Golden Glow

This is one of my favorite pictures that I have taken this fall. This is a big old tree in the cemetery where I took the Werewolf/grave pictures. It had gotten really windy and Jayke was ready to go but I saw this tree and had to take a picture. Unfortunately the sun had gone behind a cloud and it wouldn't work the way I wanted to take it without the sun. I made Jayke hide behind a huge headstone from the wind until the sun came back out so I could get this shot. I'm glad I waited!

Fireflies...or (since we are in Indiana) Lightning Bugs

I Gots Nothing

I don't have anything to talk about. Thought I might but turns out not yet. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow I will even post the cute pictures I took of Sara and Jayke riding his tricycle together yesterday.

Sort of a Post

I may not feel like blogging today so I made a new slide show...scroll to the very bottom of the page to see it. There are quite a few pictures in it, some that have already been posted on here and some new ones that haven't. Some you can only see on my Myspace, etc. Guess I got bored tonight watching my team lose...again. Go look if ya want.

Flat Tires are No Good!

Good ol' Indiana! Gotta love their pot holes! One got me today on my way home from work. Jumped right out in front of me and tried to eat half of my car. Luckily I wasn't too far from my house and I made it home where my Dad and the other Mr. Fixit in my life took a look at it for me.



I ended up calling Roadside assistance and they came out and put my spare on for me. Tomorrow I have to get a new tire AND rim because, yes, that mean ol pot hole bit my rim too. On the bright side of things Jayke did get to see a HUGE tow truck up close and personal in his own driveway! He will probably want me to get a flat once a week now.

Today We Vote...

....and it actually counts this time. Jayke is totally ready for his trip to the voter's booth. He knows all the candidates and will tell you all about them although he really wants to vote for his Oma for president.

I have t-ball pictures to post but I have not been home much lately so I don't have them ready to go yet. I will try to get to that tonight. I couldn't have been more proud of the kiddo. He really smacked it at his first at bat and never had to use the tee. I think we have found his sport!

My smiley face is still on by the way.

Angi...when do we go to Winchester?!?

We're In The Jungle Baby!

I don't know what happened but my modem is now working again. I'm not complaining but that is just weird. Much like being under a sever thunderstorm watch in Indiana in January. Weird.

Speaking of weird...The Boy must think we live in the Sahara or something. Today he was sitting on Oma's lap and all of a sudden yelled, "There's a baboon on that roof over there!" as he pointed at the neighbor's house across the pond. You may remember when we first got up here and he jumped a rabbit and started yelling, "A kangaroo! A kangaroo!" You can read that post HERE if you would like. Turns out there was someone working on the roof...a man...not a baboon. Must have just looked like a baboon for some reason to The Boy, could be his feverish state. He had to go to the doctor today because he has some respiratory thing going on now. I swear he is sick every week!

Will be trying to catch up on reading blogs tonight!

Modem Trouble

My modem is out so I am blogging from my mom's house and I don't have any of my pictures. My sceduled post all about my boy's first basketball practice is going to have to wait, I guess. Today was soccer again. I felt much better going into practice being a "veteran". We knew some of the people there and of course Isabelle was there too. Jayke didn't hesitate at all just marched right out to the center of the court and sat down with his ball. There were tons of kids there this time and most of them were newbys. I hope I didn't look like that last time. The parents wouldn't leave the court and were getting run over by the kids when they started their game.

Jayke did really well. He ended up on the bottom of a pile up a couple of times but jumped right back up and took off after the ball again. He even paid attention where he was going instead of watching me the whole time grinning like a goober.

I have to go home and get the cable company on the phone now and have them check my modem to see what is going on. PITA! I may be slow in posting and getting around to visit other blogs for a while. I will be back though!

Random Stuff...Again...

Could it be that I'm a little weird for being so excited that I get my own nameplate on the wall outside my office? I never had a nameplate even when I worked at my mom's store! I may have to take a picture of it when it goes up...hope they don't think I'm nuts.

Work is going well. Apparently I'm catching on faster than they thought I would. It is pretty easy with my medical, accounting, and retail background nothing is that unfamiliar. I hope it continues to go well, I've heard it is a really good place to work.

I've started getting rsvps for Jayke's party so I'm really getting excited now. I have a picture of the treat bags up on my other website. Wendy's Pages. I also have a couple of new scrapbook pages up over there. I'm trying to get all my Halloween pages up next. They are some of my favorites.

I got my little surprise from Mrs. Parker. It is making my car smell like a tropical vacation! I'd like to thank her for getting me addicted to the little Yankee Car Scent thingies...I will have to have more when this one fades!

I don't have any funny stuff from The Boy tonight. I don't feel like I see him much anymore. He was really upset the morning I dropped him off at school and I had to go to work. He cried and cried. I guess he thought I wasn't ever coming back or something. He did a little better today but still was upset. Too many changes lately. He does love spending the day with Oma though on Tuesday and Thursday. He doesn't even have to ask to go over. He has taken to calling me "Sista" or "Girl". Don't know where that came from. It is funny though.

I think that about covers everything I have been trying to remember to mention for the past couple of days. I knew this job thing was going to interfere with my blogging!

Love It!

Do ya'll have one of these yet? (Yes, I said ya'll...get over it) It is The Redbox, and I love it! It is a kiosk where you can rent movies for $1. New Release movies even. Now I know my friends in Muncie are all looking at this saying, "We've had those for months." Yes, I know you have, but we have not. We do now though! My favorite grocery store just put one in. I would like to think this was in direct response to the email I sent the good folks over at the Redbox hub, but since they didn't put it at the McDonalds I requested, I kind of doubt it.

Anyhoo, this little puppy is going to put movie rental stores out of business. Not only is it located in very easily accessible locations such as McDonalds restaurants and grocery stores butit is in only $1 for any movie including new releases! There are no membership cards, no paperwork to fill out, nothing. You do have to have them back the next day though. No problem for me. I only rent a movie if I plan to watch it that night. You can go to their website and give them their email address and get a free rental too. I got my freebie tonight.

If you don't have one of these in your local grocery store or Mickey D's parking lot send them an email. I did! 3 weeks later their was a Redbox in my grocery store only 3 miles from the location I requested...and yes, I am totally taking credit for it being there. I should get a commission because I have been there twice and business is boomin'! I have some other suggestions of where there needs to be a Redbox, maybe I should write some more emails. Target stores would be a great spot. A Redbox movie kiosk to match the red bullseye! What could be better? Hey Redbox people, you listening?

Okay, I have to go cancel my Netflix membership now. If you have seen any good movies lately let me know so I can go get them from the Redbox.

A Fungus Among Us

I don't know why...just thought it was kind of neat. I saw all this stuff on a tree in my yard and took these two pictures. Later I looked up toward the top of the tree and these things went all the way up to the top. Weird.



I will be posting about our trip to the Welcome Ranch later this evening. A Mom's Club activity which the dads were invited to! First one we have been to.

Arrr!

Arr! It's talk like a Pirate Day, me mateys! Thanks to Cheeky for pointing it out to us land lubbers! You can learn how to talk like a pirate here or you can just talk to Jayke for a while and he will teach you. He learned from watching The Backyardigans. In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, I think I will go pop in the pirate Scooby Doo movie for The Boy!

Time For Change

I think I've been waiting. Waiting for something to happen and I finally figured out what it was. I was waiting for the weather to finally cool off so I could get motivated. Seems like it happens towards the end of both summer and winter. I go into a "holding pattern" just waiting for the weather to motivate me in some way.

Last night if finally happened! I looked at our weather station on the kitchen counter, you know the cheap version of the $500 one my dad has. His probably tells him when a squirrel "makes air" in the woods. Mine, not so sophisticated. It tells you the temperature inside and outside of the house. It tells you if it is raining or sunny out and it also gives you the humidity and the barometric pressure, which I have no idea what that means. I've walked in to check that thing many many times this summer and it seems to have never moved. Last night it finally told me something that made me happy. It was only 65 degrees out! Whoopee! I threw open the doors and windows and finally let the poor a/c take a long needed rest.

It is really true that fresh air makes you feel better. I immediately felt like a new person. I dove into my scrapbooking, which I haven't done since last spring. I have gotten out of bed the past two mornings ready to tear into some project. So far I have gotten back into scrapbooking, tore half of the clothes out of my closet to wash them and get them ready for consignment, Reorganized a closet in another bedroom, painted the first step in a growth chart I am making for Jayke's room, and begun decorating for fall and Halloween. I have also been scrubbing like crazy...not the norm for me.

Mike must have been waiting too because he began a long awaited project on the driveway. I'm not going to get into our driveway issues, let's just say if you are moving to the Anderson area, DO NOT even consider buying an AHO Home. He is making a trench at the end of the driveway where the road meets the unfinished part and putting in a grate to try to correct our drainage issue. It is way to complicated to explain. It is even more complicated to explain his method and how entertaining it has been for me to watch the process.

In a psychology class I had about 2 years ago when I was finishing up school, we learned about a condition where the weather affects your moods. Being the wonderful student I am, I can't remember the correct term for this condition but trust me there is one and I have it. When we lived in Indiana I thought it was only related to the long dreary winters but since moving down here I think it relates to any weather condition that is miserable and stays too long. The long hot summer has affected me the same way the long dreary winter did. I need to find a location that is 70 degrees and sunny year round. Someplace where there is always a gentle breeze to make the trees whisper, it only rains at night, and there are still four seasons so I can watch the trees change colors in the fall and come to life again in the spring. I know, I know, this place is only in my dreams. That must be why I spend so much time napping!

Hey Moms!

There is a great new show on PBS I learned about at our Mom's Club. It is called Word World. It teaches kids to recognize letters on site and how to put them together to spell words. We have watched it once and Jayke really liked it. The mom who told me about it said her son is already going around spelling everything. While watching it with Jaykeb I found out that he already recognizes many more letters than what I realized he knew. I think this show will help him continue with his learning. Check it out if you have a little one at home!

Where Were You?

Katie is asking, "Where were you?" over on her blog so I am going to do the same. It is one of those days you will never forget exactly where you were and what you were doing when you heard the horrible news.

I had just gotten up and gotten ready for work when I walked into the kitchen and saw it on the little tv in there that I always had on. I was confused at first. It took a while to register that it was real and it was in our country. I'm sure I just stood there with my mouth open for a long time watching. I know it was right as the 1st tower was coming down that I started watching. I called my mom to make sure she knew then headed to work. I worked with her at our interior design store. We might as well not even opened that day. One woman came in and she didn't know. We told her and she left. Mike and I slept with the tv on for a week and I would periodically wake up in the night to see if they had rescued anyone. Sadly, they never did.

Serenity!

How it All Started...

This is a meme of sorts. I got it from Just a Mom who got it from someone else. Thought it was a good idea since I always find myself explaining why I do this to whomever I tell about the blog. Pretend it says, "Why Wendy blogs" on that paper.


I’d like to know more about you, what makes you tick. I’d like to know how you started blogging. Did you keep a diary under lock and key safely hidden as a child? Do you still? Do you share the same things on your blog that you would have, or do, in your diary? Why did you start blogging and why do you continue? May as well throw in any roadblocks you have run into while blogging. If you still have your old diaries we’d love to see them.

I began blogging almost a year ago after seeing my cousin's blog. Megan had just had her first child when I learned about her blog and I thought what a great way to keep all the scattered family up to date with what is going on in our lives. We had recently moved to South Carolina from Indiana and I know there were some grandparents going through withdrawal from seeing Their Boy everyday so I decided to remedy the situation. At first I was nervous about it. Would anyone care that I had a blog? Would it be worth my time? Would I be able to come up with something to say? Okay, that last one, not so much since anyone who knows me knows I ALWAYS have plenty to say.

I also thought this blog would be fun for Jaykeb to read some day and a great way to record the happenings in his life as he grows up. I still have a baby book which is so full I have to write in the margins and another journal where I write down funny things he says too. My mom didn't keep up with this for me, like a lot of moms don't, so I was determined to do my best for Jayke. Hope he appreciates it one day.

It took me a while to get into a groove with my blog. I was so excited at first I was trying to come up with things all day long to put on here. I put a lot of stupid stuff up for a while. I became obsessed with the blog for a while. I would even wake up in the middle of the night with an idea for a post and have to go write it right then. Yeah, I'm weird. Finally I started reading stranger's blogs. Eventually I delurked and now have blogging friends, a couple of who I have met in person. I learned a lot from reading all the other blogs and finally have gotten into a routine of posting in the evenings the entry I wrote earlier in the day or even the night before. My family and friends read regularly now, even though most of them don't comment. I finally got over that part too.

I used to keep diaries when I was a kid and recently learned that my step-dad read them all the time. They claim it was to make sure I wasn't getting into any serious trouble. I'm glad I didn't find out until now that he read them. There would have been some fighting going on if I had found out back then. I still have all my diaries and occasionally read them, although I have not read them since learning that Jim used to read them.

I do not put everything on this blog that I would put in a diary because of who reads it. I'm not going to go into the who's, what's, and why's of this. Lets just say the blog is a censored version of my life. It had to be suitable for Grammy to read!

I haven't really hit any road blocks with my blogging. There have been a couple of times when I have been on vacation or had company that I didn't post for a week or so, but I don't count that as a roadblock.

Here are my journals and diaries. Jayke's baby book is there too because I write a lot in it. It is a journal of sorts. I wasn't about to go to the basement and dig out all the old ones for this picture so this is just the current ones. The polk a dot one is where I write all the funny things Jayke says so that he can one day have it. The pink one is a journal I started when The Boy was born but haven't kept up with much. The blue one is a calendar, Go Mom planner. I buy these every year and keep everything important in it. It is a journal of sorts as it tells what I did everyday.




When I look at all this and start to think about all the stuff I write down it makes me realize I am my father's daughter. My dad is a list maker. He writes down everything he is going to do weeks in advance and then adheres to his list. I'm not as bad as he is but I do have stacks of notebooks where I have made random lists. Sometimes they are To Do lists, sometimes shopping lists, sometimes lists of things for Mike to do. (those are my favorite) Doesn't matter, I just like to make lists.

Now you probably know way more than you ever wanted to about my blogging, journaling, and list making. If you decide to tell about your blog beginnings let me know so I can come check it out. Some of you I already know since I actually created your blog for you...eh hem...Angi, AJ...but I would like to know why everyone else started.

Off to make my grocery list now...

Weekend Review

I have almost finished my big project in Jayke's room. It looks so much better. He is extremely happy with it which is good and also causing him to keep it clean so far. I decided to hold off on the painting until my mom can see it and help me decide what to do and maybe tape off. I want to do more than one color on one wall and I have never done this before. It is a little scary asking for her help though after what she did to our break room wall in our store one time. She painted stripes on the wall only they were so crooked they could make you feel drunk if you stared at them long enough. It may have been a good idea at the time, the execution was just poor. Good thing we had "People" to do these things for us since we were in the interior design business. I don't think I will EVER forget that wall. Made me mad every time I looked at it.

I don't have any pictures of the room yet. I want to wait until I have it completely done. I won't be able to finish it tomorrow because we will be at the zoo with Katie and Cheeky! Hopefully they won't have as much trouble getting to the zoo as they did to South Carolina. Hopefully I won't get lost. Hopefully it won't be 100 degrees!

Zoo Monday, Goat farm Tuesday. Two days of Wendy being a hot mess. By Tuesday night I may have to go lay in the pool for a while.

The guys got their haircut this weekend which may have been the highlight of the weekend. It was a working weekend. We finally got the rest of the tree which fell on Mike's truck picked up and the garden mowed down. I think the gardener should give it up. It isn't working for him. We worked on Jayke's room and I did the usual 100 loads of laundry. That was about it.

Since I haven't put a picture on here in a while I give you this...



I think my cat has been missing his dog. They had a big love fest when I let him in the other day. The dog always looks scared and confused when the cat starts rubbing on him. Cracks me up.

Bloggers at the Zoo

We finally have a plan! I get to meet Katie, Cheeky, and Patti on Monday! We are all meeting at the zoo. I would have loved to join them on the beach but Jayke already had commitments this week. I guess now that he is getting older I can't just take off the way I have been able to. I'm really bummed because Katie is going to skydive on Friday and I would love to watch...safely on the ground...no where near a plane. I guess I will just have to wait for the pictures to go up on the blogs.

Still waiting to start on my project in Jayke's room. I need Mike to help me a little and he has been working the past couple of evenings. We will get it started this weekend for sure though. I plan on working on the kid's room, hanging out in the pool, and watching movies while trying to stay cool this weekend. What are you doing this weekend?

Yes It Does!

Tommiea gave me an award a few days ago and I just remembered it tonight. I've been a little under the weather again, not thinking straight.

"Nice Matters!" Thank you very much Tommie! I would have nominated you for this if you didn't get me first! So now I am supposed to nominate 7 people. I will try...

Katie
Patti
Cheeky
AJ
Sandy
kailani
and
Jenie

Stop by their blogs and say hello!

Like I said, I haven't been feeling very good so other than going to karate and doing laundry nothing much has been going on. Nothing to talk about at least. We are going to try to get to Mom's Club tomorrow. It is at a house in my neighborhood. I think the Mom is new in the club...I know she is fairly new in the neighborhood. Haven't met her yet. Maybe I will even manage to take some pictures.