This Week

• Got to Grandma 3 kids on Baby Monday....they were so good. Dominic said a funny thing though. We made sugar cookies and he asked me if I was going to eat one. I said no because it has milk in it and milk makes me have a tummy ache and throw up. He says, "I'd like to see that". At least he's honest huh?! Adriana shut her baby sister in the closet, and Korissa didn't like that one bit. I did find a new movie buddy though...Adriana. We watched Finding Nemo, and then of course I had to suffer through Spongebob.
• Today I'm going to the movies with Heather. Were going to see the new Adam Sandler movie. She's been wanting to go for weeks, but I get off early today and she doesn't work, so it's perfect.
• Tonight my mom is coming over and were watching our traditional Christmas Eve movie (because of the ice we moved it to New Years Eve). This year we are watching White Christmas. We have snacks and we will drink some grape sparkling cider.
• I plan on watching Mama Mia this weekend, reading some Dragonlance, and finishing a vampire book that Neil (John's coworker) suggested I read. It's called Dead Until Dark.
• At some point this week, I want to make my resolutions list....I love making lists.....and then on the New Moon each month, I want to review my list.

Wonderful Christmas

John, Heather and I opened up our gifts on Christmas Eve. We traditionally open our stockings on Christmas Eve, but it usally turns into "hey, we should open our presents too", so we did. Then yesterday morning Jess came over and we helped the Babe open all her gifts, cause she wasn't too interested in that yet. Then we went over to Jack and Sharons to be with the rest of the family. This year I got:

• DVD's: Phantom of the Opera (Gerard Butler), Mama Mia, Atonement and Pride and Prejudice both with Keira Knightly
• Candles, Incense
• A cool change purse with a peace sign on the front
• Gift cards: Blockbuster, movie tickets, and Bimart
• A cool picture collage frame
• Vegan box of chocolates.....they were so good (yes, already ate them up)
• A bunch of awesome scrapping stuff
• Adele:19 CD, I LOVE this CD. It's all I've been listening to for two days now
• A big box of oranges, I look forward to that every year

We also have a tradition that started with our first Christmas together, and it is to get an ornament that is dated. We have a very random decorated tree, ornaments ranging from an orca to a ship. This year we didn't get our ornament because of all of the ice. I was just saying to John yesterday morning how we needed to see if we could still find a 2008 ornament. Well, Ethan painted ornaments and gave them to everyone yesterday, and on the back of it, it has his name and 2008. That was very surprising, so we now have our ornament for this year. We ended the day yesterday observing birds in the backyard. Sharon has so many different kinds of birds, it was really fun. When we got home, we of course gamed until bed, I finished my Dragonlance Test of the Twins book, and am going to start Dragons of the Dwarven Depths tonight. Heathers girlfriend came over last night and brought homeade taffy, so our house smelled really yummy all night, so that was cool too. Had a great holiday!

Becca made this doll for Jen, I had to take a picture......

Me and John in front of our fireplace....

Jessica opened up her tag maker from Creative Memories, I couldn't wait to see her open it!

Making music with the table....

Brittany listened to her tunes pretty much the whole time.....

Inspiration

This morning at my '5:30 AM wake up and lay in bed thinking about random stuff' time, I was thinking about some of the things I have heard, read or seen in the past few days that inspired me. By inspiration I mean, deep thoughts, or just a "wow" moment, and I don't mean World of Warcraft kind of WoW.

• Yeah we're playing those mind games together Projecting our images in space and in time....John Lennon
• Last of all, we come to humility. This isn't quite what most Westerners think it is. Humility in this context is committing yourself to each moment equally, being content in yourself, and releasing the need for approval from others. Humility equates to self-acceptance, to being aware of purpose and place in all things. When we think about how big the universe is, it's easy to see how humility would arise in our thoughts......Marian Singer
• Being a perfectionist, life was a series of disappointments. Being human, life was a series of joy....Yoko Ono
• How wonderful people can be during crisis. My neighbor Beth baked us some banana bread, and offered her coat and home to our neighbor Shirley.
• How this season no matter what your beliefs can be a time of reflection on new beginnings and hope.
• Family: consider the notion of acceptance, acknowledging your family members without demands or defensiveness.....Emma Restall Orr - Fire Friend Moon
• Environment: What is the tree, plant or animal that speaks to you most at this time?....Emma Restall Orr - Fire Friend Moon
• The dormant life of the seed
• How running only on limited power wasn't as stressful as I thought it would be. I realized how much needles electricity gets used, and also that I really didn't worry about what I was going to do that day. Wasn't much of a choice. I guess we have so many choices of how to spend our day.....kind of like having too many cereals or chips to choose from. Sometimes it's easier to only have a few because making the choice can be stressful.


• In picture:

What a whirlwind

Wow, what a past few days this has been. Sunday night at around 6:00 PM, we heard and felt the crashing from more of the Oak. It didn't split, but the top part of the tree came down. John had already moved the cars earlier, because the tree guy said that it wasn't a matter of if the tree would come down, but when. It landed in front of our garage and part way into the front yard. Miraculously, our house is fine. It did land on our power line, and we lost most of our power and our heat the first night. I'm thankful that it happened before we went to bed, because I was a bit scared that it would happen while we were sleeping.

All of this has been quite an experience, and laying in bed I was thinking, that I bet my Oak in the backyard was from the mighty Oak that fell. That was kind of nice thinking that. It's funny how some people really just don't get my connection to the trees around me, but John was very supportive and understanding at how deeply I felt loss. I was going to try and explain it, but really, I don't think I need to, as people will draw their own conclusions anyways, if it's something they can't comprehend. But, it really gave me some comfort thinking about all of the trees around here that probably came from that one Oak. My father in law is going to take the wood for his fireplace, so that is very comforting as well!

We are back to normal now, but ..... as Chelsea Handler would say...."what a whirlwind!"

This is my view from my front porch.....

It got two of our bushes, and our light, but our mailbox survived......

A view from the street.......

Oak Down

Well, we found out what shook the house. Shirleys (our neighbor - who also loves oaks) big oak came down. In the pictures you can see how it was rotting. It only got the front part of her garage and a bit on the neighbors, the damage could have been a lot worse. If it continues to split, it will land in our driveway (our house is on her left), and might hit the garage. I'm just kind of sad. I will miss looking at her oaks.

Freeze

So, I wake up this morning and everything is frozen outside. We are surrounded by oak trees (which I love), but my neighbor has some huge oaks. John and a bunch of neighbors are out investigating, because we afraid some of those branches might come down. Our house actually shook a bit, and you can hear loud crashes. It was really scarey.

Baking

Yesterday I packed up about 4 bags of things and headed over to Jessicas for some holiday baking. I even packed my Ipod so we had holiday tunes to listen to while baking. My sugar cookies somehow were cursed though. I accidently put in baking soda instead of powder, scraped out as much as I could, but it didn't help. My dough was SUPER sticky (don't know why that happened) and I had the hardest time rolling and cutting. So, I decided to just cut big stars to get it over with. Taking them out of the oven, they were like overstuffed starfish. This is the recipe I use EVERY year, so I'm thinking it must have been the soda. One of the cookies looked like an ear, so I frosted it, but then it looked like an egg. Then when Jess went to take me home, she dropped the pan and my ear egg and a couple others: ghost frosty and some other random oversized cookie fell in the snow. It was quite funny! So, John didn't get too many sugar cookies. I also made Russian Tea Cakes (my favorite), Sesame Apricot cookies (a new recipe I got from Peta) and No Bake cookies made with soy nut butter (they turned out really yummy). We also watched Christmas with the Cranks while waiting for some dough to chill. The Babe was getting into all sorts of trouble, but it was "fun" trouble, ecspecially for a grandma to watch. We were hoping Heather was going to join us, but she didn't, so that was a bit of a bummer. It was so fun though. We are going to make it a tradition every year now.

After defreezing Jessicas car to get it even unlocked, and her scraping her windshield with my bamboo spoon, she dropped me off at home (we only live like 5 minutes walking distance from each other). I put everything away, and decide to listen to some John Lennon (he's my new favorite Beatle at the moment) and realized I don't have my Ipod. Well, I LOVE my music, so I bundle up, get the dog, and we walk over to Jessicas in the snow, it was really coming down too, but it was so pretty. I get back home and realize, I forgot to get the freakin Ipod station cord, this was AFTER I took all of my bundly clothes off. So, gotta put back on the bundly clothes, they're snow wet, get the dog ready and head back over to Jessicas. They are waiting for a new phone right now, so I couldn't call or anything, it was pretty funny. When I got home, John was there (he had been at Borderlands) and was like, "where did you go." It was pretty funny.

I think Jessica had me say "baking" in this picture.....

She's sporting what I like to call her "wig" hair, cute huh (in case you hadn't noticed by now, I name everything)......

The Babe decided she was tired of just looking at everything on the table, she wanted to touch it. She crawled up there, and I was like, "uh, Jess, look at your baby."
Eating the table.....

Snow Day 4

It's still very cold, snowy and icey. Me and Jess are still getting rides to work with my mom (which is very sloooooooooooooow going), and leaving a bit earlier, which is pretty cool. John has been doing pretty well at work, he got off almost on time today. I love it when the snow is falling, that's my favorite part about the snow!

Snow Day

We got a lot of snow last night. John is a truck driver for D&O Garbage, and he does not look forward to snow days, he runs the south route and it's very hilly. He got to go in at 8:00 this morning instead of the usual 6:00 AM, but they didn't start out on route until after 11:30. He will be home pretty late tonight, poor guy. When I walked over to Jessicas this morning for Babe Monday, it was very slippery. My mom closed the office at noon today though, so Jess got to have some fun with the Snow Babe. And I was worried that the snow would melt!

Getting ready to go outside.......

All bundled up now.......Having fun with Aunt Heather......
This is why Heather is a great Aunt, she's fun, daring, and crazy. Here she is trying to slide on the ice, but she only moved about an inch.....
Watching mommy get her camera ready......

My favorite Snow Babe picture......

First Snow

I woke up this morning to snow everywhere. I hurried up and got out my camera, before it all melted away!

One sock and tings

Jess brought the Babe to the office on Friday afternoon, and she was having a ton of fun. As Jess was bringing her in, she pulled off a sock and threw it in a mud puddle, so she was called "one sock girl" the rest of the visit. She was a big girl eating her tings from a cup.......

Walk in the rain

This morning I woke up and decided to go for my walk, just as I put on my hat and coat, it started pouring down rain. I figured since it's Oregon, it probably won't let up, so I might as well go ahead and go for my walk. My dog LOVES walks in the rain. So, we headed out, and experienced Forrest Gump style rain. We had....stinging rain, and side rain. Then the wind hit, and we of course were walking against the wind. By the time we got home, we were soaked! The front of my pants were completly drenched. We then went out back so I could capture the moment, and of course Noah had to go wild in the backyard and his feet got covered in mud. He then had to go nuts in the house, which wasn't pleasant for me, because I didn't wipe his feet outside, and by the time I wiped his feet inside, he already covered the carpet in mud, so I then had to scrub up the mud. I'm glad he enjoyed himself though....ha, ha.

The toy behind me is called "smelly monkey" because Noah ALWAYS takes a toy outside and forgets to bring it back in, so it gets all gross, wet and smelly. Then it's gotta go throught the wash.......

I made him sit, and I think I interrupted his mud time, so he's kind of sulking a bit.....

Amazing

Last night I finally leveled my toon to 58, the highest World of Warcraft toon I have ever had. It was super exciting, because I got to take my toon to a new questing area called Outlands. John has been waiting for me to get over there, because he says it's such a cool place to quest in. So, I whispered his toon a message (even though we sit right next to each other playing...ha, ha):

Shedarra (that's my toon): "My first toon to make it to outlands...Yahoo!"

Kanng (his toon): "Your amazing. Grats."

I was thinking, ummm, that was weird. John tells me I'm lots of things, nice things: "pretty", "gorgeous", "hot", "awesome", "the best". He is always giving me compliments, sometimes at embarrassing times too, like when he's in a crowded room at his gaming place called Borderlands, I walk in and he's like "there's a hotty." Of course EVERYONE in the room has to look at who this "hotty" is. Yes, quite embarrassing! Anyways, back to that 'amazing' word. I don't know why I found it so out of place.

Today, a client calls, and I tell him he can save a check, envelope and postage by paying his taxes online. He's very excited by this news, and informs me that I'm "amazing!" Wow, I must be amazing if people left and right are telling me so....ha, ha. Here part of how the conversation went:

Me: "My husband just told me yesterday I was amazing." I think about what I just said, and think, uh, that probably didn't sound very good.....lol.

Him: "Really? What did he think you were amazing for?"

So, I think oh great , it did sound bad, so I have to tell him the truth, so I tell him all about the toon thing, and why I was so amazing. I think I shocked him by admitting I was a gamer. He's like "I never pictured you as a gamer." It was super funny, cause I had to explain all about World of Warcraft and how I am a gamer. Well, not just any gamer, an 'amazing' gamer!

Kinds of kisses

Wow, today I lost count at how many kisses I got from the Kissa. I got, drool kiss....apple juice kiss.....teeth protruding kiss....pursed lips kiss. I never knew how many babe kisses there were. Oh, I also got a couple hair pulls and one knee bite, but those weren't very pleasant.

Shopping, Fleas and Baby Art

Yesterday I stayed pretty busy. I went grocery shopping, and shopping for flea stuff right when I woke up. The stores weren't as bad as I thought they would be, but the traffic was. When I got home, I started my war against the fleas. Noah is so funny when he takes baths, he jumps right in, loves it, up until the point that he is soaking wet. Then he just sits there and gives me those sad pouty eyes look. Of course he waits to do the dog shake until you least suspect it. He then runs around like the tasmanian devil for about 10 minutes from room to room. It took me most of the day to wash all the bedding, and couch pillows. I sprayed the carpets and then treated Noah and Baby Kitty. I need to retreat in two weeks, I hope this freakin works. Noah has never had fleas like this, poor guy.

I finally relaxed with a movie, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (with Natalie Portman - her and Kiera Knightly are my favorites), it was so good. Then I ended my night with a CSI episode, and fell asleep listening to Carrie Underwood.

Our first artwork from the Babe.......

Friday Already?

It's gorgeous outside again today (and yes, I forgot my camera again), clear skies, but a bit chilly. Before work, I went downtown and browsed at Crystal Mirror (my other favorite store, besides Borders). They carry a ton of faery and dragon stuff. Thats the only place I get my insence from and Carmen the owner is super nice. They had a bunch of new faery things, and some pretty Yule cards. I got some incence, cards and they had a new holiday scented candle (soy candles made from essential oils) it smells sooooo good! Everytime I go in there, I have to look at my wish item, (you know that item that you someday hope to have, but it's really fun to just look at in the store), it's a maiden, mother and crone mirror, I have a chalice that matches it, but I love the mirror. The last time I was in there, I didn't see it, so I thought she must have sold it, but if she did, she got another one in.

On my way to work, I stopped at Lifesource (Friday is my Lifesource day to eat their yummy food) and got some white tuscan bean soup, and a salad. Tonight I don't have big plans, maybe some gaming, and tomorrow yard work, oh I hope it's as nice tomorrow as it is today, and grocery shopping. Not looking forward to going to the stores because of all of the holiday shoppers, so maybe I will go really late in the day. I also need to stop at the vets and pick up some flea stuff for my poor dog. I just can't believe it's already Friday.

My wish item....this picture really doesn't do it justice........

Camera Lessons

Ok, so the other day I wanted to take that cool picture of the moon, but didn't have my camera...yesterday, I bring my camera, and it's too cloudy. Today, clear skies, no camera. I guess the lesson is, BRING CAMERA DAILY.

Random Ramblings

Today I found a cool Beatles book to add to my collection, The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics, it was originally published in 1969 (I was a year old). They have some really cheap books at the front at Borders. They also have a John Lennon picture book that I would like to get, it's only $7.

Last night when I walked to my car after work, I looked up to the prettiest moon, the sky was so clear. I wished I had my camera! So, this morning before work I made sure to grab my camera, but dang, today is way too cloudy! I swear it feels like snow could come any day now. I haven't taken my coat off this afternoon, cause I just can't seem to get warm.

Me and John went over to Jon and Amy's house last night for some Warhammer time. John and Jon ended up talking about Warcraft the whole time, about some add on for the game you can download, while I put together Johns wolves for his vampire army. Amy and I talked about tons of movies, disagreeing mostly about Gone with the Wind and the first Hulk movie. She hated Gone with the Wind, she couldn't stand Scarlett, I loved the movie and the book. I hated the first Hulk, the only thing I liked about it were the actors. I couldn't even remember anything about the movie, it was that bad, but she liked the first one. Tonight John and I are going to watch the new Narnia movie, which I'm excited to see, cause I loved the first one.

Today I made another list....I have a Druid list, a Dragonlance list, and now I have a Beatles album list. I love lists, when I go to the store, I know exactly what I have or don't have. My Dragonlance list is of course the longest.

I'm looking forward to this weekend, I plan on putting up my Christmas decos. I would have done it last Wknd, but John had to work on Saturday and I didn't want him to have to mess with getting all of them down from the attic on his only day off. Last year I didn't put too much up, as a matter of fact, I think I decorated the week before Christmas. We have a nice Chrismtas village that we put on the fireplace, and I didn't do that last year either, so I'm going to pull out everything this year.

That's about all for now!

Kisses and Surprises

Today was baby monday, and it was pretty exciting. We played on the couch for a while, she likes to crawl up and off, and crawl all over me while sitting on the couch. We then went for a walk, because it was gorgeous outside this morning. We then went to my house for an orange juice break, and Noah stared longingly at us as we left, because he wanted to come too.
While the Babe was napping, I got some reading in. My tree book is soooooo good, and of course my Dragonlance book is great. The baby woke up CRABBY! She didn't want to stop crying, and made changing her poopy dipey hard, since she clunched her butt cheeks, yes, that was interesting! After having a snack, she calmed down a bit, and grandpa came over and played for a while with her, but she was still a bit crabby, so it was rough in some spots.
The greatest part about this Baby Monday was when I got not one but TWO baby kisses. I didn't even have to ask, I just got them for free! Grandpa was pretty excited, because he got a kiss too.

Baby couch spud.....

On our walk....

Laying on her "pillow" she made with her blanket....

Noah with his ball, watching us leave.....

This has nothing to do with Baby Monday, but this is the surprise portion of my blog title. The other day, Heather had John and I close our eyes and told us she got us a surprise (can you guess which is mine and which is Johns) too cool.........