Happy Halloween!

Younger Son's New Car

Younger son is pretty excited. His aunt and uncle gave them their old car. We took car of all the paper work this week. The car is a 2000 and in good shape. Younger son can officially get his license in January, but for now we are planning on the Spring. I would like him to have one Winter of driving together first.

More cookbook news.... everything is moving along nicely. I knew they received the package I mailed them and the company assigned my book to a person. Today via FedEx I received the cover to proof. It looks better then I thought it would. I liked what I picked out, but it is hard to imagine it all put together. The cover person captured exactly how I wanted it done. I thought about posting a picture of it, but the though occurred only on my way home from the post office after mailing it back :) I had 5 days to mail it back, but wanted to do it today so they would have it back by Monday. We should as of now have the books by the second week in December. I am so happy it will give me time to mail them out for Christmas.

Milo had his check up and shots today. I feel bad leaving him. We use Petsmart and they ask that pets to be left for 5 or 6 hours to run all the tests and examine them. He is wonderful and healthy, but they now say he is over weight again!! He weighed 15 pounds today and last time he was 15.20 pounds. It seems like every other time they tell me he is overweight. Last time I received two papers, one said normal weight and one said overweight. He weighed like 16 pounds before that and they told me he was normal. I could probably gain 10 pounds in my sleep, but hey I'm not 8 or 9inches tall either. So we will exercise him a little more. He only eats 1/2 cup of food a day and he is allowed 1 full cup. We do give him treat, but not every day.

While Milo was at the vets; younger son, my friend and her son went to see High School Musical 3. Younger son and friends son loved it. My friend and I thought it was good too. A lot of kids were there! Friend's son was off today and we homeschool so we can always fit in a field trip. The school around here were all in session today, so we were surprised at the amount of kids at the show. Friends daughter heard on the radio a lot of parents were taking their kids out of school to see it today. That explained the crowd!

Some of Our Fall Colors

Taken at Lake Katherine Nature Preserve today. The rest of the pictures are in my Flickr account on the side of the blog.

It's In The Mail!

Finally!! I mailed out all the cookbook information this morning. I made sure it was certified and someone will have to sign for it when it arrives. Now I just want to make sure it doesn't get lost in the mail. Then I will breathe a sigh of relief. Now it will be in the cookbook company's hands.

On an other note, I had the John Braden diary printed and bound today. It will be a Christmas gift for several people in the family. Wow, between the two things I finished today you can account for so many hours of my past year! What will I do with myself? Oh yes, the years of stacked up photo's might be a good place to start :)

I had such a nice day today. My friend and I went for our morning walk and took Milo with us. He was so excited. We usually don't take him because I spend the walk waiting for him to sniff every inch of grass & trees or I'm being pull like a mad women across the track to chase a squirrel. Then my friend took me out to lunch for my birthday a week or so ago. After I came back home I went and had the books bound. I feel like the day was pretty productive along with relaxing and fun.

This Sunday the kids and I are down sizing our shed. I can't wait to get it organized and into something much cheaper. We are cutting the size in half. My sister and brother offered to come help, which I am grateful for. I am thinking of having a few plastic creates on hand to get rid of some of the boxes we have holiday decorations in. I hope we can get it all to fit! If we ever start cleaning out the bedroom I will have to take before and after pictures! I wish we had some on site storage in our condo. Maybe one day I might be able to once again call myself organized...:) not likely.

More Cookbook Stuff With a Twist!

Yes, today was the day my sister and niece came to proof read the cookbook. My sister was nice enough to bring donuts, bagels & coffee this morning because we knew it was going to be a long day of reading. The cookbook printed out on computer paper it was about 159 pages. Did I mention my niece likes very darkly toasted bagels? No, well she does. Have I ever mentioned we have an under the cabinet toaster and it was put in when we moved here about 24 years ago? No, well we do and it was. About the second set of bagels made never made it! The whole thing started on fire and ended up shooting up the cabinets. Luckily the toaster is mounted right over the sink and my niece dowsed it with water, I ran and pulled out the cord and younger son about tripped me and elbowed me in the chest. Older son ran for the smoke alarm and I then ran for all the doors. It was pretty smokey in our little one bedroom. Luckily the only damage was the toaster and that went out to the garbage right after it was cool enough to touch. Looking back I am surprised it lasted this long. Next toaster I am replacing after 20 years! :) I am just very happy my niece didn't burn her hands putting it out and there was no damage to the cabinets. The condo still smells a little like burnt bagels, but not too bad. Right after it was put out and everything cleaned up we had to put on the episode of Everybody Loves Raymond when he started the kitchen on fire. We had a good laugh. Our family is strange like that. As long as no one is permanently damaged we always find humor. Of course if my sister would have called fire no one would have moved, assuming she was just trying to give us a heart attack.

But don't worry we saved the family cookbook!! It is being corrected tomorrow and the recipes are being sent over the Internet Monday with the rest being mailed out this week.

We celebrated my birthday today too. My sister and her husband were on vacation on my birthday so in between proof reading we fit in a nice lunch and a walk. All in all a great day.

Spider

My intent was to go out this morning in the day light and take some pictures of this great web. It looked so cool, that after walking the dog at 11:00 pm I came back in for my camera and went out a took a couple of pictures. With the night lighting and the lamp post behind it, it just didn't come out well. I was going to go back out this morning and get a really good shot, but then it rained. Maybe the spider will be back, I will be checking.

One of The Benefits of Home Schooling

Happy October!

It is Fall!! I love Fall! My favorite season. I love the crisp temperature and the color in the leaves. My friend and I went for our walk this morning and it was definitely cooler. We have to get in as much walking as we can because before you know it it will be below zero, snowing and icy :)

I haven't been here in a while. I had my niece staying with me for 9 days and she left on Sunday. They are only a state away and she works in Chicago, so I am closer to work for her then her home. She worked Monday through Wednesday and then took Thursday and Friday off to hang out with us. Mostly me. Older son is hardly ever home and most of our time was spent driving younger son to his activities. It was nice having someone with me. She took me out for a very nice lunch to celebrate my birthday. Milo loves when she is here too. He gets more walks.

I am happy to announce the cookbook is finished!! I couldn't be happier! Unless it will be early next week when I actually mail everything to the company that is putting it together. It even took me about 8 hours to fill out the forms and write down all the details of the book. I thought after typing recipes this would be a breeze. I kept second guessing myself on font, color, and just about everything else. You know when you look at too many options it gets hazy after awhile. I should have had a poll like Pioneer Women, but I may have still been the only vote :) After I mail in the information and transfer the recipes to them by computer (somehow still unknown to me), it will take until the first week in December to get the actual cookbooks. Family & friends that submitted recipes are getting a free copy and I decided since we had to order 200 cookbooks, we are going to sell some extras for $10.00 a piece along with $2.00 postage if I need to mail it. I really like the cover and picture I picked to go on it. It also has 4 personal pages; a poem, dedication page, & 2 family tree pages. The dividers were hard because I am having black and white photos on each divider. I picked the pictures last year, mostly from going through all my grandparents slides. Now that I looked at them again I changed things around and was short a couple of pictures and went with two I wasn't sure about. As of right now we have 424 recipes. I can still add up to 26 more for the same price. This Saturday my sister and my niece are coming over for the day to proof read the entire thing before I mail it off. I found several mistakes when I proof read it, so I am hoping by three of us reading it we will catch everything. The company does not proof it or correct anything.

Enjoy the cooler weather!