Anniversary of my birth day

This week celebrated the day of my birth.  My parents anniversary of parenthood and my grandmothers anniversary of becoming a grandma.  I did nothing that day, instead I caused my mother great pain (I held back and then came quickly, preventing her from receiving pain meds) and my father great stress.

I had one of those mornings, after a good laugh when Tater was offended that I actually had to work, but was blessed at work with hugs, greetings, well wishes and cupcakes.  As I have celebrated enough of these anniversaries, it's the little things that mean the most.  Having someone take an extra moment to walk over and wish me 'Happy birthday' or take the time to give me greetings by phone or Facebook is enough for me.  It doesn't take a lot of time to do but it is a gift of time and that anymore is special.

I also had a milkshake with a friend before school was out and a drink with a "birthday buddy" who celebrates her day close to mine.  Then home for dinner and cake after practice and enjoying some time with my family. 

Be Happy, Be Healthy and I wish you great anniversary celebrations with those who mean the most to you.

PS had another gymnastics meet today, Dizzy had 3 personal bests and Tater had 2.  Both girls improved their all around scores and both their teams took 1st place in the team competition.  Bean gets his cast off on Monday, pretty sure he's counting the hours down.

When it rains...

Or more properly today, when the sun shines and the wind blows, we get ice, ice and nasty slippery ice.  Not so much fun for Bean, who has 5 more days in his cast and crutches.  Hoping Monday brings the brace and him being able to put the foot down and begin putting some weight on it.

Well, the furnace being out while we were gone last weekend has claimed a couple of more victims.  Death count is now 2 bettas and 3 plants, although I believe 2 more are not going to survive.  It seems to be working fine now, so am hoping that we're done with those problems for a time.  Range is still not working, repairs are expensive and I know The Boss is weighing whether or not we will be repairing or replacing the dang thing.  I'm running out of microwave meals to make, pulling out the crock pot tomorrow to make a real meal.

My biggest stressor this week has been the choosing of a tablet.  I have the celebration of my birth day this week and decided that I want my own tablet, one I can use to surf the web, blog, watch videos and has a keyboard that can be attached when I want to use it to work on my novellas.

There are a lot of darn tablets on the market.  Holy cow, I have been very overwhelmed by all the different options.  

Do I need expandable memory?

Do I want iOs, Android or Windows?

Can I stand Windows 8.1? (Easy answer there--heck no!)

What size do I want? (again, this one was easy, I want around a 10" screen, have the 7" in my Kindle Fire--which I wish would allow me to put word processing on it and be able to add a keyboard.  Love the Kindle line)

Not being brand specific, although I want a good brand, not a knock-off brand and not caring about the specifics of processors, etc, gave me a world of choices.

I finally came down to an iPad Air, Samsung Galaxy Note or Tab or an Asus Transformer.  Huge price differences.  I love how Apple products work and they make sense to me, but The Boss has an Asus and we can share accessories and I like the look of the Galaxys (in white).  

Spending hours in electronics stores where I can't seem to find anyone to help me (and if I go in there just to check on something or am wasting time I can't get rid of them) has frustrated me and I knew I had to do some hands on.  The Boss wasn't a lot of help, since I couldn't narrow down what I wanted, but he did what he could and found me some links and reviews of some of the models I said I was interested in.  He even gave me his tablet for a night to mess with and I became a bit more comfortable with the Android operating system.

I wandered into one last store today and hit the jackpot.  Not one, but three of the gentlemen who worked there took time with me to share what they knew and took time to listen to me and help me find the tablet that I can live with the price but not feel like I am settling for less than I wanted.

Now, will the Boss have it here for my birth day celebration tomorrow?  I've certainly sent him enough links to keep him well informed of my decision...

After 2 weekends off of fun and play, we're back to meets, home this weekend, then it's a race around the western US for the next couple of weekends before the state meet and Bean heading to FL with his band.  I enjoyed the time off and rest and hope it was enough to get me through the next month.

Be Healthy, Be Happy and Stay Safe!

What a week...

It's been a busy week, not sure where the time has gone.  Enjoyed a weekend without a meet, but did travel to Bozeman to celebrate my mom's 70th birthday with her.

A weekend with no schedules, except the Legos movie and dinner.  Unfortunately the Boss got the stomach flu and was sidelined for most of the weekend, hiding out in our room.  So much for romantic, Dizzy and Tater stayed with my brother, sister-in-law and my niece (lets be honest, they stayed with my niece--the adults were just nice enough to let them) and Bean stayed in Grammas room so he didn't have to sleep on the floor (bit tough with the cast--12 days and he'll be cast-less) and we had a room to ourselves.  Good thing, didn't want to share that crud with anyone.  He's happily recovered and finally able to eat again.

Tater was sick last Monday, Dizzy on Tuesday and the weather cancelled other activities so we had a quiet week last week, making this week seem even longer and more difficult. 

We're supposed to get to 40 degrees today.  Wind is blowing away and I'm going to need hip-waders to get to the garage to pick up Bean after school.  Mother Nature needs some Ritalin or to get into sports, yesterday it was warm, then it rained, then snowed then went back to warm.  Boy are the roads fun!

Finished another blanket set yesterday.  When your high school aged son asks you to make a blanket for one of his teachers, how do you say no?  Working on some more hats, need to find somewhere to donate baby hats to.  They're easy, fun and I can do one in an evening if I focus (that's not happening right now due to the Olympics).  Tink has asked for an afghan for her bed, so I guess I'll have to get started on that next.  Again, how do you say no?

Travel is again in our future, meeting with some of my husbands friends from Boy Scouts and high school to hang out and play for a weekend.  Should be a great time and I know 3 of us have birthdays in and around the weekend, so should be a great time.

Be safe, be smart and be happy!

Signs it is too cold outside...

Waking up this morning, this was my first sight:

Then upon wishing Dizzy and Tinkie goodbye, this was the next sign of things to come:

Then I wandered out to the kitchen to help Bean with his breakfast and see this:

Finally, I took the plunge to see what the day was going to bring:

I think we should cancel today for lack of interest/safety (we are 4 degrees below the forecast low for the day) and stay in bed with a good book and a cup of tea or cocoa!

Stay warm, stay safe and stay home if you can!!!

Siblings

I have one brother.  He is 7 3/4 years younger than I and was 8 years behind me in school.  We had very little sibling rivalry.  I do know that he was compared sometimes unfavorably to me while in junior high and high school (the joys of being in a small school).  The funny part of that is that he is amazingly smart and driven.  He's a Chemical Engineer and when he starts talking about work I see how much he enjoys his job and the challenges.  Me, I'm intelligent, I'm driven to be the best mom I can be, but I wasn't the natural student, I believe I suffered from a little ADD before it was cool to have ADD and I am not an auditory learner, so all of the lecture classes made it very difficult for me to learn (and that, too, was before many of the different styles of learning and teaching were popular).  Regardless, we did our thing and our parents treated us as individuals.  I was the 4-H, livestock raising child and he was the outdoorsy Boy Scout who still loves hiking and camping.

My kidlets are closer together and have all been trying the one-up-manship game.  This is really hard for little Tinkie who wants to be successful like her sister in gymnastics and isn't going to be this year.  Sister scored the sought-after 36 last weekend and Tinkie celebrated with doing one more skill on the uneven bars without a hand from her coach.  Dizzy gets the attention of being very successful and Tink cries over the 4.6 score she got from the judge.  We had a little talk after the meet, Tink and I did, and decided bars are stinky and we're going to work on getting stronger for next year and not worry as much about what the judges score her if she's trying to do it without a spot from her coach.

Then there's Bean who wanted to be on the boys team at the gym very badly.  He tried for months to get there, but never did develop the upper body strength that it takes to be successful.  Think we've fixed that with the 6 weeks on the crutches...but he's discovered running and loves it.  Cross country running is another event where you are competing for yourself, trying to better yourself and your time each time and your scores can help your team.  The group at his high school is amazing and I'm proud to be a mom there.

Obviously Dizzy's elbow is healed, Tink managed not to join her siblings in the injured department (the magic third time's a charm went to a co-workers granddaughter who fell and probably broke her nose...poor punkin!) and we're 19 days away from the cast coming off.

Signing off from my cold little home.  It's -6 right now and I'm going to make some potato and ham chowder for dinner.  Sorry no pictures this week, need to organize the photo albums to have access to some great ones of the past.  One of these days....

Stay warm, stay safe and stay healthy! (I'm leaning on the last one as I finished my antibiotics on Monday and hope the sinus infection stays away...)