Florida - Stuff

Sorry no pictures today:( Just some comments and observations about our day....you'll have to use your imagination!

Saw a hummingbird fly by and a large blackbird - maybe a magpie - swooped down and snatched that hummingbird up in his beak! Just like that! Yikes, I didn't know that birds ate each other! Gross.

Don't you just love old people? I do and believe me...Florida is the old people mothership! So here are two old people stories....

There is this lady we see every day walking on the beach pushing a pink stroller. She has this unnaturally red hair. I mean RED. She wears a visor that makes her hair stand straight up as if it didn't already command enough attention on its own. She is about 70 and wears these tight black capris with a big t-shirt with sparkles on it. Can you picture it?? Here's the thing......she has a DOG in that stroller! Yep, poor pup. Can you imagine the humiliation?!

Tonight we went out to dinner and there was this old guy with long white hair dressed head to toe in pink. Pink cardigan, pink shirt, pink pants......it was adorable!! I guess by the time you are in your 70's you've earned the right to do as you please and by the time you're in your 80's you can blame almost anything on senility.

Florida 2010 - Shuttle Launch

Well it's spring break and we are in Florida. We are alone - no kids this trip. I think the trip down here last year didn't feel as long as it did this year. Don't know why??? Maybe because last year with Luke and Caleb we were making stops every few minutes for either food or bathroom breaks. This year I think we only stopped when the car needed gas and it felt like a really long trip:(

Anyways, we arrived here late Saturday afternoon and have been enjoying the warm weather, sun and beach. Each morning we flip a coin to see if we walk left or right on the beach and each evening we take turns choosing where to eat. A person could get used to this!!!

One big bonus this trip was the space shuttle launch this morning. We were up and on the beach with the rest of the world before dawn. I was wondering if we'd be looking in the right place to see the launch but when it was time there was really no question!! I have never seen such a brilliant light and then a minute or so later we heard and felt it. Pretty cool stuff, even for a non space person like me!

Here we are fooling around while waiting for the launch.

This photo is not mine but it looks exactly like what we saw.

We hung out on the beach for a while to watch the sunrise and as it began to get light we saw these contrails leftover from the shuttle launch. Pretty sweet yes???

It was definitely worth getting up to see but as soon as we saw the sunrise it was back to sleep for me!! Hey, it's vacation!!

Tragedy Averted!

Yikes! It's been a while since I've updated......I get ideas for blogs all the time but then I either start one and put it in drafts or forget about it all together. But this morning I don't have to go to work so I'm going to take a minute and tell you about the tragedy that was narrowly averted yesterday.

I came home from work a little later than usual and Tom was already here, shoveling the driveway from yet another little (~3 inches) snowfall. I went inside and put my stuff away and began the daily task of searching for the mail and newspaper and checking email and of course my Farm (on Facebook.......my virtual farm......my little addiction......see an earlier post for more...)

After a little while Tom came in and asked if I'd let the dogs in. Let the dogs in??? What??? I didn't let them out!!! It's not unusual for Murphy (45# black lab mix) to leave the yard. In fact we have an invisible fence here and Murph will often decide it is worth the pain of the shock to chase deer or explore. Cadi (100+# yellow lab), on the other hand, stays in the yard. So when Tom told me they weren't in the yard I was concerned and began calling for them and asking neighbors. After about 30 minutes Murph came running home.....dripping wet. She was soaked! By now I was really worried for Cadi. I knew she was in the water somewhere and since her knee surgery a few weeks ago, I knew she wouldn't be able to swim for long. Naturally Tom accused me of over reacting and calmly tried to follow tracks through the snow. COME ON!!! IT'S ALMOST DARK AND MY DOG IS IN THE WATER SOME WHERE!!!!

We all got in our cars and scoured the area. Thankfully we had a regular family posse out looking for her. Just then one of our daughters came over and when she'd been updated on the situation, ran down to the lake looking and spotted Cadi barely hanging on to the ice, completely submerged except for her head. She ran to a nearby house, hysterical and called Tom's cell and he drove/ran down and met her, grabbed a boat and went out on the ice after her. (I'm glad I didn't know this until after!) They were somehow able to drag her out of the water and off the ice. We figure that she was in the water about 45-60 minutes, so she was really weak and cold. They had to carry/drag her to the truck as she was too exhausted to walk. Tom gave her a warm bath and we fed her and she and Murph curled up together on their dog bed in the family room and slept all evening even though there were 6 grandkids here climbing all over them!!!

First thing on today's to-do list??? Put fresh batteries in their collars and maybe have Murph's turned up a little higher!!

The (Dead?) Horse

Have you ever been unable to stop laughing about something? Sometimes it is something that is not actually funny in a hahaha funny sense. It happens to me frequently and usually at the most inappropriate time. Like in church. Once when Nathan was a baby we were sitting in church and he was gnawing on his teether - you know, those water-filled ring things? - and it sprung a leak and there was absolutely nothing that could be done to minimize the water fountain that sprung forth from that little teether! We about fell off the pew as I recall. Who knew that it was filled with about a gallon of water?? Anyways it happened again today and again in church........

But let me set the stage. This morning while driving to church we saw a very unusal sight - it was about 10 degrees outside and we passed a woman walking along the side of the highway and across the road the was something large under a tarp. As we zipped past, we noticed two feet sticking out from under the tarp. I thought it was a cow but Tom said it was definitely horse feet complete with horse shoes. Weird, huh? So we commented that it was going to be quite a feat just moving that animal off the shouder of the road and wondered how it came to be there in the first place, and what they were going to do with the body since the ground is too frozen to dig, etc.... It felt to me like we were in an episode of Northern Exposure.

So we got to church and sat down and when it was time for the sermon the pastor was giving examples of how some creatures are just programmed or wired to do certain things. And believe it or not the first example was a horse and how horses are just wired to run (and there was a photo of a race horse on the screen) and I guess that was the beginning of it for me - I could already feel the laughter welling up inside of me and the pastor went on to say that a horse who couldn't run might as well just fall down and die. At this moment I knew it was going to be one of those laughing moments......not because of a dead horse......but just the sheer absurdity of it! I didn't dare look at Tom but when I heard a little stifled whinny from him, I did look at him and from then on it was all downhill!! It was just the kind of thing that would have garned the *stink eye* and a sharp elbow to the ribs from my mom to one of us or better yet from me to one of my kids at a moment like that. And it was exactly and completely uncontrollable at the moment.

Fortunately we recovered from out fit of laughter quickly and later, on the way home we discovered that the (dead?) horse had been removed from the shoulder of the road.

Happy New Year!

You would think that now that the holidays are over I would have more time for stuff like updating this blog. I even thought I would have more time. Silly silly me. Perhaps I'm just lacking motivation?? But now that I've un-decorated and re-packed all my Christmas stuff it does finally feel like the new year. Phew! Well except for the tree. The tree will probably still be up for a while. Valentine's Day is the goal.

And what a new year it has been so far! Here are the highlights:

Our yellow Lab, Cadi, slipped on the icy driveway right before Christmas as she charged out the door pell mell. We noticed her limping and dragged her to the vet who discovered that she'd torn her anterior cruciate ligament which would have to be surgically repaired. Apparently Santa didn't get our memo and so we started off the new year with doggy orthopedic surgery. Yippee. Fortunately, even though it has only been 4 days since surgery, she is already using her leg more than before! Doesn't she look pitiful? And how about that knee....ouch!

Something else I learned was to never share any passwords with anyone! It is major creepy to be chatting online with someone who is standing right next to you! It was like a horror movie - a really bad horror movie! Thank goodness she was standing there with me because I'd have been chatting with someone that I never associate with and luckily she was able to identify that her account had been hacked into and rectify the situation before major damage had been done! Beware people, beware!

One thing I've discovered is that it is sooo much quicker to check pockets of clothes before you wash them than it is to scrub chapstick out of your clothes and re-wash them later. AUGH. It is worse than kleenex.....trust me!

And here's another dilemma. Let's say you find a restaurant or store that you really like. Do you tell everyone about it or keep it to yourself?? I ask because this is not the first time that we've *discovered* a sweet little restaurant and then we told everyone how yummy it was and now when we go there we have to wait in line for a table. It's just wrong! And so, no, I am not going to tell you where it is. But I will say that if you love bbq this place is the bomb!

Oh yeah...have a Happy New Year too!

Christmas 2009

It's been soo long since I've updated that I don't even know where to start......

Here is Selah at the Nutcracker-her sister Linnea was a Drosselmeier mouse this year and so when she had her makeup done, Selah also got a mouse face.

And this is Maggie making *snow* with a piece of styrofoam. She made lots and lots of *snow* but when the foam was all gone......

She wasn't very happy!!!

She kinda wasn't loving Santa this year either! Isn't that an awesome looking Santa? But imagine being a little kid and being expected to sit in this strange stranger's lap!?!

And here we have the whole family on Christmas Eve opening gifts!


Caleb and Alec (im)patiently waiting for their turn to open a gift. Luke was Santa this year and I had all the gift tags coded to make it more fun. I used initials or birth dates instead of names on most of the gifts. I'm such a clever, tricky grandma,,,heh heh!

This picture actually looks like it should come before the last two...oh well!

Here is Selah opening something.....

Here are Caleb, Selah and Olivia playing with some of their new toys.....Playdoh and a paint set (which is why Selah has her dress off!)


This is my mom & dad - they wanted to have a picture in front of the tree to use on their Christmas card for next year! Notice all the red tinsel on the tree??? Some one thought it would be fun to use that instead of tissue in her gifts and so the three little girls had it spread pretty much all over the house and I do mean ALL OVER! I'm not exactly sure whose idea it was to have them put it on the tree after they'd picked it all up?!? It came off the tree real easy with the shop vac just in case you wondered!

And that pretty much sums up the last few weeks at our house! I am always happy once Christmas is over and we can get back to a more normal routine here......well, normal for us!

Swedish Breakfast

Okay so if you've known me for more than five minutes, you most likely know that my family is Swedish. Came through Ellis Island. Right off the boat. My parents are first generation Americans. They were fairly fluent in the language.....enough that they and the grandparents could communicate without any of us kids having a clue!

All the grandparents are gone now and also the rest of their generation and so, unfortunately, have a lot (alright, most) of the cultural / family traditions. There is, however, one tradition that remains and that is the Swedish Lucia breakfast.
My mom & I attended it again last weekend. I really don't know what the history is for the event other than food and a girl - supposedly the oldest daughter - wearing a wreath of lit (yikes!) candles on her head and the littlest kids in costume dancing and singing and stuff. So at this particular breakfast there is all of that and a modest assortment of foods and other Swedish things for sale.
This is a photo of a Lucia celebration - not the one we went to though.

Attending any event with your 80 year old mother can be an *exciting* thing and this was no exception! She talks a little too loud. She comments on everything and everyone.....whether appropriate or not. She tells everyone at the table (all strangers) that the food is not as good as her grandmother's recipe but can't tell you what it was that made grandma's food so much better. She tells everyone, including the servers "god dog" which she thinks is Swedish for good day. I don't know...maybe it is but if someone kept saying "god dog" to you.........hey, I'm just saying......
So I got my annual cultural experience and spent a pleasant morning doing so!
"God dog", to all! Heh heh!

Thanksgiving 2009

Okay - finally a minute to post a real update.Yay!!

So a few weeks ago I went with my friend to a craft class. We made these cute craft things that you see in the photo below. They look pretty simple to make don't they? But no.....they were so not simple! In fact I learned that night what it must feel like to be mentally challenged. The instructor was speaking English and although I understood the words she was saying there was just no way that was translating into the actions needed to create the craft. My mind was a big "huh?" all night. I'll never be invited to another craft class with that friend I guess.

Back to Thanksgiving.....Here are Murphy and Cadi waiting patiently for Tom to drop some Thanksgiving treats to them. It isn't like there is a shortage of food *falling* on the floor. After all there were 7 kids under 11 here! I doubt the dogs missed much!

Here we have table number one with Great grandma & pa, Julie, Linnea, Alec & Luke.

Here in the other room is table number two with Selah, Caleb, Nathan, Steve, Eddie, Christina & Olivia

Christina and Olivia made these cute turkey cupcakes.

Alec made this centerpiece of "the First Thanksgiving" out of Legos. (I love that all the people are clone troopers! It just adds that little something special, don't you think?)

After dinner the little boys played Wii. For hours. I think they're getting their own Wii for Christmas - shhhh don't tell!

And the little girls played Barbies. What else?? Have you ever eavesdropped on the conversations of a 2 year old and a 3 year old?? Hilarious!!!

Maggie wasn't quite old enough for Barbie......maybe next year. But she loves her new princess throne.....I mean chair!

And it wouldn't be an event - any event - if Luke didn't take off with my camera taking picture after picture of noses, butts, the wall, the lights, the carpet and just plain weird stuff!! You just never know what you'll find when you get your camera back from Luke. Like this shot of Maggie's eye?!

Thank goodness it's all digital. If I paid to have a roll of film developed and found those shots I might just be a tad cranky!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I should be downstairs tidying up, preparing food for this afternoon's feast, setting tables and stuff. Instead I am updating this blog. Isn't that just like me!? Well the turkey went into the oven an hour ago and won't be ready for about 4 more hours, so what's the rush??
Later I will post pictures and a real update.

Or maybe I'll just take a tryptophan-induced nap!

The Addiction

Okay it has been quite a while since I've updated. Sorry. There really hasn't been a lot of excitement around here, which is good considering what we've been through the last couple months.....bridal shower, wedding, numerous birthday parties, and a christening. Whew! But you already knew all that. So now I will attempt to explain the reason for my long absence from this blog.

My name is Sheryl and I am an addict. Every day begins with my craving for a "fix" and I can't, in fact, even get out of bed until I satiate my habit. Once at work I have to sneek around for a quick hit and I'm driven by my habit to be home at the exact times that I need more than just a quickie and I can get my fix without rushing and hiding. My habit has become so bad that I've actually gotten up in the middle of the night and without even turning on any lights, I ever so quietly sneek to check my computer and see that my Facebook farm is running smoothly, cows and other livestock are fed and harvesting crops as necessary. Yep, this farm is serious business! I've sucked the whole family into the Farmville web now and we actually have conversations that to an outsider might actually sound as if we were really farmers who knew what we were doing! Of course they'd be wrong but we have to do something now that all the other excitement has come to an end, right?

Well gotta go - I have some tomatoes that will be ready in a minute!

This is me in a field on my farm......sorry about the blurry image, but you get the idea!

EEEEWWWW!!!!!!

This is what Tom's toothbrush looks like. So, the other day when I was cleaning the bathroom, I used it to clean the crud around the sink, faucet, knobs, counter, etc. And then - this is the important part - I threw it in the garbage.

So this morning when I spotted it back in the toothbrush cup I was kinda grossed out. But I was hoping that maybe it wasn't the one I threw away. I called Tom on my way to work to check - how do you ask someone if they took a toohbrush out of the garbage and resumed using it??? But ask I did and he said that he thought it had just fallen in there so he retrieved it and put it back in the cup and kept using it. Yeah.....mmmhhhmmm....it hopped out of the cup and walked across the counter and then lept into the garbage. BLECCCHHH!!!

Tonight it is going into the dumpster. Where he won't find it!

Smiling Kitty

This cat is not smiling - it is hissing. Hissing is what cats do when they are angry.

Here is what Selah (2 years old) said to me the other day after she'd found the cat in his hiding place and woke him up from his nap......

Are you ready??

Okay here it is......

"Gamma look! Kitty is smiling at me!"

Not exactly Selah!!

Stuff

Well it has been a quiet week here in Hartland. And quiet is good. That said, here are some of the past week's highlights.....well not exactly highlights.....but the most interesting stuff from the week. With pictures from the weekend thrown in for a splash of color!

Tom & I went to Ludington for a long weekend this past weekend. It was really cold up there and the leaves were really not changing much.....oh well. We didn't do much of anything other than close the place down for the winter. (Boo hoo!) Tom'll probably go back up and stay there for hunting in a few weeks. Alone - since I'm not that into being without running water, you know?

Driving to and from work these past few days I've noticed a couple signs that make me laugh. Both are hand lettered, posterboard size signs. The first one I noticed on my way home from work one afternoon and I didn't really think it said what I thought it said but another day I slowed down and sure enough it did say what I thought. It says simply "Obama - a horrible mistake". I'm not really trying to make a political statement here, I'm just saying......

Okay, the second sign was on the corner of a busy intersection and I actually drive around twice to read it. This one says "Wanted - common sense stimulus". (Must've been reading Glenn Beck's book, huh?) Unfortunately it wasn't there today. Bummer. I wonder if both signs were the work of the same person?

Last night Tom & I went to Costco with two of our grandkids...... Selah (2) and Luke (7). It wasn't really my idea to take Selah to the store but when I tried to take her home she said "Cos-ick-co" and Tom has never heard her speak before and it was adorable and so we took her and Luke. They were good....Selah ate from every sample table in the store and wore a lot of it on her clothes. She also never stopped talking. Never. Selah seems to think that she is too big to ride in the cart. Hmmm......my kids rode in the cart until I couldn't hoist them up there and stuff their legs through the holes anymore. So she would wander away the second I blinked. But it's all good......I got most of the stuff I was looking for and all they wanted was the 15 pack of gum. That works out to 180 pieces of gum. I'm sure mommy was thrilled about that.....she's almost got all of it out of Selah's hair from last time!

Monday Monday.....

It's been a while since my last post. After months and months of wedding planning and shower planning and all things wedding related, a first birthday celebration and a Christening, we have resumed a more normal (at least our kind of normal!) pace. And normal (as we know it) is good. So there hasn't been much to write about. Except for a couple things......

One is WE GOT A MEIJER RIGHT HERE IN HARTLAND!! Can someone say yeeha??!! Until you've lived at the edge of civilization you can't really appreciate the significance of having a Meijer so close to home. Yeah we got a Walmart a couple months ago but for too many reasons to list here, it's not the same as Meijer!
The second big event was that I GOT MY CAR BACK!!! It was in the shop exactly 3 weeks. I don't think it takes 3 weeks for heart surgery and recovery for crying out loud! For more on the car story check my earlier post. Anyways I was pretty happy to turn in the clown car rental that I'd been driving, which although it was good on mileage, was not so good in many other ways. Not complaining, just saying......

We also went to Ludington where the town was more or less closed down for the season. We hope to go back up there this weekend and winterize. Boo hoo!

So here are a couple pictures...... a tree.....I don't know why we took this picture. It must've seemed like a good idea at the time.

...... Hamlin Lake with a storm blowing in......

..... Lake Michigan with the snow fences already in place. UGH.

And this is Tom and Maggie the other night. I literally handed her to him when she wouldn't stop crying and she instantly fell asleep. Unfortunately, after about 5 minutes someone came to the door, the dogs started barking and she woke up. I don't think she ever went back to sleep that night! All night. We must've been a little younger when we did that with our kids huh?

Yep, I sound like my mom. Who knew???

The Flu Shot

I went to see the Dr. last week. It was just a check up. The nurse came in the room to weigh me and check my BP and pulse and stuff. During the weigh in I noticed that the little balance bar needle thing wasn't balancing in the middle it was just resting on the bottom. (Does that even make sense?) Anyways she took my BP and it was surprisingly lower than my usual. Then she was unable to find a pulse. Strange. A little later the regular nurse came in to re-check my BP and came up with my usual reading. Hmmmm.... Then she asked if I was really taking 3 of a prescription drug every day. What??? The first nurse never even asked what drugs I was taking! Yeah, doesn't really inspire confidence does it?? So after my visit with the Dr. the first nurse came back to give me the flu shot.

Here was the conversation-

The whole time I was holding my arm so she couldn't give the shot until I was ready.

Me: So you're a student.

Nurse: Yep. Doing my externship here. For 4 weeks. No pay.

Me: So maybe you'll get hired?

(Please say no, please say no...)

Nurse: Nope they hired someone else.

(First reaction was thank goodness - then uh-oh.....)

Me: Does the vaccine come ready to use?

Nurse: Nope. I drew it up myself.

(BIG uh-oh...could be full of tiny air bubbles or might not even be the flu shot! Could be fertility drugs or worse! Get a grip woman!)

She sticks me once....

Me: So do you get much practice at giving shots?

She sticks me again, this time for real.....

Nurse: Oh yeah, I've been doing this for a loong time, probably 2 weeks now.

Oh yeah, 2 weeks that's a really long time!

HELLO!!!!

Maggie's 1st Birthday

Today was a busy day. NO....it was a busy weekend! Anyways this morning Maggie was baptized and we went straight home from church to celebrate her 1st birthday which was also today. Whew! Big day for a little girl!

Here she is just before digging (literally) into her little cake.

And here she is licking cake off her hands. The other little kids were fascinated by the mess and the fact that the grownups were actually cheering her on to make an even bigger mess!

Needless to say,she really made a mess of herself. I can't tell you how happy I was that the weather cooperated and we were able to be outside!! (BIG understatement for soo many reasons!) And....we were able to power wash the high chair before bringing it back inside! (Big smile!)

Here are the papparazzi - I mean family - taking photos of the event. I don't think I could eat with that many people watching me and taking pictures. Maybe I could....but I'm just saying.....

And here she is last year on the day she was born. Do I hear some "awww"s??

And this concludes the year of Nick, Chelsea & Maggie!