We're Out of Here!

Heading South for the winter.... hee hee. Actually just a quick visit for Christmas. Looking forward to family and old friends. Maybe some warmer weather? Snow kept us here an extra day. We're hoping for a good clear traveling day tomorrow. Merry Christmas everyone!

I'm Back!

Hello!
I feel like I've been gone a long time. My computer woes are ended. I took the very sick box into the repair shop so that I didn't have to deal with the phone help. They were excellent! And, they worked with Dell to replace all those broken pieces. A hard drive and video card. The best part was that they took a "snap shot" of the HD before they removed it, and when they put the new one in they loaded it up. I got back my computer working just as it used to before problems! I didn't have to load a thing!! Yippee.

My cold is just about gone. Josh is still a little under the weather, but we gave it to Dave and he's pretty sick. We're hoping all will be well before next week when we plan on taking our big drive south for the winter holiday.

We're anticipating a big storm coming in tonight. It is supposed to give us 3" of snow on our driveway tonight, and 12" on our snowboarding mountain. And, the storm is expected to continue until Tuesday next week! It's about time we get some snow up high.
Our garage door got fixed just in time too. I took the truck out on Tuesday for Josh's guitar lesson. When we got home the door wouldn't open and let us back in. We've had to leave the truck outside. It is frozen over in the mornings when I'm off to the gym. With the big storm coming in tonight, I'm glad the repair man was able to finish the job today. He came yesterday but said he would need to replace the entire bar/cable at the top, under warranty!! That was a pleasant surprise. He came back today with the part and left without needing any money. WHat another nice surprise.

Computer Woes

I love my computer. When it works. When it doesn't, it seems everything is tough going.
So, here I am, finally updating but I have no pictures and I'm on the laptop that isn't portable because the battery doesn't recharge. Seems like a short year of life. It rarely gets used these days.

The Big Dell is in the shop. Being the holiday time that it is, it will hopefully be ready on Monday next week. They have to back up the entire thing then remove EVERYTHING, and then reload. I will get it back for the fun project of reloading all the programs. UGH. I'm glad I didn't lose anything though. So, there is always a bright side, RIGHT!?

The boys are off for the holiday. We're going to a church family's for Thanksgiving dinner. Zach gets to practice his math facts everyday and I hope we get to go riding sometime over the weekend.
That's about it around here! See, you didn't miss much.

Things Going On

It has seemed busier around here than usual.
We had a "meet and greet" for Josh and a guitar teacher to decide whether or not Josh wants to commit to learning this instrument. It seemed like all went well, and Josh is ready and willing to learn guitar.
I have had a couple of conversations with Zach's teacher and on Friday we have a conference to decide how to proceed with Zach's math class. He is falling behind the class faster than we anticipated.
My computer is not working. It won't even boot up, hence my lack in posts lately. I just got the laptop working sufficiently to get on for this and a few other needed tasks. Dell is supposed to call back "in an hour" to continue the help. It's been almost 2 hrs. I guess the guy really needed a break! I hate computers when they dont work!

A Little Light Heartedness

Josh participates in the Variety Show put on by the high school music department.

They decided it was a fundraiser and charged $10 per person, but forgot to invite people other than the parents of the students participating. Not sure why we pay for the class + donations!

They had a good time anyway. This is Josh, being an Oompa Loompa (from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).

It's good to sit and smile at this when the world around us is so much more serious when thinking about what is to come.

Happy Halloween

I surprised the boys with pumpkins when they came home from school yesterday. Josh decided he wanted to do other outside stuff and Zach chose the larger pumpkin and the skull and cross bones. He did a pretty good job. I ended up carving up the smaller one here. The afternoon was perfect for sitting outside and enjoying the craft and weather.

It's been a full week. Monday night I had my first Bible Study Leaders meeting. I'm leading the 4th group for our Wednesday morning coffee break bible study at church. Wednesday our group was about half of the group that volunteered to move over, but we still had 6. That evening the boys had their youth group meeting at the Corn Maze. Dave and I took them and sat and drank hot cider waiting for them. It was cooler than we thought, but at least we were dressed better than most of the kids. There were plenty of them wearing shorts and T-shirts!

I had orientation at the school district on Thursday morning, and was disappointed to find out that there are so many subs in the system that most aren't working and the ones that are get 2 days per month, on average. "Don't expect to pay your bills on this" they said. Ugh. I guess it would take me a long time to get on the preferred list that most of the subs use. They said that 96% of the sub jobs go to a prearranged substitute that the teacher has used before rather than the system we get dumped into. Thankfully, Dave has been working most days these past 2 weeks. He's been doing at least 6 sprinkler blow-outs / day. Nice thing about that is..... EVERY house needs to get it done. There are plenty of houses to go around. For those down south who have no idea what that means, irrigation/sprinkler lines will freeze during the winter with our winter weather, so we need to blow the water out of the lines. Makes for good Fall work.

Dave and I went mountain biking this week. It was probably the last one for the season. I'm not really ready to ride yet, my arm wasn't even strong enough for me to use it to get up on the pedals, nor could I hold the handlebar in a customary way. It was nice to get out though even if I had to walk the bike down the steep parts of the hill.

I've been working on the photo albums this week. I'm making progress, and that is encouraging.I should be able to post a page for you to see here... maybe next post I'll drop you a peek.

Josh and Dave got their first taste of school projects. Josh had a science project due today, in which it must be a funcioning "mousetrap" type set up, using all simple machines. He used a pulley, lever and hmmm.... I'll have to think about the other one, all to cut a piece of paper. Dave dropped them off at school today, since the regular carpool is off to Idaho Falls participating in the State Championship volleyball tournament. Before we pick them up today, we're stopping at the big snowboard sale to see if we can get a deal on bindings for the snowboard we picked up earlier. We are anticipating some winter sporting soon! The motorcycles are are under the battery tender expecting to be stored most of the winter.

Fall Colors Catch up

I think the trees decided they better hurry up and color up or they would miss fall!

Just 2 days ago this big red tree was glowing red, the brightest red leaf I've ever seen. It is already fading, but still is glorious in color. Be sure to click on the pictures to get a full size look!

This is a Moses' Burning Bush. It really resembles something like it, if you take away the actual fire. These really stand out in the park and in neighbors yards. Dave thought we should get one, and then put 2 tablets of stone with the 10 commandments on it posted in front of the bush. Unfortunately, it would only be interesting for about a week of the year.



Well, I finally got a return email regarding the job interview. I'm 2 for 2, both negative. Remember he wanted a bookkeeper. 15 of us got interviews, and 2 of us were CPA's. The other CPA had "extensive" non-profit experience, so he says this morning. I figured I didnt get the job when I knew he was looking for someone to start tomorrow.

Since I'm still having hesitation on working year round, even if it is part time, I decided to call the school district and register for the real substitute work. A degree is required to sub as a teacher and the pay is much better. I inquired about getting a transcript sent, and asked if my certification of CPA would suffice since it implies that there is a "Degree" behind it. She decided it would work, so I'm set to go to the orientation at the end of the month. I'm not real excited about teaching in a large classroom, but the hours and the holidays/vacations are perfect for us at this time. I really want to be home when the boys are on holidays & vacations. Especially summer. Dave might be home most of Christmas vacation, but it would be nice to be able to go down south to spend time with the family!

And, I can't forget the best part... they NEED subs, and I've already passed the fingerprint & background search. It's just a matter of getting into the system. I am still on the injured list for the cafeteria, and would probably be well enough by the time I finally get through all the meetings for the new position, but I don't think I'll be going back.

Yesterday I got started on my scrapbooking catch-up project. I left off when Josh had his 8th birthday and zach's 7th. I'm a "few" years behind. We sold the home gym that was in the upstairs "guest" room last weekend. That was done for the money and the space. We went to Costco yesterday and got a nice hobby table that folds down for when we need the room for guests. It's already piled with scrapbooking pages. I had only 1 year's worth of actual photos developed that I hadn't put together yet. Then all the photos were taken digitally and never were printed, moved, tagged or hardly looked at. I scanned all those remaining pics plus all the yearly birthday photos and am ready to get scrapping.

I spent my birthday money on getting an easy digital scrapbooking program so that I can get this done before going back to work. Scrapbook Max! So, now you know what I did with the money! I decided to do something with it that was for me and for fun! Impressed? Surprised? I intend to use the same table for quilting, but don't have enough table space to do both projects at once, yet. As soon as I get everything on the computer, I won't need all the space and piles any more. Then, I can get out my mess of quilting and figure out where I left off, and still be able to scrapbook. Isn't the digital age neat! Now, if I could only quilt on the computer and print out the finished project too.