We have been having a very calm winter - tomorrow is supposed to be in the mid-50's and Tuesday low 50's. Awesome.
Christi (the other gal in training with me) and I made it through our first full week at Principal (remember last week was only four days). We finally started learning how to quote a coverage - Life - which is the easiest coverage to quote. It's not hard, but we have to make sure we really read everything the office or broker sends us to pick up all the specifics to quote for that group.
We had nine practice quotes that we were graded on - which is good. We both worked on a challenging quote late Thursday afternoon and it was the first quote we got back with our score. We didn't do too well - and we're working on our own. We're both like, "there was a retired employee on the employee census" which we both missed and that makes a difference on what we do with that employee on the census and quote.
Other quotes tossed us SIC Codes that we had to dig further into to see if we could even quote, employees with medical conditions, dependent coverage, and booklets of the company's old coverage that we're suppose to match with our quote. Overall we both did really good - and our trainer told us that we were the guinea pig group - they decided to give us more quotes to practice during training that were harder than they usually give.
Butler was feeling better on Tuesday after his episode on Monday.
Not much really exciting happened this week - Butler wouldn't let me sleep in again yesterday - the turd.
It's kind of weird but I really don't have problems with Christmas and Thanksgiving, or birthdays without Mike - I miss him but they aren't really "hard" days for me. The worst is what is coming up - Valentine's day. I dread that day because while we didn't do much for Christmas or our birthdays - we always did something special for Valentine's. It's hard to walk by the aisles in stores with Valentine things. At least they don't put Valentine items out three months early like they do Christmas.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
First Day/Week of Work, Winter Weather and More
Well last Tuesday was my first day at Principal - also the coldest day so far this winter and our first real snow storm of any amount. I'm so lucky aren't I :) I gave myself some extra time to drive in case the roads were bad - which they really weren't - just the people driving were bad. And I couldn't believe how many people were already on the freeway at 6:45 a.m. I'll admit at one time I realized I was in my own lane (no one could see any lane markers).
After two hours with Human Resources for orientation we were released to our department. Debbie, who is one of the managers and interviewed me, and Julie, the other manager, came to get Christi and me. I about died - I knew Julie and she remembered me back from Non-Med days! That goes back to 1997-1998! And she is my manager instead of Debbie. Christi and I spent the day getting logged onto our computers, getting into software programs and taking computer classes - so a pretty easy day.
Actually Wed and Thurs were pretty easy too since we had been "built" into the system incorrectly and by the time Julie (who is also the manager of our whole department) found this out, the system had been taken down until Sunday..... So we figured no training until Monday (today). Luckily they got something done Thursday so we started our training Friday.
We could determine where we wanted to park - for FREE. I didn't want to stay in the flat lot so was able to get in the Park and Ride ramp and on the waiting list for the ramp that is right across the street from my building. I'm only 496 out of 500 on the waiting list :) I have about a half block to walk before I can get into the parking ramp then take the skywalk into my building. Wednesday it was kind of cold out so I wondered if I could slip in the ramp where the cars enter the ramp instead of walking a little ways down the sidewalk to go in the actual door - nope. The little guard guy caught me, motioned me over to his booth, whipped open his window and very nicely told me I had to enter the ramp through the door. I found out Thursday that I have to swipe my ID to open that door - which is kind of weird since I have to swipe my badge to get into the building, oh well.
We get to wear jeans all January and I tried another store to find jeans - this store actually sells jeans by length. I found jeans that were long enough but they are low, low, low riders. I thought I had low riders with my pair from WalMart but those are mid-rise and now to me, those are pretty high on my non-waist. I bought two pairs at Delia's at Jordan Creek (by one get second half price) and will try to deal with the low rise.
Saturday I thought I could sleep in a little because I had been getting up before 5:00 - oh no - Butler had gotten used to getting up early and had to get up early Saturday. I'm like "really?" So I let him out and went back to bed. I wasn't sure if I was getting a cold or not so I stayed in Saturday cuddling on the bed with Butler and reading.
This morning we had gotten maybe one inch of snow and when I got on the freeway they were going about 45 mph - holy cow. We may not have wanted to go 60 but we could go at least 50-55 people.
I came home to a lovely thing. Butler was on the couch - I've basically been taking his legs out from under him when I leave in the morning so he's stuck on the couch all day - and he normally poops. Well his poop was liquid - blick. I got him up and to the kitchen to try to go down the steps to head out the enclosed porch to the backyard. Well, I've heard of projectile vomiting with babies but I experienced projectile crapping - all over my jeans and black boots I'd worn to work. I got Butler outside and before he could come back in I took baby wipes to try to clean him up. Poor guy - his tail was so full of crap it kind of wrung out of it. Got him inside and back in the kitchen and guess what?! Projectile crap again. I'm like really?! I'm like, I need to put a diaper on him but I don't have one - what to do. Aha - I have puppy piddle pads, I'll cut a hole in one for his tail and duct tape it to him like a diaper. So as I try to put the "diaper" on him Butler decided RIGHT THEN is when he HAD to go upstairs. I had to drag/carry him back to the kitchen where the duct tape was to tape the "diaper" to him. Poor guy - he still smells somewhat livestocky...... I hope he's not real sick, or starting his last days and tomorrow he'll be his normal self.
After two hours with Human Resources for orientation we were released to our department. Debbie, who is one of the managers and interviewed me, and Julie, the other manager, came to get Christi and me. I about died - I knew Julie and she remembered me back from Non-Med days! That goes back to 1997-1998! And she is my manager instead of Debbie. Christi and I spent the day getting logged onto our computers, getting into software programs and taking computer classes - so a pretty easy day.
Actually Wed and Thurs were pretty easy too since we had been "built" into the system incorrectly and by the time Julie (who is also the manager of our whole department) found this out, the system had been taken down until Sunday..... So we figured no training until Monday (today). Luckily they got something done Thursday so we started our training Friday.
We could determine where we wanted to park - for FREE. I didn't want to stay in the flat lot so was able to get in the Park and Ride ramp and on the waiting list for the ramp that is right across the street from my building. I'm only 496 out of 500 on the waiting list :) I have about a half block to walk before I can get into the parking ramp then take the skywalk into my building. Wednesday it was kind of cold out so I wondered if I could slip in the ramp where the cars enter the ramp instead of walking a little ways down the sidewalk to go in the actual door - nope. The little guard guy caught me, motioned me over to his booth, whipped open his window and very nicely told me I had to enter the ramp through the door. I found out Thursday that I have to swipe my ID to open that door - which is kind of weird since I have to swipe my badge to get into the building, oh well.
We get to wear jeans all January and I tried another store to find jeans - this store actually sells jeans by length. I found jeans that were long enough but they are low, low, low riders. I thought I had low riders with my pair from WalMart but those are mid-rise and now to me, those are pretty high on my non-waist. I bought two pairs at Delia's at Jordan Creek (by one get second half price) and will try to deal with the low rise.
Saturday I thought I could sleep in a little because I had been getting up before 5:00 - oh no - Butler had gotten used to getting up early and had to get up early Saturday. I'm like "really?" So I let him out and went back to bed. I wasn't sure if I was getting a cold or not so I stayed in Saturday cuddling on the bed with Butler and reading.
This morning we had gotten maybe one inch of snow and when I got on the freeway they were going about 45 mph - holy cow. We may not have wanted to go 60 but we could go at least 50-55 people.
I came home to a lovely thing. Butler was on the couch - I've basically been taking his legs out from under him when I leave in the morning so he's stuck on the couch all day - and he normally poops. Well his poop was liquid - blick. I got him up and to the kitchen to try to go down the steps to head out the enclosed porch to the backyard. Well, I've heard of projectile vomiting with babies but I experienced projectile crapping - all over my jeans and black boots I'd worn to work. I got Butler outside and before he could come back in I took baby wipes to try to clean him up. Poor guy - his tail was so full of crap it kind of wrung out of it. Got him inside and back in the kitchen and guess what?! Projectile crap again. I'm like really?! I'm like, I need to put a diaper on him but I don't have one - what to do. Aha - I have puppy piddle pads, I'll cut a hole in one for his tail and duct tape it to him like a diaper. So as I try to put the "diaper" on him Butler decided RIGHT THEN is when he HAD to go upstairs. I had to drag/carry him back to the kitchen where the duct tape was to tape the "diaper" to him. Poor guy - he still smells somewhat livestocky...... I hope he's not real sick, or starting his last days and tomorrow he'll be his normal self.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Sandwich Maker, Baby Shower Gifts, Jeans and More
I know I haven't blogged about my job for a while, that's because I haven't been working for a while but that will change tomorrow when I return to Principal Financial. I'm really excited about the position, the opportunities with it, and my manager is one of the ladies that interviewed me - we got along really well. The only drawback is financial so I'm going to have to really tighten the belt for quite a while. So tomorrow morning, on the coldest day we've had so far this winter - say a prayer for me as I start my new job by walking 2+ blocks from the parking lot to the building :) and also for Butler as he'll start being by himself during the day on a consistent basis. If his back legs go out from under him and he goes down on the floor, he's on the floor until I get home and sometimes he's pretty shook up when I get home and get him up off the floor.
The other night I was doing something and looked at Butler and he'd gotten himself "stuck" getting off the bed. His options were he could either try to fall off the bed himself or wait for me to help him off the bed - he waited for me.
Now he looks like "Mom will you quit taking my picture!"
I have decided that using the Target baby registeries is not for me - wedding registries are just fine. A week ago Sunday I ran to Target to get a gift for a friend from church between church and the shower. I took one look at the registry and realized there were hardly any aisle numbers marked where items were located so I grabbed an employee to help me find things. We have another baby shower in a couple of weeks so I thought I'd brave the baby registry again - I'll never learn. I head to the main aisle marked on the registry and guess what - no more aisle! Gone, nada, empty floor space because there were rearranging. I found an employee who tried to help me and she found the employee that worked the baby area. The baby area employee couldn't even find things because where she thought they were moved to - they had been moved again........................... I finally found something I liked, bought it and ran to the car.
As for the two pairs of jeans I bought the other day, one pair was ok but the other pair just wasn't cutting it. The girl that checked me out said I could return the jeans - even after washing them in case they shrunk. I couldn't believe that but since she'd told me that - I returned both pairs. I'd used a VISA gift card to pay for them so thought I'd get cash back - nope a store gift card - lovely, I don't go to that store very often. But a couple of days later I thought I'd go back and look for jeans and good work pants. Of course no long in my size in anything. I go to the kiosk to look online and found some jeans that came in long and one of the employees showed me where they were in the store - again no long but she suggested I try on a couple of pairs anyway to figure out my waist size which made sense. Off to the changing room I go with two pairs of jean leggings (aka jeggings). Had never tried those horrid things on before in my life and the smaller pair I couldn't even get past my calf.......... The bigger pair I could just get over my calf to find out they were too big in the waist. I called it a day and headed for the car.
I finally joined the Pinterest cult the other day, have no idea what I'm doing, already have like 10 followers and 1 pin - yawow. I don't even know how my friends on Pinterest know I'm on it to follow me.
I'm trying to expand my horizons with my evening meals so wondered what a sandwich maker would cost. When I was at WalMart I thought I'd check them out and found a Rival model for $9.00 something but no sandwich makers in boxes on the shelf. I find an employee to see if they had any in the back - nope - her little handheld dealie said they had two in stock on the shelf. I told her I'd looked through everything and they were all Rival waffle makers on the shelf - no sandwich makers. She told me I could buy the display model for 10% off without a box. I wasn't sure until she picked up the sandwich maker and handed me the manual sitting beneath it - which was something I really needed. I said ok and bought it. I get home, put everything away, sit down to read my sandwich maker manual and it was the waffle maker manual - really??? Yep. I thought how in the world am I going to get a sandwich maker manual from WalMart then thought - aha - go online and see if I could find the manual. I did - joy, joy. My printer drives me crazy so I thought, I'm going by the library this morning, stop in and print it off there - you get five free black/white printed sheets/day. I log in as a patron, go to Rival's web site, find the .pdf file for the manual, click on it and get a message that some flash media or something needed to be loaded before it would print - which of course the library would not allow because they couldn't just let patrons load things willy nilly onto their computers. I'm like really???? It's just a 5 page .pdf file!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why does something special have to load before I can print it??? I'm trying to work up the strength to tackle my printer to print the manual.
I have decided that using the Target baby registeries is not for me - wedding registries are just fine. A week ago Sunday I ran to Target to get a gift for a friend from church between church and the shower. I took one look at the registry and realized there were hardly any aisle numbers marked where items were located so I grabbed an employee to help me find things. We have another baby shower in a couple of weeks so I thought I'd brave the baby registry again - I'll never learn. I head to the main aisle marked on the registry and guess what - no more aisle! Gone, nada, empty floor space because there were rearranging. I found an employee who tried to help me and she found the employee that worked the baby area. The baby area employee couldn't even find things because where she thought they were moved to - they had been moved again........................... I finally found something I liked, bought it and ran to the car.
As for the two pairs of jeans I bought the other day, one pair was ok but the other pair just wasn't cutting it. The girl that checked me out said I could return the jeans - even after washing them in case they shrunk. I couldn't believe that but since she'd told me that - I returned both pairs. I'd used a VISA gift card to pay for them so thought I'd get cash back - nope a store gift card - lovely, I don't go to that store very often. But a couple of days later I thought I'd go back and look for jeans and good work pants. Of course no long in my size in anything. I go to the kiosk to look online and found some jeans that came in long and one of the employees showed me where they were in the store - again no long but she suggested I try on a couple of pairs anyway to figure out my waist size which made sense. Off to the changing room I go with two pairs of jean leggings (aka jeggings). Had never tried those horrid things on before in my life and the smaller pair I couldn't even get past my calf.......... The bigger pair I could just get over my calf to find out they were too big in the waist. I called it a day and headed for the car.
I finally joined the Pinterest cult the other day, have no idea what I'm doing, already have like 10 followers and 1 pin - yawow. I don't even know how my friends on Pinterest know I'm on it to follow me.
I'm trying to expand my horizons with my evening meals so wondered what a sandwich maker would cost. When I was at WalMart I thought I'd check them out and found a Rival model for $9.00 something but no sandwich makers in boxes on the shelf. I find an employee to see if they had any in the back - nope - her little handheld dealie said they had two in stock on the shelf. I told her I'd looked through everything and they were all Rival waffle makers on the shelf - no sandwich makers. She told me I could buy the display model for 10% off without a box. I wasn't sure until she picked up the sandwich maker and handed me the manual sitting beneath it - which was something I really needed. I said ok and bought it. I get home, put everything away, sit down to read my sandwich maker manual and it was the waffle maker manual - really??? Yep. I thought how in the world am I going to get a sandwich maker manual from WalMart then thought - aha - go online and see if I could find the manual. I did - joy, joy. My printer drives me crazy so I thought, I'm going by the library this morning, stop in and print it off there - you get five free black/white printed sheets/day. I log in as a patron, go to Rival's web site, find the .pdf file for the manual, click on it and get a message that some flash media or something needed to be loaded before it would print - which of course the library would not allow because they couldn't just let patrons load things willy nilly onto their computers. I'm like really???? It's just a 5 page .pdf file!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why does something special have to load before I can print it??? I'm trying to work up the strength to tackle my printer to print the manual.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Black Squirrel, Geese and Nursery Duty
I was going to blog a couple of days ago but was lazy. I finally got some pix of the black squirrel that lives in the park across the street from my house! The pix aren't the greatest because they were taken with my cell phone but they are better than no pix at all. I've had my digital camera in hand each time I've left the house since I took these pix to see if I'd see the little guy again but no such luck - yet. Dad actually saw him first in my neighbor's tree to the north last summer, and this little bugger has run around in my yard before moving across the street to his large acreage.
Thursday's weather was in the low 60's! A new record for Iowa on that day. I posted on Facebook that I had my moonroof tilted open, the driver's window down and the radio blaring - it was awesome. I spent a little time on Mike's bench at Raccoon River Park and as I left I happened to look back toward the adult softball fields and saw............the herd of geese. Not flock of geese - this was a herd of geese. They even made the 6:00 p.m. TV8 news.
Thursday's weather was in the low 60's! A new record for Iowa on that day. I posted on Facebook that I had my moonroof tilted open, the driver's window down and the radio blaring - it was awesome. I spent a little time on Mike's bench at Raccoon River Park and as I left I happened to look back toward the adult softball fields and saw............the herd of geese. Not flock of geese - this was a herd of geese. They even made the 6:00 p.m. TV8 news.
Evidently these geese thought the one field was too crowded and decided to "migrate" to another softball field.
I also found some jeans that I'm so/so happy with. At one store I'm an 8L and at another store I guess I'm a 6L. I found this out the hard way with trying on 8L's and realizing they were too big in the tummy - which was my real waist by the way. So I clutched the jeans to me to walk out to find some 6L's but they only had 6M's - sigh. I tried on one pair and thought they were ok, I'd like the jeans a little longer. I wasn't quite sure so I walked out of the dressing room and asked some woman I didn't know what she thought about the jeans and she said they looked fine - but not to go any shorter. I bought two pairs since it was buy one regular price get one 1/2 price.
Friday night our church had a ladies night out at one of the gal's homes - and we were to wear our p.j.'s. Well my p.j.'s are a pair of shorts and a holey t-shirt. I found a pair of long, cotton, p.j. pants and a long sleeve top to go with it to wear. A good time was had by 16 ladies. We played one game where you wrote down five nouns on a piece of paper, got in teams of two, and one team member drew a piece of paper from the bowl - then had to use only words to describe the five nouns on the paper. And you couldn't use any of the words that were written down on the paper. Like if word #2 was leaf and word #3 was tree you couldn't say what grows on trees because tree was a word on the paper. If you got all five words guessed, then you had to repeat all five words in order without any help from your partner. You'd think that would be easy right - try it - it ain't that easy which we all found out. The classic was when my friend Lynn who was paired up with someone else asks, "so I can talk all I want?" and then proceeds to barely say anything to her partner when giving clues. For Round #2 you switched partners and Lynn was my partner. For one of the words on the paper she had my clue was, "it's my favorite". Wow - favorite what? Food, car, tv show??? It was funny.
The other game we played we each had to pick an animal to be and then come up with a motion to be that animal. Like if you were an elephant you would raise you arm like raising an elephant's trunk. The leader would make their animal motion and then someone else's animal motion. You'd have to really pay attention because if you didn't realize your motion was made - you'd have to go to the end of the line of chairs. So the leader did her motion and someone else's. That someone did their motion and someone else's and so on. One of the gals was a cat that "licked" her paw to wash her face and ear - like cats do. Evidently I was so into the game that I really licked my arm from about my elbow to my hand (with sound effects too) and stopped the game with everyone laughing because I'd actually licked my arm. And a helpful hint - don't be the opposum like I was where I had to rock back onto the small of my back with my legs and arms in the air to be an opposum "hanging from a tree" like they do - that got tiring after a while :)
Saturday I was bringing up a bar of soap for the shower and Butler thought it was food for him when I opened the box - he thinks everything is for him. I held the soap out to him for him to smell the soap and he tried to eat it............. Later that night I watched the movie "The Notebook" and posted this on Facebook to which I got several comments to get the kleenex ready - great. While it was a sad ending, it was a good ending so not many tears from me.
Sunday I did my first time in the nursery at church and had the littlest kiddos - thank goodness there were only three of them. One mother told me her daughter couldn't sleep during nursery and another mother told me her son couldn't chew on anything - oh the pressure :) Thankfully Meredith didn't sleep and Noah didn't chew. But when I'd have to get out of the play area to get a kleenex for Noah's nose - both would cry so I'd run back to the play area with the kleenex. At one time the only way to quite them was to hold both at the same time. Thankfully the other little girl didn't cry during that time. My small group leader says he's calling me the Baby Whisperer now. I wonder about him sometimes :)
I had a baby shower to go to after church and then off to a friend's house to visit with her and her hubby. I got home around 4:30 or maybe later. Butler was happy to see me. The pic below is him all curled up next to me on the bed last night. He's still pretty limber for 15-17 years old.............
Sunday, January 1, 2012
New Year's
I'm not really into football and not an Iowa State Cyclone fan - I lean more Iowa Hawkeye if I lean. But Friday I watched both bowl games that the Cyclones and Hawkeyes were in......and that both the Cyclones and Hawkeyes lost (big sigh). The Hawkeye game started at 9:00 p.m. Iowa time and ended after midnight. Toward the end of the game they had to have a delay of game for ESPN because their sky cam fell from the sky. It almost landed on some Hawkeyes and one of the players (McNutt) appeared to get tangled in some of the wire the sky cam went back and forth on. It was kind of sad watching them s-l-o-w-l-y pull that big, expensive sky cam across the field.
Saturday morning I went to an estate sale with a friend with this sale being in the actual house. The house was in the neighborhood south of Grand Avenue where there are some really big, neat houses. The house the sale was in was really interesting - not a house I would want to live in - but interesting and it had quite the view. It even had a swimming pool with a big deck around it. There was a sign on the main window you would look out to view the swimming pool and deck that said, "Pool and deck make best offer." I had two thoughts, "Why in the world would they move that big, in-ground pool and deck? And if they did move them, I'd sure like to watch them do it." I can't remember what I said to the lady working the sale but she told me, "Anything on the deck or by the pool, make best offer." Oooohhhh - gotcha. I made a comment about the sign to my friend and she said how she had wondered what they meant by it. I told her to not ask - I'd already voiced what I thought the sign meant and was set straight :)
My last errand yesterday was to buy cheese bread/pizza from Papa Murphy for Butler's and my dinner last night - a little splurge since it was New Year's Eve. I watched "Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve 40th Anniversary" and enjoyed watching some of the Top 40 videos from the past 40 New Year's Eve shows. I especially smiled when K.C. and the Sunshine Band and Rick Springfield were in the top 15. Mike and I saw K.C. and the Sunshine Band in an outdoor concert on 5th Street in Valley Junction (one street over from where I live) one summer. And I can't remember if it was the same summer - I don't think it was - but we saw Rick Springfield at the ValAir Ballroom (which is like four blocks from my house) and Mike caught one of Rick's guitar picks. Both K.C. and Rick were in their prime when I was in college and if someone would have told me that I'd see both of them in concert within blocks of my house in 20 years I would have laughed them to shame.
Well, we saw the ball drop at 11:00 p.m. our time for New York. I then turned the tv off to spend some time reading the Bible, taking personal communion and praying. Mike and I had done New Year's Eve communion for the past couple of years and I've done it the past two years on my own - to start the new year off right. I turned the tv back on to watch the ball drop at midnight for us - told Butler "Happy New Year", kissed him on the head and went to bed.
This morning church started an hour later than normal - and I was glad because staying up after midnight the last two nights was a little much for me :) Today the new church plant that the pastor and family is from our church - their core group worshipped with us this morning. A friend and I had the craft for the WAVES! group (K-2nd) and we were making name tags for the kids to wear each week. They were shrinky dink - remember that? The kicker was the kids had to write their name on the back side of the shrinky dink - backwards. And those that needed help writing their name, we helped them - which was most of the kids. The only letters that would throw me for a loop for a second were "d", "s", and "y". I had to remember to make a "b" for "d" and draw the "s" and "y" in the air to make sure I wrote them correctly backwards before doing it on the shrinky dink. My friend was amazed at how quickly I could write names backwards. I didn't have the heart to tell her that my junior year in college during my psych class (which I detested) I spent part of the lecture time teaching myself how to write backwards with my right hand and also how to write in cursive with my left hand. Evidently my brain and hand just kicked in after all those years this morning :) After the service we had a potluck in the gym. The two pix at the end of the blog show the big group of all of us eating.
Still no real snow - which means no using the snow blower so far - which is fine with me. But I've had to deal with leaves in the driveway, especially the last two days with the wind really picking up. I want to keep the leaves cleared up in case we get snow so when I run the snow blower it doesn't get clogged up with the leaves. I swept up leaves yesterday and put them in the trash. I swept up a lot of leaves when I got home from church today and put them in the trash. And then when I took the trash out - I swept up more leaves to put in the trash. But again - I'd rather do that than deal with snow.............
Saturday morning I went to an estate sale with a friend with this sale being in the actual house. The house was in the neighborhood south of Grand Avenue where there are some really big, neat houses. The house the sale was in was really interesting - not a house I would want to live in - but interesting and it had quite the view. It even had a swimming pool with a big deck around it. There was a sign on the main window you would look out to view the swimming pool and deck that said, "Pool and deck make best offer." I had two thoughts, "Why in the world would they move that big, in-ground pool and deck? And if they did move them, I'd sure like to watch them do it." I can't remember what I said to the lady working the sale but she told me, "Anything on the deck or by the pool, make best offer." Oooohhhh - gotcha. I made a comment about the sign to my friend and she said how she had wondered what they meant by it. I told her to not ask - I'd already voiced what I thought the sign meant and was set straight :)
My last errand yesterday was to buy cheese bread/pizza from Papa Murphy for Butler's and my dinner last night - a little splurge since it was New Year's Eve. I watched "Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve 40th Anniversary" and enjoyed watching some of the Top 40 videos from the past 40 New Year's Eve shows. I especially smiled when K.C. and the Sunshine Band and Rick Springfield were in the top 15. Mike and I saw K.C. and the Sunshine Band in an outdoor concert on 5th Street in Valley Junction (one street over from where I live) one summer. And I can't remember if it was the same summer - I don't think it was - but we saw Rick Springfield at the ValAir Ballroom (which is like four blocks from my house) and Mike caught one of Rick's guitar picks. Both K.C. and Rick were in their prime when I was in college and if someone would have told me that I'd see both of them in concert within blocks of my house in 20 years I would have laughed them to shame.
Well, we saw the ball drop at 11:00 p.m. our time for New York. I then turned the tv off to spend some time reading the Bible, taking personal communion and praying. Mike and I had done New Year's Eve communion for the past couple of years and I've done it the past two years on my own - to start the new year off right. I turned the tv back on to watch the ball drop at midnight for us - told Butler "Happy New Year", kissed him on the head and went to bed.
This morning church started an hour later than normal - and I was glad because staying up after midnight the last two nights was a little much for me :) Today the new church plant that the pastor and family is from our church - their core group worshipped with us this morning. A friend and I had the craft for the WAVES! group (K-2nd) and we were making name tags for the kids to wear each week. They were shrinky dink - remember that? The kicker was the kids had to write their name on the back side of the shrinky dink - backwards. And those that needed help writing their name, we helped them - which was most of the kids. The only letters that would throw me for a loop for a second were "d", "s", and "y". I had to remember to make a "b" for "d" and draw the "s" and "y" in the air to make sure I wrote them correctly backwards before doing it on the shrinky dink. My friend was amazed at how quickly I could write names backwards. I didn't have the heart to tell her that my junior year in college during my psych class (which I detested) I spent part of the lecture time teaching myself how to write backwards with my right hand and also how to write in cursive with my left hand. Evidently my brain and hand just kicked in after all those years this morning :) After the service we had a potluck in the gym. The two pix at the end of the blog show the big group of all of us eating.
Still no real snow - which means no using the snow blower so far - which is fine with me. But I've had to deal with leaves in the driveway, especially the last two days with the wind really picking up. I want to keep the leaves cleared up in case we get snow so when I run the snow blower it doesn't get clogged up with the leaves. I swept up leaves yesterday and put them in the trash. I swept up a lot of leaves when I got home from church today and put them in the trash. And then when I took the trash out - I swept up more leaves to put in the trash. But again - I'd rather do that than deal with snow.............
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