Belated Happy chinese New Year

I cannot believe we are at the end of January already!

I have signed up with a home health agency, but don't have any idea if they will have any hours. Anurse friend signed up with them several months ago, and then said they never seemed to have any hours.

Not much going on here now. The weather is unseasonably warm. Being a pessimist:) I think this means we'll get walloped in Feb or March with a huge snowstorm!

Oh, and belated Happy Chinese New Year...you can stop by A Red Thread to China for more on that! May the Year of the Dog bring you happiness!

Eddie Ryan

Click on Eddie Ryan's site and then check out the video link on the left....tissue alert!

Two Time Wasting Games

Well, this is a bite in the shorts. Was checking out Chuck's blog(From My Position....On the Way!) and he had 2 cute new games(said he couldn't sleep) AOL will not only not let me email them, when I tried to email them from my gmail account....AOL would not accept the mail for any of the AOL members!

So here's the links:

Click here: Escapa!     Click here: De-Animator

Dorks again:)

My question is....do dorks gravitate to each other, or can you spend so long with a person that you start to take on their characteristics?

Tony is working on this 1000 piece puzzle(birthday gift, I told him it was the only kind of Harley I could afford!:)As you can see, it comes with it's own tin.

So last night he's working on the puzzle and has the lid propped up to refer to the pic....he stands up to search for a piece and then sits down and I hear him say 'that wasn't smart'. I ask,'what?' and he says 'I moved the lid and put it on my chair and then forgot and sat down on it!'

HURRAY!

Hurray! I got the release!!!

In other news, I have been called back for two interviews from online applications!!!YAY! 

Ben has joined the 360 world, check him out (my son "tall and thick"!)

I have added several links to the blogroll, some are of wounded soldiers sites...please think about checking them out, and sending a card. These guys deserve our honor and prayers!

Hope everyone has a GREAT weekend!

April-ism

This photo is of a car that April said she just LOVES. LOL. champagne tastes.....a Bently?:)

Ben got a job at Target, Yay! And I saw a pic of my (God willing) grandchild-to-be today, who thus far looks like a little blob!(But a very beautiful blob:)

Tony got a hair cut yesterday, and April kept saying "You look like 'Alpha-Alpha'. I'm thinking to myself 'what the heck?' So he was here this afternoon and she said to him 'hey,Alpha,Alpha.' I could stand it no longer and asked'what the heck does that mean?'

And she said 'you know....Little Rascals...Spanky's friend....with that cowlick sticking up...he looks like Alpha,Alpha!" By the end of her sentence I am just DISSOVING with laughter on the couch.......I keep trying to talk, but am laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes, and finally I manage to gasp out, "It's.....AL-FAL-FA!"

Blog-surfing and Supporting the Wounded Troops

Went blog-surfing last night.....haven't done that in awhile, stopped by to visit all my old favorites(and I have THIRTY favorites bookmarked on Milblogging.com!LOL)

Via Holly Aho, who is a blogging Soldiers' Angels member,came across a CaringBridge site set up by some friends of a wounded soldier.

www.caringbridge.org/visit/noahgalloway

It's slow-loading,but you might want to stop by and take a look and leave a message in the guestbook.Touched my heart cause he's only a few years older than Ben....I can't imagine.

Another site I stopped by was Joey and Jayme Bozik's site.....the young man that was featured on MTV who lost both his legs and his hand?

Click here: Joey   Anyway, I return to the doctor on Thursday, so am hopeful of being taken completely off restrictions. And the job hunt continues then:)(not that it's not going on now, I'll just hopefully have a better chance of being hired)   Oh, and thanks to all who stopped by Yahoo 360, I went from being a pathetic loser with no page views to having 13!!!

And Terry?  I am black coffe also! Thanks for posting that quiz, Kyle and I had a riot last night trying the other quizzes on the site:)   Click here: Blogthings - List of Blogthings     Hope everyone has a great day!

Here, or Yahoo 360,I'm blogging again.

 April has practice this week for the spring play("lion,Witch,Wardrobe"), and the job search continues. I return to the doc on Thursday, so am hopeful I'll be totally released from restrictions then.

Kirby sent April a talking email that was an unintentional RIOT because the emphasis on some words was slightly off....and when it got to the part where it said "ha,ha,ha", it reduced April and I to tears of laughter because the syllable emphasis was so strange:)

He is going on a whirlwind world trek, but will he blog about it? Judging by the itinerary, it may boil down to "I am once again on the plane......."

Unemployment has finally decided I qualify, so I feel less like the wolf is at the door.

Oh, and I have been having loads of fun making short videos with Photostory from Microsoft.

Another Way to Send Support to the Troops

Yet another way to send Valentine's messages to some troops.

There's a blogger in Georgia who sent Christmas messages to the troops, and now she's trying to collect Valentine's cards and emails. You can read about it on her blog

http://crazynightinga.blogspot.com/2006/01/hearts-for-heroes-update_19.html

January 21, 2006

I think April had a nice birthday. She got a card from Mom:) and had a friend spend the night Friday night. They watched movies (Robots is hilarious!) and then today went to see 'Chronicles of Narnia'. She had her favorite kind of cake....a Dairy queen ice cream cake.Yum!

Jan.19,2006

Combining my love of Keanu Reeves with my self-acceptance as a dork.....here's the latest filed under 'Dorks R Us'.

Tony's surgery went well on Tuesday, and after I got him home and settled, I decided to run to Dairy Queen to get dinner, as April had a concert at school that night that she was in.

Well, I pulled forward after I gave my order, and looked down to get my money out of my purse....and all of a sudden BANG!

I had hit the stupid 'Children's Miracle Network' metal thing that they had attached to the bottom of the window with my left side mirror!(not that the Childrens Miracle Network 'is stupid, just why do they have the thing sticking out form the drive thru window!!!!)

I scared the heck out of both me and the girl waiting to take my money, and ended up with an ugly scrape on the mirror housing. And, besides feeling like an idiot...the thing that ticked me off was that I KNEW when I went home and said what had happened..

Kyle and Tony would give me that 'look'. The one where you're trying to look sympathetic, but are about to bust out laughing ?And that is exactly what happened.

But, the concert went well later that night. It's always a joy to watch April, she so enjoys singing but REALLY enjoys doing handbells. She just GLOWS when she's doing that, you can tell she really loves it:) She was really excited that she also got to bang on the bongo drum during part of the concert:)

In other news, check out a Red Thread to China.

Writing to Soldiers

Just to tout my favorite hobby horse again,someone posted some thank you's they had received from writing to soldiers.

Which gave me the idea to share some I received(names removed) so y'all would see why I keep doing this!:)

For background, Soldiers' Angels lists on their TLC message boards names of those who could use extra support,usually submitted by another soldier, or friend, or family member. You never know which one will touch your heart(and I already receive a name 3 times a week for the letter writing team, plus may pick out a name from the Cards Plus team, and send a card to the Wounded team name I receive.)

So, anyway, end of Nov. there's a posting from a friend who says this guys mail stop is Dec.1, but he'd received very little mail during his deplyment and they wanted to quick try and 'shower him with angel love'. I send off a short card ,basically saying 'thank you for your service to our country from a grateful American' and 'God bless you'.

It's a 'one-off', there'll be no more time to develope a correspondence or anything like I have with some.I'm just hoping I made someone's day a little brighter for a moment.

So, I cried the day I got this reply:

"Thank you for taking the time to send me a card and for the prayers. I just want to tell you that I will save your card and the others that I have received and put them up on a frame that I will hold on to for a long time.      They mean a lot to us."

I never got into this expecting any thank you's....so they are like extra special surprises. Like part of another one I received that said:

"I just think that when someone takes the time to write a letter to a perfect stranger, just in hopes that it might bring that person a smile...it's only right to write back and say thank you for putting a smile on my face."

I figured out the other day that I've written close to 100 letters/cards. I've received 16 replies back, about 10 of whom I've developed an ongoing correspondence with. Sometimes I've received emails back, and developed on 'email' friendship or an 'IM' friendship with someone deployed.And 7 of the Christmas cards I received this year were from soldiers I'd written to at least once. In fact, my very first Christmas card I received was from a soldier I'd been corresponding with, who said 'thank you for all the support during my deployment.'

Now, you might say 16 replies back for almost 100 sent isn't very good? But I never expected ANY, so I figure I got extremely lucky 16 times that someone in the middle of a war wanted to write back and say 'hey, thanks, it helped."Plus, I never expected replies to the cards I sent to those wounded...I just wanted to let them know they were appreciated and remembered.

Replies are just icing on the cake. The real satisfaction comes from doing something nice for someone you never met, and probably never WILL meet....just to let them know that someone cares:)

And I don't keep harping on this to toot my own horn. Just trying to convey the immense sense of reward it brings, to do something that takes so little time, and unexpectedly gives you so much back in return:)

Jan.14,2005

Well, unfortuantely Morgan's team lost yesterday,61-13, which is an 'ouch'....but they were playing players about 3 times as large as their team members!(Quakers....who knew they grew em so large,lol:)

I did mention that Morgan goes to private Catholic school didn't i? and they wear the de rigeur Catholic school uniforms, which kind of put me in a time warp back to Monseignior John R. Hackett high school in Kazoo....not that we wore uniforms, but the elementary kids wore the obligatory plaid skirts,etc. (and OK, I know I can't spell 'monsegnoir'!:)

The girls played with heart, even though they were losing,and Morgan did well. Enjoyed meeting her younger sis, and talking to her mom. April and I had a good time.I just love watching basketball:)

Gorgeous pic

This is an absolutely gorgeous pic sent from an 'e-pal' in Iraq.Heard from him yesterday and he is doing well.Always good news to hear:)

LOL, had a call from an Army recruiter the other day in response to a posting of my resume somewhere! I am too old,lol, but he didn't know that until he called me.When he first called I thought he was trying to reach Kyle!

We are going(April and I) with Kyle to see Morgan's basketball game this afternoon.Have a lot of running around to do this morning.

Tony

!Yesterday just prior to leaving work to go to his meeting about his upcoming knee surgery on Tuesday the 17th, he hit his left index finger with a hammer!

So, now he is not only limping on his right leg due to his knee injury.....he managed to crush,fracture AND lacerate his left index finger!(and remember that's the hand where last March or so, he lost the tip of his ring finger.)

I am thinking of buying him a shirt that says'Train Wreck',lol.

Jan.11,2006

My thanks to everyone who sent Tony ecards:) He now thinks we are all corny!lol.

Had an interview yesterday for a doctor's office job...parttime with the potential to go full time. Will wait and see.

Jan.7, 2006

Oops! Should have done this sooner! oh well. Yesterday was Tony's birthday....he's 43 now.

I made him a spice cake with buttercream frosting. and then flew to the school to pick April and her friends up to film that &*$# movie.The mvoies not stupid, just the logistics of getting everyone together while we had the camera, etc. etc.

So we went to Lynn's first since Brandon had agreed to cover a part for April for someone who couldn't make it(Bryan wasn't home).....thanks, Brandon! and good thing we went there first, some trouble with the camera but Brandon got that fixed.

The kids all had a silly, fun time filming and then Lynn fed us all a snack, thanks, Lynn. She asked me'why does April want to film here?' and I said"coz Brandon has twin beds" and she was like 'oh, heavens, but have you seen the room!!!!!"

Then we went back to the middle school and filmed the scenes outside that April wanted there.(we were working around Brandon;s work schedule, is why we did it kind of backwards.)It was fun, but COLD!!!!

So, at last that assignment is completed!Yay!

Jan. 5, 2006

Well, I am just pretty darn discouraged. After my back not feeling too bad for the past week, took down the Christmas tree yesterday, which is not THAT much extra and it went back into spasms. I had to go to the doctor this morning to get a release for work thing signed if I am applying for unemployment....but he put me under the restrictions of no bending,twisting, or lifting greater than 20 lbs. for 3 more weeks !

And then I return to him, I told him I was discouraged and he said it can take 6 weeks or longer for a back injury to heal, and that it's only been a month...but that I WILL heal he does not beleive it is a disk or anything.Plus, this was my second injury in less than 6 months. And when I injured my back the first time at work, their doc told me the same thing....that it can take 6 weeks to heal, but at the time he put me on prednisone to 'compress the healing time', but my doc does not want to use steroids as this is the second injury.

Unemployment place was snarky, like that would be a big surprise.I beleive work is disputing my claim, so I have to have a phone thingy on the 17th. Plus, they have not sent me what they are supposed to.(unemployment commisssion).This guy talked to me like I was a 3 year old, I finally said 'you know, I am NOT an idiot". I may be in a catch 22 here...I only qualify for unemployment if I'm able to work without undue restrictions.

I am certain no one in nursing will hire me while I do not have a full release. I AM going to check tomorrow on doing sesonal tax work, that would just be sitting and I LIKE doing taxes. Unemployment guy said 'you have to be looking for full time 40 hrs a week work" well, really, skippy? I also have mouths to feed, etc. I beleive they are going to deny my claim anyway, so I am more worried about getting money in than about their ridiculous rules, etc. So we should become homeless and foodless just on the off chance that they MIGHT approve my claim????

And taking temp seasonal work would give me more room for further healing and for job hunting without that desperate'I need a job' look in my eyes. Plus I won't be tempted(like I was this last time) to take a job that I really don't want long term.All that got me was...yee ha... the first back injury, and the experience of being 'removed from payroll' three days before Christmas.

Well, I don't want to write the 'most depressing blog entry ever'...just updating everyone.

Did anyone see the New Year's story about rituals that kids have for snow days?They had a pic of 2 girls throwing ice cubes into a toilet! in an effort to influence the weather and get a snow day? HOW do you come up with THAT idea "if you build it, they will come"....."if you throw ice cubes in the toilet, it will snow????????????"I don't beleive they are from Maine, although it ranks up there with the beach ball story.

And why would you want the ENTIRE NATION to know this is what your kids do?????"My child is a Phi Beta Kappa"....."oh, yeah, well my kid got his pic in the paper for throwing ice cubes into a toilet">

And imagine going back to school after your picture was in the paper for that. People are so funny.

Jan.4,2006

Think I mentioned before that April got a part in the spring play. She will be the 'second animal who is fighting on the evil queen's side'. This will be the last play of her middle school career!I hope she continues drama in high school.

In other news, I am going out later this morning to put in some apps. Still have not heard from unemployment.My back is doing fine, but Tony found out yesterday that he DOES have a torn cartilage in his knee. From the injury over 6 weeks ago. They just did the MRI last week. Tony asked them at the time to do an MRI. He was pretty irate, said he told the doctor 'you let me walk around in pain for over 6 weeks when you could have done the MRI in the beginning!" He goes Friday to see a surgeon, we are probably looking at surgery.

If you check out Terry's blog, you can see she had a rugged start to the New Year.

January 1,2006

I have almost reached the 100 letter mark! on writing to those deployed. I have received back a number of interesting letters from people I never would have met otherwise, and I even got a New Year's comment posted on milblogging.com (thanks,JP!:)

This is one of the most rewarding things I have ever done, but it's not about 'me', it's about supporting our troops:)

Just had to hit the soapbox again about my favorite subject! Please consider going to America supports you website and finding something you can do, if this interests you.

In other news....Mom sent Tastefully simple stuff for Christmas to me, and there were several bread mixes to try. Kyle has a breadmaker which he wanted to use.....ROFL, I wish you could've heard Tony when he discovered that the breadmaker would take THREE HOURS to cook something that we could've cooked in under an hour in the oven!!!My family so frequently cracks me up!

April went to First Night with Ken and Lynn, but I was not that interested as they did not seem to have as many acts booked this year. She DID get to stomp on bubble wrap which I think would have been really cool, but was limited to children. (Tony said 'hey, age discrimination'!)

Tony and I decided to just stay home and watch movies. 'The Great Raid' was pretty good, it's based on a book I read 3 years ago called 'Ghost Soldiers' by Hampton Sides. It's a true story of a Ranger mission to rescue American POW's in a Japanese camp on Bataan. The book was better (isn't it always?:) but while they were rolling the credits they were showing actual black and white footage of the rescued POWS and the Rangers, and the POWS entry into San Francisco....I just started bawling my eyes out.

Mr.and Mrs. Smith was so boring and predictable that we actually quit watching it before the end! We just didn't care!

I bailed on watching Devil's Rejects and Dukes of Hazzard, so I of course got on the computer:)

And that's another exciting chapter in our lives....Happy New Year to all!