Happy New Year !!!
Many blessings and happiness and prosperity for 2008 !!!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go......
At least out my window it does. Lookit that snow. The only problem with that snow.....all of our leaves are underneath it. LOL At least we got the pumpkins and cornstalks taken down, but the crazy warm fall weather kept those suckers up on the trees till the very end. I predict an ugly spring clean-up with some reseding of the grass.

The Boy got a doe and an eight point buck. Okay not "got" them, shot them. He didn't just walk up and say "here, jump in my truck" DD#1 texted him a picture of herself while they were hunting with the caption "I'm cold". Not my idea of fun either.

ch-ch-ch changes....

Wow, maybe this should be a monthly blog eh? Biggest change, I am un-employed. Three teachers were let go, last hired/first fired, you know..... so there is a sadness. There were other cutbacks as well and thankfully, because I was a part-timer, I didn't find out until Monday where others were gone the day before Thanksgiving. The job fell in my lap to begin with, BUT the hours worked beautifully for my family, Bebe was going to a FUN preK with mama right there, a wee extra money was flowing.....good points? No driving in the snow-soon-to-come, excessive gas prices was making it a costly drive to work, more time to blog perhaps?? LOL

Onward and Upward. Oldest daughter has moved out. She and the Boy have bought a mobile home, and seem very happy. They have 8 rats, Sir Charles the cat and the birdie Daddy bought her for her birthday, and now a friend for the bird. We are planning a "family trip" to cut down a Christmas tree together and they were agreeable with that. They are still here almost every night but a little more independant as well.

what else, what else.....Big E is on the JV basketball team, first tournament this weekend. We have dinner plans next weekend with friends, fun fun. So there's an update on life in crazy land.....now if all three of my friends will comment, it will look like I have a life!! wendymom~this means you.
cousin Colleen~chime in too. :)

And then....

Days pass between posts, weeks perhaps....the big change around here, besides the clock of Daylight Savings, is that I am working again! Part time at a preschool/daycare, E is in the three year old class and enjoys it very much. My Official Title is Staff Support, fancy words for go where we need you and cover teacher breaks. So far I've been in the preschool classes, which I know and love but may find my way over to the babies, not so bad there either. :) I am still trying to get things more organized around here, including before bed picking out the little girls clothes, NOT having to stay up for laundry and going to bed at a decent hour. I wish I could get a head start on lunch making, since now there are three to pack. (Big E is making her own, big YEAH to that)
Hockey has started.
Basketball begins next week.
And we have Girl Scout cookies to deliver. The time change affects that happening~ because it is DARK at night and this mama no-see-so-good in the DARK anymore. It's them new fancy headlights I tell you.

Since I never finished the Fred the Bat story...it did have a happy ending. Dear Hubby caught him with a box and tossed him gently into the night. Fred got his name from our daughter, coincidence it was her bus drivers name ??? We see him flying around every night at dusk, looping circles in the air filling up on mosquitos. YEAH good bat!!! But when you come in my house, all bets are off my friend. God's creatures are welcome to live outside, in the WILD, where they belong.

The Story of Fred, Fred the Bat.

Part ONE
Fred the Bat is a happy little guy, who comes out at night and flies in the sky. Fred the Bat, we've watched for three years, right around dusk is when he appears. Eating mosquitos is what he likes to do, as long as he's outside; we like it too. But when it's FIVE in the morning, and our daughter shouts; "Fred the Bat is here, downstairs in our house." All joking aside, all rhyming is done, what to do with this BAT, we considered a friend???

look what I did

This is a quickie post, but LOOK what I did >>>> over there, see it's me~ at my day job. The minivan chauffeur ! And yes I did look up that spelling in the dictionary. The post to come is: "Things that go flutter in the night" or " Bats in my Belfrey, if I knew what a belfrey was"

Oi vey I say

Sooo when was that last post? Ah yes, Wednesday, three-ish days ago. and then Dear Hubby came home, in agony with a hurting back. He hurt in a few years back, and isn't a go-to-the-doctor guy. On the advice of Nurse Wendy we've been icing, administering mass quantities of Advil, laying flat on his back. Next up: a nice arsenic laced drink and a sharp blow to the head! Wait, I'm kidding! But the menfolk, well, you know how they are with PAIN and all......he's-a-drivin-me-nuts!

And on top of ALL THAT, I've had to cook dinner for two nights in a row. Not that I don't cook mind you, a little, when I have to, and it comes outta a box..... but. Last nights feast was pork tenderloin, seared and finished cooking in the oven (ala the Take Home Chef show recipe), baby carrots with butter and parsley AND Twice Baked Potatoes (ala Confessions of a Pioneer Women Cooks blog) Check her out, they were fab-U-lous!!! Tonight was sirloin steaks, red beans and rice (Hillbilly Housewife) and vegetable medley. (frozen from Aldi's) Okay so after a widdle painkiller, D.H. did cook the steaks because me and the grill DO.NOT.GET.ALONG. And here's the rub folks, I also cleaned up after these meals all alone. Yes D.H. helps clean up. He's a keeper, that's for sure........

(but if he tries to roll over in bed tonight, grunting and practically moaning......I'm wacking him ala the Soprano's) :)

But wait, there's more......Wendy~ stop rolling your eyes, you know I talk a LOT. The biggest surprise of all....dun dun dun...... it's a BOY!!!! The aforementioned RosieLulu is now the kitten known as DOMINO. or Dom Kitty. or baby Dom. or the Bebe's pick "running around kitty"

Dom, welcome to "The Family."

My house, it smells of vinegar. Odd yes, but strangely comforting. My dd's boyfriend is canning. Pickles, green beans, tomatoes....all from their organic garden. This is the smell of my house when my mother was alive. All thats missing is a fan blowing outwards in the window....but its not-so-hot right now.
Not only did my mother can, she froze veggies, sewed, crocheted, quilted, cooked, baked cookies......the list goes on and on. But the stories are getting lost. Lost in long ago memories, lost with the deceased, lost in time and sadness. Evidently our pediatrician would take payment in the form of home- canned sour cherries, and he liked to spit the pits as far as he could. But it's all a world apart from life now. Life A.D. perhaps?

In response to juliemom: Yes I have a blog. By my pathetic two posts you can see I have "issues" with blogs. Here are five reasons......
1. I forget passwords. (somewhere in cyberspace are my family reunion pictures on photobucket. They keep emailing my password, and I never get it in my inbox)
2. Life....... happens and I am extremely lazy.
3. Five children + one computer = mama fights for internet time. (but haha! they go back to school 9/5)
4. Sometimes I'm funny, sometimes NOT!
5. See the title of my blog? It kinda describes it in three easy words.

Onward: on MY calendar it's August. Could someone please let the weather know this fact? It is raining, grey and it's barely 61 degrees. I have on jeans, should look for socks, and need a jacket to take the dawg out at night. Enough!

Now I am off to the wonderful world of cheap food; Aldi's to get some chili fixins. That's another feature I'd like to add to this blog, cheap food ideas for a lotta people. EX: my dinner table of 7-8. Feel free to chime in......

So here is post #2...it's been awhile huh? Everything in post #1 is the same, add some months to the ages, and Sir Charles has moved to my daughters BF's house....and we have another new kitten: Rosie Lulu. Complete with fleas, but in my quest for more natural remedies/cleaning products/etc I have been bathing her with Dawn dish soap and Xcross fingersX we seem to have won the flea battle. (only casualties: the fleas!)

Just attended my 20th high school reunion from an all girls Catholic school. It was truly a "blast from the past". Some people I'd like to get back in touch with, some definately NOT. And would someone please let someone know the early 80's are waaay over, and pink and kelly green and plaid should only be a Halloween costume. Gag me with a spoon, okay?

So in the good spirit of blogginess, I'll try to update this more frequently. :) Stay tuned......

Here I am

I read such wonderful blogs everyday, I've decided to try it myself. So here I am: Mary, wife of Dave, mama to five children; ages 17,14,12,7,and 2 & a"haff". Four are girls, my son falls in the middle. We have been married for 18 years and 7 months. Add to this mixture a dalmation-Chief, a cat-Pumpkin and the newest, a cat named Sir Charles who "belongs" to my 17 yr old. I say "belong" in quote because while she works her full time job and ventures off with boyfriend, I am the one to watch, pet, hold, play and make sure kitty Pumpkin doesn't eat Sir Charles.

We live in a very old home that we are restoring with historical paint colors and someday, when children are grown, ie: not destructive, would like furniture from the time period. 1832 to be exact!

So come on over. I'll try to entertain, enlighten, provoke, or bore you with ALL THE CRAZY in my life. :)