out all of our Christmas cards. Rich helped with the ornaments on the tree and the pets did their part by wandering around aimlessly and acting as stumbling blocks. I still have some rearranging and decorating left to do but I think I'll save that for tomorrow. In the mean time, I thought I would share photos of our tree in it's various stages. Enjoy! We're going to. *smiles*

The tree sans any decorations. That's 9 1/2 feet of Frasier Fir and it smells divine! You can see I wasn't kidding when I said the animals were underfoot. This is pretty much where Buster insisted on laying all day. I only tripped once. I'll let you figure out what color the air was following that.

Here it is with the lights. 1,080 in all. Go ahead and count them. I dare you. This part took me 2 1/2 hours and yes, I know I'm anal about how the lights go on the tree.

Next came the pearls. Eight strands- each one 24 feet long. Yeah, that's a lot of pearls but it's also a BIG tree!!

Here it is with the ornaments. Pretty much ALL the ornaments we own. It's been a while since we needed to use that many.

Finally! The angel which, due to height restrictions, I was not able to reach. Rich did the honors and, isn't she pretty?

Merry Christmas everyone! We hope you enjoy the holiday season wherever you are.
Love, Toni & Rich

Changing Seasons

Well it's looking more and more like Winter is just around the corner. Our temps have dipped considerably over the last few days and a day without a nasty wind is almost a pipe dream. Sigh... I guess it has to come around sometime, but personally I wasn't quite ready.

Last weekend we got our first taste of blustery winter when we were up in Duluth visiting Josh. I can't say the weather was too great, but we had a fun time with Josh just wandering around Canal Park and the mall and hanging out at the hotel.

This weekend we're hanging around home and I'm hoping to make some headway on several card projects that I'm hopelessly behind on. Halloween falls on Sunday so, with any luck at all, I won't have to deal with that at all. It's a good thing Rich doesn't mind answering the door because if it were up to me we'd turn off the lights and skip the whole thing. I suppose I better pick up some candy tomorrow huh? I think we're carving our pumpkins tomorrow night. Rich found a couple of pretty good ones last week so now we just need to decide which patterns to use.  I toyed with designing something with the UMD Bulldog on it but I don't know that I'm feeling all that ambitious about it now. We'll see I guess. There's always the standard issue halloween cat or haunted house.

The weight loss plan is progressing nicely. We've both lost quite a bit, but I'm down two sizes and am roughly half way to my goal. The weather has been a bit of a problem for us since neither of us is all that wild about walking the dog in gale force winds or rain. I did dust off the elliptical last week though and gave that a whirl. It was so much fun I can't hardly wait to hop on it again. Yeah. Need any swamp land? Seriously though, once I got over the re-discovery of muscles I didn't realize had atrophied and warmed up a bit it wasn't all that bad. At least until I stepped off, feeling all energized and my knees wobbled.  Guess I should have paced that a little differently given that the thing has been gathering dust for several years. Oh well... I only had to crawl a little to get upstairs...

Other than that, we're not up to much around here. Netflix helps to keep us entertained, the animals help keep us just this side of insane, and the occasional bit of news from Dan and Josh keep us from feeling like we're rattling around the house. Sounds like tons of fun right?
Hope everyone on your end is doing well!
Later!
Toni

Fleeting Weekends

Well, we had a very nice weekend visit with Mom. She came down Friday with her friend Jan and went home today. Thankfully our weather cooperated so we could get out for a walk and not freeze to death.
We also tackled a couple small jigsaw puzzles while she was here which, as most of you know, has a way of whittling away most of a day if you aren't careful. We also re-discovered the irritation of the missing puzzle piece thanks to one of three pesky animals. We haven't been able to identify the actual culprit, so they're equally to blame. I'd love to find it under something at some point in time, but if Buster ate it, I have absolutely no desire to ever see or touch it again.

Rich and I are a full 7 weeks into our renewed diet plan and have collectively lost nearly 30 pounds. Glory Halleluiah! I figure I have about 10 pounds to go before I can safely go shopping for clothes that fit me again. Until then, I'm cinching in the belt (when I remember to wear one) and walking around with a silly grin on my face because I'm so pleased to have made it this far.

The boys are both doing well. Dan was over today while Mom was here so we caught up a little on what he's doing -which is not much. He is toying with possibly going back to school however, for which Rich and I are very glad. The trick is finding a program he would enjoy.

Josh seems to be coping with college life just fine. He came home for the weekend a couple of weeks ago, which was great. He was just a little homesick I think so it was nice for him to come home, crash in his own bed (apparently the beds in the apartment are horrible) and see some of his friends. I'll admit it was nice for us to get a little face time with him too.

Hope everyone is doing well!
Have a great week!

So College life agrees with him and thank GOD for Facebook!

Josh's move to Duluth went really well. The school gave us a great set of directions that totally avoided the road construction on 35W and around the campus, and despite not getting the student move-in help that we thought we could expect, a third floor apartment, and no elevator, we managed to get his stuff moved in with a minimum of fuss. The exercise did serve to illustrate for Rich and I how horribly out of shape we are however.  We're working on that, but that's another story.

Yes, I cried on the way home. I knew I would and this first week has just plain sucked, but we're both coping. I will say that having an empty nest isn't all it's cracked up to be. In fact, right now, I hate it but I suppose it will get better. Yes, I know I sound like a whiny baby but I'm not going to apologize for missing my kids. There. I said it.
I've been very good about not contacting Josh (per our instructions from orientation) other than a couple of text messages to make sure he was alive and had everything he needed. He did call last Saturday night which was almost enough to take the edge off of missing him.  Facebook has become my pipeline to what the kid is up to and by all reports, he's having lots of fun. Molly, the girl in the photo is somewhat of a mystery to us since we haven't spoken to Josh but she takes great photos and she shares a ton of them on his Facebook page! Funny thing? She's from Fargo! I had to laugh at that. What are the odds?
So what about Dan? 
Well, I spoke to him this week and he sounds great. I did ask him if he might like to move back home but he declined. Hmmm. Imagine that. I think I even offered to bake him cookies. He still said no! Actually he just finished moving downstairs in the house he's sharing with Bryon and Crystal. Apparently it's been quite an experience because when they got down there, the discovered water damage and mold that the guy who was living down there didn't feel the need to report. Idiot. This meant a whole slew of repairs to both the drywall and the pipes so things are a bit chaotic at the moment. He likes having the extra space to himself though.
Work is going well for him. He's mostly driving for the company he works for which isn't necessarily his dream job, but he's happy to be employed! Unfortunately, they keep sending him on these all day driving treks to the edge of nowhere.  I think he "gets to" drive to Sioux City, IA (and back) on Monday. Yippee. I suggested that he give my friend Sherry a call on his way back (she lives in Fenton, IA) and visit with her for a while, but it would mean taking a circuitous route back and navigating a 1 ton truck on dirt roads to get to her. Upon further thought, I think he decided that might not be such a great plan. He was up in Bayfield, WI a month or so ago which is a beautiful area, but I doubt he really appreciated the scenery. The good thing about these extended trips is that they generally mean a phone call from him asking me where in the heck they are?! I also get updates on his status colliding with birds while he drives, (apparently this is a recurring problem for him), and his opinion of dunderheaded drivers who think stopping a 1 ton truck on a dime is easy. Let's remember that the truck weighs a ton - the plate glass he is hauling weighs a bit more. I guess I don't blame him when he offers the stupid drivers driving lessons in sign language!

Well, folks that's all I have for now.  Aren't you proud of me? Two posts in the space of a week and a half! What's the world coming to?

later!
Toni

Two days left

Greetings!
Well, Josh leaves for college on Thursday. He's been sorting, doing laundry, and packing for a few days now and I think we're almost ready. Other than loading it all in the car that is. So far he seems to be maintaining his enthusiasm for going. I, on the other hand, am looking at his departure with an ample share of trepidation and sadness. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited that he's beginning this new chapter in his life. I just know I'm going to miss him. I'd also like to note that when Dan moved out I felt the same way, but knowing he was just across town somehow made it a little more manageable. I'm not sure how to explain this other than to say that maybe because he's the baby I'm having a harder time with it. Anyway, Thursday morning we'll be up bright and early for moving day. Me? I'm packing an extra box of tissues for the ride home...

Summer's here...You can tell cause it's HUMID!!!

Whew! It's a hot one ladies and gentlemen! The thermometer hit 95 at about 4:15 this afternoon and I just about wilted walking to my car. We had sporadic rain off and on all day so it's been one of those summer days where your hair is guaranteed to go flat if you even think about going outside, the dog prefers the indoors where the floor is cool to lay on, and a dish of ice cream is dinner.

My flowers are flourishing thanks to all this hum-didity as you can see here, and hopefully my patio cherry tomato "tree" will produce something we can actually eat. Both plants are growing like crazy and have fruit on them but it remains to be seen whether any of it will turn red.

Josh is off to Sonshine Festival down inWillmar, MN and won't be back til Sunday so Rich and I are on our own for a few days. I suppose it's good practice for when we officially become empty nesters in September. I won't even go into how much I know that's going to suck when the time comes.

Dan is now back to work (Thank you Lord) and we hope that holds for the duration. He did a very good job of budgeting for unemployment though and we're very proud of him for that. He's hit that ripe old age of 23 where Mom and Dad aren't quite the dim bulbs he thought and can even be depended upon for good advice from time to time. : ) Hmmm...Who called that one?!

For those of you who haven't actually laid eyes on the boys recently - here are a couple photos.
The one of Dan is from the 4th of July weekend. We went up to the lake and caroused with the Sacrison side for a couple of days.
The shot of Josh (and a Lego Woody) was taken out at the MOA on Dan's birthday. Josh and I did a little wandering around the mall after dinner and of course we had to have a photo. I'll interject here that, if you have not already seen Toy Story 3, I don't care how old you are, it's wonderful.  We all loved it from beginning to end so make sure you go and see it. You won't be disappointed!

Now that we have Josh's graduation out of the way I can't say that we have a whole lot planned around here. Of course, I'd still love to get a few small projects, like a fence for the back yard and new carpet downstairs done, but since we have college tuition looming, it may be a while before I get my wish. 

Well, I've probably yammered on long enough for now.
Hope you're all enjoying your summer!
love, Toni

25th Anniversary B & B Weekend

Hello everyone! Rich and I just got home from a weekend B&B trip to Menomonie, WI. We haven't done the B&B thing for several years but we figured for our 25th anniversary we should do something special. The B&B we picked was the Country Comfort Inn just outside of Menomonie, WI and the owners were delightful. The house is absolutely gorgeous and thanks to a king-sized dream of a bed I had the nap of a lifetime yesterday afternoon! Bliss! If you're looking for a great  place to stay we highly recommend it! They also have a big open room downstairs that would be ideal for a scrapbooking/stamping weekend, so I'm practically drooling at the prospect of gathering a few girls together to do that sometime. Heck, maybe I can even entice Judy, the owner, to join us! She let it slip that she used to stamp... I don't think she realized what a can of worms that opens up for me! ha!  Loren, her husband is a hero in the kitchen so I know if I could get a few girls to go we'd all be hard pressed to leave! I had smoked salmon for the first time as part of our breakfast and I have to say I'm impressed. It was great! Anyway, we had a wonderfully relaxing day yesterday wandering around Menomonie and exploring one of their nature trails. The trail actually meanders along the river that runs just behind the inn where we stayed and it's a great walk. Mother Nature cooperated beautifully for us and gave us a bright, sunny weekend to enjoy. Now I'm sitting out on our deck enjoying a cup of coffee and the first real sunshine we've had in over 2 weeks. I'm going to try and clear out a flower bed or two later but for now it's just so nice to just sit here and soak up some sun.
Hope everyone is having a great weekend! We've got several projects to accomplish now before Josh's graduation party on the 12th so I'm really glad we took the time to get away this weekend.

Take care! We hope to see many of you on the 12th!

Jury duty, the latest cold virus and exploding microwaves

Well now, that caught your attention didn't it?

This week has been one to remember that's for sure. I received notice on the 30th that I am to appear at the Federal court house in St. Paul at 8:00 am Monday morning for jury selection. I've been on the jury wheel since last September and have been "on call" since the first of March. Lucky me. The on call bit is for a two month stint whereas the jury wheel is a year-long deal. I thought I was getting lucky coasting through March without getting the notice to appear and then, lo and behold, I came home Wednesday to find the darned letter in the mail. So, the rest of the week then became a mad scramble to get my desk in some sort of order in case I get stuck on some lengthy murder case that prevents me from going to work. Now, before any of you ask or suggest that maybe I'll get put on the Denny Hecker case, I won't. Primarily because it's all pretty much done now, except for getting the weasel to pay his debts but also because there would be a definite conflict of interest since Rich worked for him. My luck, I'll land on a product liability case or something equally boring. Not that I'm eager for a murder trial either- I'd just like to get put on something that doesn't threaten to numb my brain.  We'll see. Whatever it is, let's hope it's a short trial.

The cold virus snuck up on both Rich and I although it would seem Rich is faring better than I am. I fully intended to go into work this morning but at 4:00 when Buster of the tiny bladder insisted he needed to go out and our two feline nuts decided my stomach was a good launching pad I got up and soon discovered the meaning of a reeling headache. Seriously, I thought my head was going to roll right off my shoulders. That being the case I watered all the animals, phoned my boss and crawled (yes crawled) back to bed. I think I emerged again around 11:00 but I probably could have slept for another couple of hours if it hadn't been for the fact that my back was screaming. I'm feeling marginally better now, but the headache wants to linger.

The exploding microwave was a bit of a surprise to all of us. I guess to be honest, it didn't explode precisely, but I have a new microwave regardless. I can't tell you what the previous carousel tray was made of - I would have sworn it was glass - but apparently the little plastic turntable thingy melting was enough to also melt, blister, and crack ( in several places) the pseudo-glass tray. This all occurred in the midst of a conversation we were having about the laptop that we need to get for Josh for college. The program he is going into requires a Macbook Pro which, if you know anything about Macs, means the price tag is going to throw at least one of us into an apoplexy. Can you say starting price of $1700????   No, I am not kidding. We're sincerely hoping that the school will offer some sort of "you have got to be kidding who can afford this" poor parent discount, but we won't know that until later in April when we tour the campus.

For those who are wondering, it looks like Josh has pretty much decided on going to the UofM Duluth. He apprently was not as enamored of St Cloud State as we were, but we'll see what Duluth has to offer and go from there. We tour the campus on April 23rd so I'm hoping jury duty doesn't put a kink in that. Personally, I don't know that he's going to like the distance from home all that much but I have a feeling that's going to be one of those things he has to discover on his own. He graduates on June 6th and his open house is set for the following Saturday. Announcements are done and will be going out in the mail in another couple of weeks. One nice thing this year, the ceremony is being held at Mariucci arena on the UofM campus so we don't have tickets this time limiting the number of people who can come. So, if you want to, you're more than welcome to come to the ceremony itself. Watch for your announcement for all the details.

Well that's probably more than enough rambling from me for today. I have a couple of aspirin and a pillow calling my name...
Happy Easter everyone!

The kid's got talent part 2

As promised, here are a couple of photos of Josh's winning art piece. My apologies for the lengthy delay in getting them posted here. I've had them on Facebook for a bit but forgot  I'd promised to update here as well.

Anyway... here they are if you haven't already seen them.
Toodles!

Toni

There's a little bit of Spring in the air...

Well, after a couple of days re-visiting frosty 20s and 30s we had a beautiful, sunny 50 plus degree day today. Glory halleluia!  You really don't realize how wonderful 50 and sunny can be until you've lived through several months of winter in MN! I am really hoping this warming trend continues now. We had a taste of 60s last week and got spoiled! At least all of the snow is gone.

I've just finished wrapping up some major chunks of preparation for my Stamp A Stack for the Troops (and You!) event that I am hosting next month and boy, does that feel good! Still lots to do, but I crossed a major hurdle anyway. Now I just have to hope that lots of people sign up!

Hope you all had a great weekend!
Later!
Toni

The kid's got talent

Good morning, afternoon, evening... I suppose it all depends on when you are reading this right?
I've been pretty lax again posting here, but we had some exciting news to share with all of you and I finally had a little time to assemble my thoughts.
As most of you know, Josh has a bit of talent in the art department. Yeah, I know...this has the makings of another proud mama moment right? Well, bear with me.
First a little background:
This year he signed up for an AP Art Studio class at school which, at times, hasn't been quite what he expected but has since improved. He's now at the point where he has to assemble a complete portfolio of what he can do for presentation later this Spring at the art show. He's a senior so he'll have an entire wall dedicated to his stuff. That in itself is pretty cool. Anyway, the portfolio consists of 11 or 12 different pieces all done with a specific theme in mind, plus a couple of alternates. His theme is duality so most everything he's doing has a definite contrast to the elements. good vs. evil, black vs. white etc, or shows some sort of inner struggle. There's a little bit of self-portrait in a lot of them too because he's used himself as the person or people in the drawing. I wish I had some pieces to show you here, but at the moment they're all works in progress or he isn't ready to take photos of them yet. I will post photos as soon as I can.

So, now the exciting news:
Early this year he did a piece that required him to take a photograph of someone or something, convert it to a plain black and white image and then recreate it using a fine tip Sharpie marker and white paper. Josh chose to take photos of himself in a classic James Bond pose looking at the camera with his hands clasped together so his fingers form the shape of a gun. Here's the fun part. The drawing is done so that all of the gray and black areas of the photo are made up of words, phrases, movie titles, and the actor's names who've played James Bond. In the darkest areas, the letters are small and close together and sometimes, overlapping, and in the lighter areas the letters are larger or spaced apart a little more. When you see it up close it looks a little ragged, and you can see the words he's used, but when you stand back about 4 or 5 feet it looks like a photograph. I'm telling you, it's wild! Apparently someone else thinks so too. This piece was on display in the main office at school for about a month and has now been awarded a MN Scholastic Arts Gold Key award! It is currently on display at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in their gallery until February 21st. . After that, if it's selected as one of the top 5 Best of Show the original piece will go to New York for a competition there. If not, a digital copy will be sent for entry into the show, so either way Josh's art is headed for New York! Pretty cool huh?
I'll post photos of whatever I can as soon as he's ready to relinquish them, or we get them back from his art teacher.
Have a great day everybody!