Happy Halloween!

 

The article is in the newspaper :)

Please go check it out :)

TOUGH GUY HEADS TO IRAQ

 

Dustin McClenney, 20, of Harrisonburg kneels next to his truck. McClenney, who was known in high school as “Krunch,” will leave for his first tour to Iraq sometime next month.

Photo by Thomas J. Turney

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the Family!

To my beautiful new niece!

Click here: A Red Thread to China: So beautiful

 

I sat here crying happy tears for my sister and brother-in-law. 

Our Week

Here's some pics from April's concert on Wednesday, and just some random pics of Tiger and Ginger.

My week didn't start out too great, as the car wouldn't start for me when I tried to leave work last Saturday morning.  Tony drove down to work and got it started enough for us to drive it and leave it in the shop.  It needed a new....something....LOL, good thing I'm not a mechanic. I got it back Thursday afternoon.

The house where Tony has done some work this past year caught on fire when one of the children of one of the renters was playing with a lighter, so it's pretty much a loss. It didn't totally burn down, but between smoke and water damage, it's basically going to be back to square one as far as getting it ready to rent out again.

Dustin has been on 'Hawaii time', lol, so we see him at weird hours :) We'll take him to the airport Friday the 2nd, boy, the time sure has flown.

I've of course been following Tracy and Adam's blog...only TWO days to Charlotte!!:)

Click here: A Red Thread to China

 

 

I also found another way to spend time on the web,LOL, like I needed to do that?  A friend sent me an invite for a book thingy, I actually thought it was pretty cool

 

http://www.shelfari.com/kasee267

 

and so I've been spending some time adding books I've read, and books I Want to read. It's fun, to see what other people are reading. (and it's given me ideas for more books I want!:)

 

The week seems to have gone by so fast!

 

Hope everyone has a good weekend:)

 

Tony and Dustin, and Tracy and Adam

Here's Dustin showing Tony something on the computer.  I grabbed the camera because I liked this picture of father and son together :)

The reporter from the local newspaper came yesterday to interview Dustin (and us) and I'm not sure when the story will be in the paper, I'll of course post the link whenever the story appears!

Updating on my other news, Tracy and Adam are now in China!!!

Click here: A Red Thread to China: We're in Shanghai!

 

and I can't believe, after these Many YEARS of waiting, that as of today, they are only FIVE DAYS TO CHARLOTTE!!!!!!!

 

A WONDERFUL weekend coming up!!

Dustin comes home Sunday for about 10 days, Yay!

 

and Tracy and Adam leave Sunday for China, and to fetch baby Charlotte!

Click here: A Red Thread to China 

Hurray!

Hope everyone has a Great weekend! :)

 

Today's My Day :)

On October 18 in 1960, I was born

(Grandad holding me)

 

I grew up in a fairly normal family.

 

and all of a sudden, I'm turning 47!

LOL...how did that happen so fast?!

 

"My town"

Someone told me they'd never heard of where I live,LOL, so here's a link to our city page

Click here: City of Harrisonburg - Home

 

and here's a link to a short photo tour from one of the drop-down menu's on that page.

 

Click here: Photo Tour

 

 

Puzzle

This is the latest puzzle that Tony finished, of the   Burj al Arab hotel  in Dubai.

We actually picked this up while we were 'bed shopping' for Dustin,LOL, which just shows that we are easily sidetracked.

(and we never did find a bed, but Ken and Lynn gave us one, so a friend of mine said to me  "See, sometimes it pays to find nothing."   which I'm thinking I should cross-stitch that phrase and hang it on the wall,LOL.)

The puzzle is supposed to glow in the dark, too, but I haven't seen that yet....I think the corner we have it in doesn't have enough light.

 

Apparently...

BOTH our cats are basket cases:)

"Friday Night Lights"

It was fun to go to the football game last night, first high school football game we've been to this year. (Even though we left at half-time, because Spotswood was winning 40-0...they eventually won 47-13.)

It wasn't as cold as they had called for after all, on the way home I saw a bank sign that said '55', although it did intermittantly get windy, so I was glad to be wearing a winter coat.

As we sat at the game, I started wondering how many football games I've ever been to in my life. (must be the upcoming birthday that's sending me down memory lane,LOL :)

I'll be 47 on Oct. 18, and I started going to football games when I was about 13. That's 34 years of being a football fan, which makes it somewhat astonishing that I still have such a lack of knowledge about the game itself, ha ha.

I've said it before in past blog posts (like a year ago, on a different blog) but I was uniquely privileged while growing up to have as my best friend the daughter of one of the sportswriters for the Kalamazoo Gazette, while growing up in good old Parchment, MI.

Dick Kishpaugh, who passed away in a car accident a number of years ago, always took his daughter Carol and I along to the sports events he covered, if we wanted to go.

Thus, when I think of the seasons? 'Fall' always means 'football' to me, 'winter' always means 'basketball', spring always means 'soccer' (which is actually more because all my children played soccer when they were younger, and even though they played fall and spring? I always like spring soccer better...it was Warmer then:) and summer always means 'baseball/softball'.

It was only as I grew older, that I realized how much the opportunity of going to all those games with Mr. Kishpaugh added to my life.

Last night, for the first time, it Really felt like 'fall' to me, finally going to the football game.  I suppose because going back all those years, that was what we Did every fall. We went to JV games on Tues nights, and Varsity games on Friday nights.

Years and years of going to football games, there's just something about the crisp fall nights and the bright lights on the playing field and the roar of the crowd that's in my blood now, I guess.  My mind went back to a JV football game 100 years ago, probably I was about 13 or 14, and one of our players got a broken leg.  I can't remember his name? but Kalamazoo had two major hospitals, Bronson and Borgess. Borgess was the'Catholic' hospital, and Bronson was the 'Methodist' hospital.

So, while they were taking him off the field? the player said "Is there a Methodist hospital in the area?" Joking thru the pain, and even though his name is lost in the mists of time to me, I can still recall his wisecrack :) 

They had the Rockingham Rec League players there for the game last night, and watching all the very young boys out there on the field before the game? My mind went back over all the times I attended the cousin's games when they were younger, here in Virginia, and I went to their Sat afternoon games.....and then years later, going to games when my oldest son, Ben, played, and a few years later going to Dustin's games, he started playing when he was 8, I think.....and then all the games all the way up through Dustin's high school career, first at Spotswood and then at Page county.

And the college football games I've been to...going all the way back to attending some Western Michigan University games, and then attending JMU football games with my boys when they were younger.

I had forgotten about attending WMU games before I moved away from Michigan, until last night. Carol and I must have been about 15, and we went with the leaders of a Girl Scout troop where we assisted, for mentally retarded girls at a special center. The leaders were attending WMU, and I recall thinking how exotic and avant-garde they seemed to us little high schoolers, lol, as they were sharing a big house where boys and girls lived In the Same House together! Pretty racy, back in the 70's :) We thought they were the ultimate in 'cool'.

Like I said, maybe it's the upcoming birthday, or the fact that the big 5-0 is getting closer every year? but it was a revelation to me last night, while I sat cheering the team and marveling at the swiftness of one of the players, just a joy to watch him carrying the football down the field, at how much a part of my life football has been for so long.

And it all goes back all those years to Mr. Kishpaugh, and him taking two goofy girls along to every game he covered.

God rest his soul....and thanks, Mr. Kishpaugh, for giving me the love of a game that has ended up being such a major part of my life for so many years. I still might not know all the names of the positions,lol, or still might have an astonishing lack of knowledge of the basics (last night, I asked Tony 'what's offside again?")but I realized last night that there's very few years of my life where football and attending football games Wasn't a part of it.

So now, even though the paper said today that we are going to have 'dull' leaves this year, due to the drought conditions this past summer.....yes, it Finally really feels like Fall to me. Because I was sitting in the stands at a football game last night, as I've done for 34 years :)

 

 

Tracy and Adam, and Kirby.....

Adam and Tracy will be heading out for China soon, they have so much info up that I'll just say 'Aw,heck, go read their whole blog!" :)

Click here: A Red Thread to China

and Kirby gets another mention in the blogosphere

Click here: Kirby Daley: Europe, Japan not attractive markets; U.S. recession likely on the hells of housing downturn :: Discu

I need to get some sleep, I worked last night, and Tony and I are going to a football game tonight (his alma mater) but I just wanted to quickly let y'all know I'm still alive :) This week has seemed Long, and at the same time has kind of flown by. Our weather has taken a cold turn (which means I'll freeze tonight,LOL) but then is supposed to go back in the 70's next week....our trees are so confused!

'Randomness'

I posted a more 'rambling random' post over on my other blog

Click here: This is just 'Random",LOL

 

But the gist of it was,

a Pic of me (on pain meds) in one of my new T-shirts

 

 

I caught up on some reading while I recuperated

 

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

 

Click here: Amazon.com: By the Light of the Moon: Books: Dean Koontz

Click here: Amazon.com: Intensity: Books: Dean Koontz

 

 

and Tracy and Adam have booked their tickets!!Yay!

 

Click here: A Red Thread to China: Adam's Birthday Surprise - we finally got our CA!!

 

other than that, it's Sunday afternoon, I feel pretty good, we are draining the pool, Tony is watching the Redskins play, April is at a friend's house, and the next door neighbors one house over cut down most of the branches on the beautiful tree that hung over our fence, darn.

 

oh, and besides all the birds who stop by to eat on our porch? sometimes, we get squirrels :)

 

 

(you know I've just been waiting,to figure out how to fit this picture in a post,LOL:)

 

Have a good week,everyone!

 

Blogging will be Light this Week

Due to the outpatient surgery I'm having on Wednesday.

So, I'll see y'all when I get back!

 

Another Zen moment

I'm cleaning the house, and listening to music. The doorbell rings. Several nicely-dressed ladies passing out religious tracts from a church.

The song that's blasting when I open the door? "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails.

I thanked them nicely and told them I already attend a church, with the chorus of that song blaring the entire time I talked to them.

I feel pretty certain I got some extra prayers sent up for me while they were walking away,LOL.