We're back

From North Carolina! Yes, we were total panzes and spent Thanksgiving by the beach. It was great. And I'm tired and cold... mur... it was sooo nice and sunny there. :)

Blessings.

Quiet week

I wished. :) Somehow this not very busy week got really busy, really fast.

We went to Dale and Meg's house for potluck on Monday night... except that none of the other couples could make it, so it was us and Kevin and Tim. Which was a pretty good alternative. :) I enjoyed it. And Meg made some yummy soup and bread pudding for dessert. So good.

Tuesday felt like a crazy day. Somehow we ended up with two copies of the latest RJ book so I returned one after work, and then dropped off all of our Christmas Shoe Boxes. Then, since there's a Kroger right next to Berean I got groceries there. I didn't know where anything was though, so it almost would have been faster just to go back to Morton... o well. It gets dark soooo early and I don't like it! It felt so late when I finally got home. We ate supper really fast and then went to Bob's double great- aunt Nancy's visitation. There was a long line and I am not a fan of visitations and funerals.... long day.

I got up and made a cake for a coworker this morning; then we went to the funeral, which was a blessing, and went straight home after the service. I made it to work by noon so I only missed half the day. woot woot. After work I went to my parent's... in time to grab a sandwich and change to go with them to my great uncle John's visitation. He's the last of my grandpa's siblings... kind of weird that there's nobody left in that generation. He had been at the home with Alzheimer's for a few years... Shelly probably knew him better than all of us. It was good to see his kids (and grandkids) again in person instead of just their Christmas cards. Yeah... some of them even live in t-town and I never see them. :)

Tonight I feel pretty wiped out. I think I will sleep really well.
Blessings.

computer

Well... we had a nice quiet weekend. We hopefully raked leaves for the last time and were pretty lazy otherwise. And now this week is shaping up to be kind of crazy. Woot woot. Much to do and food to make and not much time to do it.

And since nothing exciting happened and Bob refuses to guest blog..... this is Bob's computer while he was busy building it. He's so smart... it would have taken me days to figure all the diagrams out and he barely even had to look at them.


It took over the room for a few days... you can see Bonsai-san in the corner and my poor sewing machine with wiring diagrams on it.

If you look in the middle of the motherboard, I put in the CPU. It's the goldish square thingy. I was terrified that I would break it to bits. But I didn't, and his computer runs just fine.

We raced it against my lappy... shutdown to full start up... his took 30 seconds, my poor lappy was still trying to turn off. Maybe it is time for an upgrade. :)

Blessings.

Veteran's day

I'm grateful.

And I had the day off, which I love! I had big plans to get all kinds of stuff done... I got some of it done. :) I was going to re-caulk around the tub, since it has been crumbling away every time I scrub the floor, and try some cleaning stuff on the mildewy grout... in the process of pre-cleaning everything some tile gave way. Aaaahhh... minor freak out... Bob was in a meeting, so after a trip to Menards and a slightly panicked phone call to the farm for advice I got the hole patched up and hopefully watertight. eesh. I am never ever ever putting tile in a bathroom. I don't care if it is prettier.

The rest of the afternoon I made some cookie dough and relaxed.

OOOOOoooo, AND, there's going to be another 709-Shaker wedding! BJ and Gab got engaged! (finally, haha, Gab you're the one who used to remind me that it was 'yes' or 'no'....) Yay! I'm so excited for them. Close to squealing excited, actually. It just makes me smile a lot.

It's really hard to go back to work on a Friday when you didn't have to work Thursday. Ugh.
Blessings.

Slime and the DMV

Haha, not necessarily together. :D

Monday night I went and talked at the 4-H club meeting... it was really fun, once it was over and I stopped being nervous. Seriously, 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders are scary. And some of their parents were there. *grin* Poor Bob, he tried to calm me down... There were a few kids who were doing their demos, so I got to watch them and learned all about making pudgy pies, knitting, making a picture frame, and making cocoa mix. Then it was my turn. Yikes. I talked about the lab a little bit, and about single molecules and polymers and I'm pretty sure I kept talking faster and faster and faster. And then I put on my lab coat and goggles (completely unnecessary, but they make me look smart) and made slime for them. Which I think they liked, the boys kept calling it 'snot'. So lovely. I like playing with the leftovers.

My sort of not stoned drivers license picture is no more... I went to go get it renewed and not only did they make me take the test, they made me take a new picture. While I was there I saw all sorts of people, plus a little dog that was hanging out with the mother of a 16 year old while he took the car on the road test. Inside. um.. ok. And I didn't get lost, which is always a good thing.

So... while I was writing this we had to evacuate the building. woot woot. And spent an hour outside in the beautiful weather while they figured out why the alarm had gone off. And tomorrow is a federal holiday. I love my job.

Blessings.

There are things that I like about fall and winter... the darkness is not one of them. Anyway.

We had a good weekend. Saturday Bob and I raked up some more leaves... woot woot. There's still some on the trees so we'll probably have to do them again. O well. I don't mind a little hard work. We spent the afternoon listening to Trans Siberian Orchestra... it was cool, but very loud and much flashing lights. Bob really liked it; I liked it, but I think I'd rather listen to a CD and not have all the lights and high decibels. My head started to hurt a little bit later while we were eating at Monical's.

Sunday we went to W-ton for a change. It was good to be there... although hearing about how we "never" come gets really old really fast. Such is life I guess, but it doesn't make me all that anxious to visit. I know, I know, it's a bad attitude... but it makes me wonder if they actually like seeing me or just like scolding me. Anyway. And then we went to my parent's to check out the new carpet and for Sunday afternoon snack, which I love. :D

I'm doing a presentation for the 4-H club tonight... I'm kind of nervous.
Blessings.

Friday

I love Fridays. And Thursdays for whatever reason.

And Christmas. However, I refuse to listen to Christmas music or decorate before December 1st. I'm all about living in the moment, or something like that, since I maybe have already sent my family my birthday list and our Christmas lists. There are only 42 shopping days left.... haha. And I've started my list of ideas of what to get people. Hooray! I love Christmas shopping.

So I was browsing around amazon last night looking for cool possible gift ideas.... and as much as it hurts to admit it, I bought myself a ceramic pilgrim couple. I like it. Me, who always said my mom's were cheesy. I will now sit here sheepishly and contemplate the fact that I ordered pilgrims. :)

Oh, and my little sister has a blog. Go check out her pictures of taking piglets to the south side daycare she volunteers at... mkwyss.blogspot.com

We Voted!

Huzzah!

Bob made me wait until after work so we could go together... I suggested we take a camera... he looked at me funny. :)

And then I got to wear two "I voted" stickers for the rest of the night.

Can Chicago just secede already?

a series of unfortunate events...

Ok, so the weekend wasn't quite that dramatic. :) It felt like it a few times, though. Thursday evening, we had one couple call to cancel because of a funeral so I tried to call a few people who we don't know very well, or don't see very often, or who don't have kids that they would need to get a last minute babysitter for... yeah, they were all busy. Which is ok, we'll just have rotating potluck with 8 people... and I'll quick come up with a vegetable. (I was already making meat and rice.) And then one couple called to say they had sick kids so we were down to 7 people. Aahh. It ended up being a really fun evening so all was well.

Bob accused me of wanting to host so I have an excuse to buy flowers. He might be partly right. *grin* What can I say? Fall flowers just look so pretty! I did change the water... some of that fall color must be fake!



Saturday morning Bob got up early and went to help on a ACWR roofing project... and I slept... hehe. Actually, I got up before 8 (shocking, I know) and raked leaves. I filled the truck bed twice and there are still a bunch on the trees.

That afternoon I went and watched Derek and Leann's kids for a few hours. I was reminded why I never babysat... It was ok, we played play dough and played in the yard.

I got to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters Saturday night. The swat team told me to "drop the candy and nobody gets hurt." Other than a kid in a costume from Avatar, there weren't very many creative ones this year. And we were down to four pieces of candy so I turned off the light early. Maybe we shouldn't have opened them before Halloween.... hehe.

Grandpa and Grandma Beutel are letting me keep their beautiful geranium in our sun room until it dies... it looks so healthy next to my poor plants that I didn't bring in soon enough.

Sunday was pretty quiet... except Bob decided he was really hungry for Chinese for supper. I'm not overly fond of Chinese, but Oriental Palace in Pekin has Thai and Japanese food too. So we went there and got excellent service because we were the only customers in the whole place. Which is really kind of weird, but it was fun and the food was good (and fresh).

Blessings.

This week...

Has been pretty quiet. Other than spending time with Sharon & girls, and avoiding getting ready for potluck we haven't had much going on. :)

Although, Sunday night we braved the storm and went to Steak and Shake for milkshakes. And a Frisco melt. After we ate supper. *grin* This is why I must exercise.

Our leaves need raking badly and it's too dark to see when we get home from work. I was hoping the wind would take care of them... no such luck. At least this year they're dry and crumbly and not heavy and wet like last year.

My car is in the shop today getting an oil change and hopefully getting the annoying whine fixed. Hooray for high mileage cars! I'm just thankful my parents taught me to pay cash for old cars... I'll never spend as much repairing it as I would have spent to buy a brand new car (no debt either!). So I'm driving Bob's Dad's truck. Woot. I like trucks. It makes me miss my Dad's green chevy pickup. That thing was amazing.

Blessings.

Whole Egg Country

So I was cleaning out some old files on my lappy... we had a big project in High School to research our family trees and learn about our heritages... this was part of my project. Frederika was my great-great-grandma, and Kari was my great-grandma who raised 14 children and lived on a dairy farm in Lester, Iowa.

Frederika Knoblock woke up to the smell of eggs frying that morning. For a moment she couldn’t remember where she was. Then it all began to come back: the months of planning and packing, and the tearful good-byes when the day finally came to board the ship for America. She had been reluctant to leave Germany, even though her husband Wilhelm could hardly keep enough food on the table. She had been an expert at making food stretch as far as possible to keep her seven children fed. They even had to share their breakfast eggs because farming had gotten so bad.

Wilhelm jumped at the chance when her brother, who was already in the United States, offered to sponsor them so they could start over in America. Her brother bought 80 acres and it was waiting for them in Iowa. They had left early in 1889 to start their new life. The thirteen days on the boat had been crowded and cramped and there weren’t enough beds for their entire family. Her darling two-year old Karoline had slept in the top of a trunk on the way over. She looked over to the bed on the floor where little Kari was still sleeping peacefully. She hoped that she would have a better life here.

All too soon it was time to get up for breakfast. She woke her children and they all went down to the table. She couldn’t believe all the fresh food. She began to help her sister-in-law dish out the food. Out of habit she cut several eggs in half for her children. Her brother couldn’t believe what she was doing. He told her to give every one of her children a whole egg, even little Kari, because “America is a whole egg country!” Frederika could hardly believe it. A whole egg for everyone in the family! There would be no need for her food stretching skills here. What a story she would tell to the people back home and to her grandchildren and maybe their grandchildren would hear it too.

Shoe Boxes

Right now we have a little bit of Christmas stacked in a corner at our house. *grin* I like it. And I'm not even that anxious for Christmas to be here.

Our potluck spent Thursday evening wrapping and filling shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. (National collection week is coming up!) It was a lot of fun. We all brought stuff to fill the boxes so we had a whole table full of loot to divide up. Blake and Kris were there- it's always good to see them.

Then after we got done with the Christmas stuff, we bobbed for apples and ate pumpkin bars and fresh salsa and caramel dip. Hooray for fall!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. O. wait. Never mind. :)
Blessings.

Some days...

I have a degree in Chemistry. Today, I moved a refrigerator.

In other news, I finally got to go eat lunch with my little sister Dalaysia. She said she had a good summer. She also said I was "giggly." um... Not sure that's ever been used to describe me before. :) It was fun to be back in a grade school again.... especially since her school is probably about as old as mine was. Old buildings are just awesome in general. She showed me all of her silly bandz... I am so out of the 4th grade loop!

Blessings.

Pumpkins and Mums

I have a confession to make. I don't really like mums. *gasp* I know. I like chrysanthemums of all kinds but "fall mums" just don't do much for me. To orangey and yellowy and well, too Fall. But I bought one anyway because my geranium looked too summery. I don't really like geraniums either, but they're kind of quintessentially summer and they're easy to keep alive so... yeah.

Anyway.

We had another pretty busy weekend. Rustin and Sharon and Grace and Eden were here for the Pork chop fry so we spent Friday evening with them. Saturday I went to quilt club and made jello for the pork chop fry. Bob went to the Pumpkin chucking thing with Rustin and his Dad... I wasn't too sad to miss it to do other things. :) And then we went to the famous Koch pork chop fry in the evening. woot woot. The weather was great and the food was good. And it wasn't very windy so we didn't come home smelling like smoke! hooray! Bob was still really stuffed up from being outside all day. Oh, and we got to bring home a pumpkin! The winner already had pumpkins at home and we were sitting by them. Score. I'm excited.

My cousin Clayton spent the night with us Saturday night. I don't get to see much of him anymore... he came to church with us and then we had to rush to get him back to work on time. It was good to have him here and get caught up... he's um, not exactly putting first things first right now, say a prayer if you think of it.

And then we relaxed and enjoyed the sabbath...
Blessings.

Lovely weekend

This past weekend was great. And nice and long. Hooray for Columbus Day and for other pointless government holidays that everyone else ignores! I love them. Anyway. So Friday evening I had a bad headache and Bob wasn't feeling real great so we stayed home and were total bums.

I slept till I woke up on Saturday, which was amazing and I felt ten times better. We went and dropped part of Bob's new computer (it came broken) at the UPS store and did some other stuff and ate breakfast for lunch at Bob Evan's... I think we were the youngest people in there... fun times. :)

When we got home I cleaned and stuff.... woot... and then since I missed going to Apple River and stopping at Tanners for Apple Cider Donuts, I made some. I found a pretty easy recipe here. I had some problems flipping them in the oil so I ended up with a lot of pieces of donuts and a few whole donuts. And donut holes! They tasted really good. Of course, what doesn't taste good dredged in sugar and cinnamon?



Merrily frying away...


They were sooooo good warm. *sigh* I think I'm going to need to get more exercise....


So then Sunday we went to Champaign for Alan and Natalie's wedding. It was such a great day. Good to see people, and be in Champaign again, and the wedding was very sweet. I'm just so excited for her! And she looked adorable, and the reception was really cute, and they served IBC Root Beer (which we love). *grin*

Dave and June had a family wiener roast that night. The weather was beautiful. We didn't stay very late because Bob had to get up super early (4:30ish) for work. And I had to get up super early (8ish) to go shopping. It's a rough life, I know.

Mom and Shelly and I drove up to Woodfield Mall for the day... well, I drove, it's generally less stressful for all of us that way. :) We took their new pretty blue van, which was really fun to drive in city traffic. Anyway, it was lots of fun. They've got pretty much all of my favorite stores and then some. We were all practically drooling over the cool stuff at Anthropology. If anybody is wondering what I want for my birthday/Christmas... they have the coolest aprons ever. But then we had to come home... and we got stuck in construction traffic and Shelly had the hiccups.

There were roses waiting for me... for no particular reason. Bob's pretty much the best. He's even letting me help him build his new computer. I got to install the CPU last night. I feel very nerdy. :D

Blessings.

whirlwind

Last night I went down to Champaign... it has been a very very long time since I've had a chance to go just to hang out. It was a little bit of a whirlwind- I think I'm getting old. Good times.

My first stop was at Mark and Ashley's... it was good to see them and Reuben... then I quick stopped at Susan's apartment because I hadn't been there before. They live upstairs in a cool old house in the middle of all of the lush Urbana foliage. I liked it a lot.

I ate supper at the Saltshaker... Jakey was cooking. ERN had invited himself over, but he didn't show. (bummer- haha) They made bbq... woot. It was fun to be there again, although I am slightly disappointed in Jake that he hasn't skipped a class yet. I mean, seriously, what is he doing with his time?

Then I headed over to the Dojo to see Amber and Sarah. We chilled for a while and then we went to Cocomero for frozen yogurt. It's self serve so I tried chocolate, raspberry, and strawberry- so good. After that, we headed back to Urbana to Rachel's apartment to hang out with the UIYG. (Yes, I was all over town last night) I just love that group, most of the faces are different, but somehow it's still very much the same. Definitely a blessing to get to hang out with them again.

So then I had to go home... after driving past 709 and stopping for a polar pop. hehe. Old habits die hard. It was late and I was tired. And I have a bit of a headache today. It was worth it though!

Blessings.

The best laid plans

I was expecting to have a very quiet week this week, literally. Bob had training scheduled on second shift... so I would have been all by my lonesome... woe is me. Anyway, so I had it all planned out so I wouldn't get too bored or freaked out in our quiet house; Monday night I kept myself busy with canning apple pie filling and laundry and facebook. And Tuesday I was in the middle of browning sausage for the freezer and making a casserole when Bob called to say he was done with training and coming home with a pizza. A very large pizza. A stuffed take-and-bake pizza. At 8 o'clock at night. We didn't eat all of it. :)

Wednesday Carol had invited me for supper, and she graciously let Bob come too since he wasn't at work. :) It was fun to see her house, and she made us a really good supper.

So yeah, my grand plans for getting all kinds of things done got a little derailed... but... I don't really mind that much.
Blessings.

Fall

I'm so not ready for cold weather. mur. But, it does make me hungry for apple cider donuts and hot apples over ice cream. None of this pumpkin stuff. :)

Last Thursday we went to rotating potluck at Jim and Rachel's. It was great fun.

Friday night we went to my parents for supper since it's been ages. Bob and my siblings climbed the new grain leg. I did not, I prefer solid ground to ladders and small platforms on 110ft towers. It was probably good I was on the ground because I found a sick opossum and raised the alarm... Dad and Troy speedily dispatched it. Grandpa gave us a short combine ride... short because the tank was almost overflowing and he was quitting for the night. *sigh* And then we had milkshakes.

We had to get up early Saturday morning to go sing for a funeral. It's been awhile, since I'm usually at work during the day. I tried especially hard to blend with my fellow sopranos.... my Grandma wanted men to sing lead at her funeral because she wasn't fond of how the sopranos sounded. *grin* I miss her. And then we were bums for the rest of the day... well, kind of. I cleaned and stuff.

Sunday was really nice and quiet too... hooray!
Blessings.

For Karen-

This is my new "wall art." And some flowers from my flower beds. They always start blooming again when it cools down in the fall, which I love.

It's next to impossible to find square frames for cheap (or at all)... The only ones I saw were black and they were on sale so I spray painted them white. I like it. It goes with my apron curtains and random other vintage kitchen paraphernalia. :)

Blessings.

I need suggestions

For books to read. I've pretty much finally made it through all of Bob's books... and mine... and there are still two and a half months until Christmas. (Which means new books!)

I just read 'Riders of the Purple Sage' and tried to read 'The Last of the Plainsmen' by Zane Grey. I wasn't impressed. Maybe I was expecting them to be more like Louis L'Amour books, but yeah, how was he famous? He does description really well, but I kind of just wanted to slap the girl upside the face in 'Riders of the Purple Sage.' The other one was boring. :)

Anyway, we had a nice quiet weekend for a change. It was heavenly. I went to a few garage sales on Saturday, and actually found what I was looking for! We don't really need anything and our house is full, but I couldn't resist a cool milk glass vase... and some old handkerchiefs. My big project for the rest of the weekend was framing them with two I got from my Grandmas. I hung them over the kitchen table.

Blessings.