Trip Home

Since I had the card reader out, I figured I should grab some other photos to post. These are from our trip home in October. They're just of my family, I had a fresh card in the camera from David and Brenda's wedding. And it ATE the photos. That'll teach me to try to be good and make sure I had lots of space. I was SOOOOOO mad. But Brian's mom sent us one of the ones of the full family (including us) with our Christmas present and it turned out wonderfully. I'll have to scan it at some point and post it.

Le Chateau Des Eberhardt est pret pour les reservations!

I finally have the downstairs bedroom set up as a guest room. I love the concept of having my own craft room/library, but the truth is, I rarely used it as such. I'd grab what supplies I need and bring them out to the living room to actually *do* whatever craft I was feeling like. And given the "delightfulness" of my crappy sleep habits, we were strongly considering putting a bed downstairs for me.

But book early, we're already filling up. No, seriously, April is already completely booked up for us!










And what's with all the bright white out that window you may be asking yourself? It's slightly late, but I'm getting a white Christmas after all. Better late than never! They're currently forecasting 15-20 inches (38-50cm) of snow by the time it ends tomorrow! Good thing I got myself that present two posts down, isn't it? And I liked mom's comment about it being a necessity and made Brian buy me another Christmas gift. Good thinking mom! Below are the photos from the snow in the last post, and I'll post photos of this snow from tomorrow. Ish.

I'm a very naughty girl

I just bought my own Christmas present, AGAIN. Brian's going to be mad at me for it because I have a bad habit of doing that. And in this case, I don't really care, because it's as much for me as it is for him! Click the title if you want to know what I got!

Discussions with Vicoden Man

So Brian was given Vicoden for his hand. And he can only take it while home and not going to drive. It usually makes him pretty sleepy*, but also leads some interesting conversations. *After taking this mornings at about 5:30am when I got up for work, he proceeded to continue to sleep until after noon.

I think all who know him will agree he's had many odd conversations all on his own, drug free. This one was priceless:

Brian goes upstairs to work on laundry, and about 10 minutes later I realize I haven't heard anything...

H: "Brian, whatcha doing?"
B: "The bed got me"

All normal so far, that's a phrase we use to say we're just flaking out upstairs in the quiet for a little while.

10 more minutes pass and I go upstairs to see what he wants to do for dinner.
He has gotten undressed and fully tucked himself into bed.
Teddy bear and all.

H: "Really, the *bed* got *you*? It doesn't look that way to me..."
B: "My clothes conspired with the bed"

Take That!

There's a certain someone out there who complains about my cooking, and in particular that I use too much fat/oil/meat in my cooking and that it's going to kill Brian because heart problems run in his family. Me, personally, just with my cooking. There are three important facts to know here. First, the food I make when we have company over is very different from what we eat every night. It's a chance to splurge, to make something special. Secondly, yes, high cholesterol does run in Brian's family. We're watching it and taking appropriate measures. When he got his first high reading at his annual physical, we made a lot of changes to how we eat, started exercising more and paid attention. One year later, it'd gone up another 75 points. That's genetics. Not food. And thirdly, I donated blood last month. When you do, they test your cholesterol level and send you the results.


Total cholesterol: 169 mg/dL


Take that!


(For those who don't know, in order for you to have high cholesterol, you need to be over 240, and anything below 150 isn't healthy either as you're likely too low on the "good" cholesterol)

As promised

And pointed out by mom, I haven't even posted a photo of Andrew yet. I've been both busy and sick to answer mom's other question, but I'm slowly getting my feet back under me. We'll be going home in 3 weeks, so I'll have lots of photos of all the nieces and nephews then!

Courtesy of mom

Who got to go see him today.

Brendon William

That and Bonnie's trying to recuperate are all the new info I have. Photos will go up as soon as I get some!

Welcome Baby Boy Taylor

My sister had a little boy today. They're both doing okay, he's 6lb 5oz, and that's all I know! I had a quick call from my brother that he'd had a text message. I've tried calling the house, but I'm not surprised to find out that Rob's not home to give me the more information I'm dying to hear! More updates as I get them.

Photo Dump!

Mostly from my garden, but also one of Madison (that Brian looked at and named "Maddy-tude") and one of the piles of floss purchased for several of my friends overseas since we had a great sale last week. The packages went in the mail yesterday ladies!

Squeeeeeeeee! And more squeeees

I've got lots of squeeeees, and a still painful hand for typing. Sorry I haven't been blogging much. Not really able to stitch much yet either, but some nights I can get in a threads worth. So no pictures.

Squeeeeee #1:
My sister is pregnant and expecting in September! Go BJ! She's having a really rough go of it, but expected that and is coping as well as possible.

Squeeeeee #2:
My brother's girlfriend is expecting, and due in December! Kim's doing well (thankfully much better than poor Bonnie) and they're both very excited.

When we were home in April for Brian's grandma's funeral, my dad was making jokes about me making it a "perfect trifecta"... Not in my planning thank you! :)


Squeeeeeeeee #3:
We're going to Disney World. We booked the trip tonight, and it'll be in September. We'll even get to see Mike and Jan and extended family while we're there, since they'll be there too :) I've never been and always wanted to go. It's a combination wedding anniversary/happy greencard present to ourselves.


Biggest Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee of all:
We signed the final paperwork today for the lawyers for filing our Greencards, our priority date will be current as of July 1st, and the paperwork will be sumbitted with all haste. Brian's getting a job for Christmas :) :) :)
It's been seven and a half years since we moved here, and it's been really hard on him. He doesn't want to believe it until it actually happens, and I don't blame him one bit.

Sorry for the disappearance

We had to go home unexpectedly for a funeral. Brian's grandma passed away on Wendesday last week. Grandma lived a long (95!), full and rewarding life. She was a force to be reckoned with and a wonderful person.

I've lots to update, including what we did for Brian's birthday, which was also on Wednesday last week. :( But I've no time to type it up right now. I just wanted to post something to keep folks a little up to date.

More photos!

From a British Columbia (Canada) science museum's upcomig ad campaign. I love it!




This is a neat shot I took of my frog waterbath, filled with ice pellets. We had a storm come through Thursday-Friday last week and built up quite an accumulation. The top of that frog's head is normally more than 6 inches from the bottom of the waterbath!




My parents, who were "in the area" last weekend. They live 600 miles from here, but were going to be "only" 75 miles away on Saturday so we had to go visit! It was a good visit, and we had no traffic problems for once!




Me with Mom and Neil




And finally a photo including my hubby, Brian!

Wohoo! Two updates in under a week

Well, remember how last post I said I was busy? I should have known it would get busier! I had a call from my sister last night with a computer question. As we finished getting what she wanted fixed, she asked what I thought of mom's email. I'd taken the day off work sick (apparently I can't take Biaxin on an empty stomach anymore...) and mom had sent an email to my work account. So I called mom. Turns out she's bought a motorcycle on eBay (another one!) and they were going to be coming almost all the way here to pick it up and pay for it on Saturday. Since they're only going to be about 75 miles away, we'll be going to meet up with them after they arrive and pick up the motorcycle. So... my weekend now looks like this:
Saturday:
Morning: haircut, bake shortbread as promised for Deirdre's party
Afternoon: last minute shopping for our trip (note to self, grab Tums and Pepto...), dry run on the packing so I know how we stand
Evening: arrive Deirdre's party for ~1hr, leave to drive 1.5 hrs to meet up with my parents. Dinner with them and a short(ish) visit. Won't be getting home until LATE.
Sunday:
Catch the noon train to go into the city for the play and meeting afterwards with playwright and cast. Dinner with the group.* Come home and try not to die before going back to work Monday morning!

Phew! And it doesn't help that my insomnia is acting up and I've been up since 3:30... but at least my Formula One season has started again so I'm getting to watch the Friday practice (taped last night) as I write this! And I was good and went to bed too... the TV coverage was just starting at bed time and I went to bed instead of watching it.


* For those that are local: The play/meeting afterwards was organized by a group on Meetup.com called "Culture for the Uncultured". Basically it's for people (like us) who live in the NYC area, know there's all sorts of stuff to do but never find out in time/know how to find it. They organize events, publicized well in advance, and usually managing a group discount. This will be the first one we're actually making since joining the group, but there've been a number I'd like to do, and some recurring ones I've now marked to do on our own I found out about from the group. The scavenger hunt at the Met is deffinately on for next month!


And finally, shamelessly stolen from Heather's blog:

Your Leprechaun Name Is:

Weebit Forrekettle

What's Your Leprechaun Name?

Nudge accepted! :)

Okay, so I really suck sometimes about updating this blog. Thanks for the nudge Heather. I've been meaning to, but I just never seem to get to it. Our Christmas vacation was very busy, and quite short. We had three days home in Cambridge and then two in Sudbury. We saw all the family. 'Nuff said for now. We did get to meet my "little" brother's girlfriend's family, at his invitation. Which he regretted... it was great! Hey John, is that lawnchair falling? I was sick before we left to go home with some sort of sore throat/laryngitis/sinus bug. Then, on Christmas Eve, I picked up quite a nasty stomach bug. Needless to say, I wasn't feeling up to much. I still haven't thrown the throat/sinus/lungs bug, so I'm off to the Dr's tomorrow if she'll have me. We came home in time for New Year's, which was spent quietly just the two of us relaxing. We needed it. We'd spent the last 5 weekends out of state or out of country. I really need to learn how to slow down sometimes in life and not accept so many obligations.
On the stitching front, below is the current photo of Frog Prince. I finished the backstitching on Phoenix finally on Saturday, but Blogger doesn't want to let me add another photo so I'll have to do that as a separate post.
I have lots more, but an even bigger desire for sleep....zzzzzzzzzzzzz......