like I said!

See things don't always get done around here. Like the Blog! In our busy lives we forgot to BLOG. I've been creating and scraping and making all sorts of fun stuff! Nickole Is officially in Highschool, Justin is now in Middle school and the twins and Jon are still in elementary! woohoo for me. I'm tired after work today... Oh yeah and I switched jobs. I am in framing now. I'll post more when i've had coffee, cooled down and had a nice long shower!!!!

the death of a friend and a new friend brought home.

It is sad to say that our little snowflake lost her battle with the cold she had. she passed away in the night two days ago. Yesterday I went to the pet store to find my little Marty a toy and instead found myself watching the parakeet cage. Just watching them all play and fight and enjoy their little lives. One little green and yellow keet had me watching her because of how feisty she was! She would toss her toy and then chase it! Also she was trying to step on the other keets it was so funny she looked like she was karate kicking them! It had me cracking up! needless to say I had to bring her home. She managed to bite me while in the car. IT HURT!!!

Glenn met our newest family member and was eager to hold her. I said NO She bites hard! But he didn't listen to me and sure enough! CHOMP!!! I was trying to think of some cute little name like sarakeet or sara sue. But Glenn said NOPE!!! MAB is her new name. Mab: mean a$$ bird! so that is her name and it really has applied! maybe with time she will learn to love us.

The haul

The kids had a blast and managed to find every last egg!

Why you should never let 2 grown men hide the last 2 eggs at easter!

ok I have to admit when this first happened I was rather irritated that the guys would have taken their duty so lightly! Nickole gave Grandpa Mike and Glenn the last two eggs to hide. Grandpa said here I hid it and chucked it against the wall where it then fell down under the window. Easy to find and not harmed at all! All I could said is thank God it was a plastic egg! Glenn saw that and while I was still trying to get past my shock threw his against the house too!
Glenn was NOT as lucky as my dad. His landed IN the rose bush! Nickole was talking getting the tongs out and Glenn was in agreement. I told them both LATER after the hunt! Well little Jon with his nerves of steel and his ability to get into and out of weird places managed to get the egg without even a scratch!

Easter!!

Oh we had so much fun this Easter at our house. The kids all colored eggs and we had way to much food! My parents were all here and even helped hide eggs!

Grandpa Mike, Nickole and Glenn and I were the official bunnies of the day! lol Nickole and I decided to color coordinate eggs to bikes and hid about four over there. We also used every pile of leaves or grass we could find. Plus a few more OBVIOUS places. I mean how easy is it to hide a NEON egg?!?
I think Nickole had the most fun! She was also the gate keeper for releasing the kids! She had the official say so for letting the kids go or not go.

St. Patrick's day!

This year was so last minute! I was hiding the goodies and clues after all the kids came home. We also had to extras for all the fun. Our little neighbor girls came over and helped find the candy and solve the clues which ended in the kids finding all their toppings for ice cream sundae's. But when all was said and done the kids had fun and still didn't catch lenny the leprechaun! ;-)

wow so much to catch up on... Divorce

Wow who knew having a little computer trouble would put you so far behind. On March 11th my divorce to jason became final. I expected a huge weight to be lifted off my chest but instead it felt like any other day. With one exception... I WAS FREE!!!! I felt so excited! Finally I was able to start over. Completely! The kids all said THANK GOD!

I posted it on my space and apparently jason's girlfriend read it and since he had been lying to her she had no idea! She had been told we were done for a while. *sigh* some people never will change.

Our project is FINISHED!!!!

Well it has finished! we managed to make the girls triple bunk beds with minimal personality disorders flaring up! It looks pretty darn good and only took us 3 days from buying to finished product!
Ally claimed top bunk. Nickole tagged middle and Jen took bottom. All the beds have their own lights that they can switch on and off and we are installing curtains next. That way the girls can close themselves off if they want.
I have to admit I was a little bit skeptical when the idea was first presented only because Glenn said something along the lines of "Just like on the submarine" I could only picture a closed in metal cell with a bunch of smelly guys. ewwwwww!!!! Thank God that the plans came out great and it was super cheap by comparison of what we found already made. 2,500 -3,000 for a triple bunk not including the mattresses. We made ours and bought brand new mattresses and bedding for under 700!!

We even found a darn good bargain while out looking around. a 15 amp 7 1/4 inch circular saw by craftsman for only 27$ brand new!! It was on clearance and up on top of a shelf. the one we really wanted was 109 but we couldn't find it. I saw this one up on the shelf and it looked like the same thing! So I said that one. Not knowing the price until the sales girl checked it!


life is good!

eco friendly house?!?

When I was younger I never thought much about the eco freak people you know the ones that didn't use paper a lot and wore only all cotton clothes cause it was earth friendly. Now here I am at thirty buying appliances that are earth friendly and will use less water, less energy and still get the job done. After a few months of searching and a lot of reading on consumer reports and just going for it we have brought home the ge front loaders. so far we love them. Less water being used. Less soap needed, less bleach and fabric softner and my absolute favorite feature... sanitize wash!! That is where the machine boils the crap out of your clothes:-) So far so good... I love my new machine. I can wash all the kids clothes in 3 loads. The downside is that now I have a huge amount of clothes to fold every time!! The clothes look a lot cleaner! Ours are silver and not exactly what we wanted as far as brand goes but it's awesome!!

***Refund***

ok yes we have taken leave of our senses. I went to the pet store today to get my little snowflake a treat. She is the parakeet we have had for five months. She's white with blue bits here and there. And she is SPOILED!!! I never knew you could spoil a bird but oh boy did we ever! She loves to sit at the table with us and eat from a plate. She also loves to be held close so she can be warm and scratched under her head and neck.

Any way back to the pet store. I realized that she needed new toys or a treat or something. I mean after all we buy the dog treats why not her too. So in to petco we went. While we were wandering we met up with Kimberly. She had just come from the back room and had this most adorable little blue parakeet on her shoulder. He was just warbling and singing! Some how we got to talking about him. She explained he had just been returned cause he bites! His previous owner had only had him less than 24 hours. They had started calling him refund. lol I looked at Glenn and I said he's gotta come home with us. She let us hold him and get him use to us. Oh he is so sweet. Yeah he nibbles but not like I expected when they said he bites! He is so adorable and funny. More active than I have ever seen any little bird before! Bonnie another associate at petco was super helpful in telling us what we could do to make his little life happier! I never knew that they got bored with their toys. Now I do. So for now our little refund is sitting pretty happy in one corner while snowflake is in the other. They are so cute warbling back and forth to one another!

The family Recreation Vehicle

This is the family RV. Its a nice 32 ft long class A motorhome that will comfortably sleep 4. I has been known to sleep near twice that amount...albeit not so comfortably (rather crowded, actually). It had been my home in western Washington for the last 5 or so years up 'till recently. Like all things, it requires routine maintenance, less it slowly deteriorates from neglect. Just the other day, I was out to check out the coach batteries and discovered that both batteries are bad. One has a shorted cell and the other will not take a charge. I guess this explains why I had such a hard time starting the on board generator. So now I will be shopping around for replacement batteries. I can't really complain, the batteries are about 8 years old and well beyond the end of their useful life.
Update on the van maintenance. Whoo hooo! Success. The alternator installation fixed the charging system problem completely. The only thing I was concerned with was if the alternator didn't have a regulator, there would be problems like boiling the battery or worse. Not the case. Thank God! Had the oil changed at Oil Can Henry's yesterday and part of the service is to check the battery condition (water) and other engine fluids. Battery checked good!

Easier than nailing jello to a tree?!?! I think NOT!!!

While out with my mom and Glenn we found one of those flip calendars. You know the ones where you get them home and are great about changing it every day.... for about a week! Then you play catch up very five days or so. One saying caught my eye as I flipped quickly through it... Raising teenagers is like nailing jello to a tree! Oh if this isn't the most accurate description! Or another favorite of mine is... It is a lot like being pecked to death by a duck! S-L-O-W and very painful! Today we went into the girls room to put away some of their things that had been left out. Holy Hannah , Batman! I swear Gremlins live in there! Nothing was picked or put away! I know, I know! That is just teenagers. But sheesh we get them up early enough to get ready for school and be able to make beds and put things away. So today I decided to take matters into my own hands and I created a condemned sign for their room! lol I think that is the most fun I have had on the computer in a while! So now on the girls room door there is a wonderful condemned sign printed on "Bright (OMG my EYES I've been blinded) orange!" Think they'll see it? I gave them 4 hours before I go in with trash bags and do it myself! Hopefully this works. I'll keep ya posted. The oddest thing of it all is that the boys room is darn near immaculate! Go figure?!? No this isn't a pic of their room but it sure is close!

stupid boys never learn

I just have to vent. Jason and I are not yet divorced and I can't say anything about it in front of his little gf because she doesn't know! he told her that we have been divorced for a while! after losing heather because of lying you think he would learn. Also he had said he would send money to help with the last little things needed to get it FINALIZED!! he hasn't even done that either! He never supports the kids financially or emotionally. the kids haven't even heard from him in about a month now! maybe that is a good thing because all the kids know that his gf doesn't know and are threatening to tell even though I have told them it is not their place to.

BOYS!?!

Van repair

It seems like the never ending saga of fixing the family van. From the beginning, the van has provided ample challenges for keeping it a dependable source of transportation. If it isn't the brakes having issues, its the charging system. And quite possibly it will need ball joint work as well. All this for a mere 700 dollars purchase. The folks had their hearts in the right place, though. They wanted us to have a vehicle that would have enough room and a dedicated seatbelt for each passenger. God bless them.
Well, since the weather is cooperating, I need to finish up installing the alternator and see if the problem is solved with the charging system. The box the alternator came in had a disturbing note saying the supplied alternator didn't come with a built in voltage regulator. Hmm.
The slider door has some issues, but with a little lubricant and a lot of coaxing, its back to it old self, if not factory "perfect".

Update on the alternator job: Looks like the rebuilt alternator did the trick. The charging system appears to be working normally. Whew...One less thing to repair.
Kinda reminds me of my old '86 Dodge B150 van. I became an expert on repairing that vehicle as well. Ball joints, brakes, a/c compressor, electric window lifts, frickin' computer, (ripped that #@#%& thing out and replaced it with an MSD ignition module) to name a few things I fixed on that van...ah well.....

I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick -- not wounded -- dead." woody allen

Poor kids you would have thought that we were trying to kill them with our smoked oyster snack. Allyson took one bite and promptly threw up. Jenifer licked it and gave that face. You know the one that says "I really don't think so!" Jon ate one after hiding it between a cracker and cheese. Then drinking huge amounts of strawberry flavored crystal light to wash it down. Nickole ate one after the bribe of a dollar and Justin just freaked out as usual and screamed you are trying to kill me!

Oh well! More oysters for the grown ups. The only down side to all of this is that the kids are broadening their palette and eating more and more foods that are not usual for them. That also means less for Glenn and I! :-( Avocado's are still a yuck point for the kids. Except Jon he'll eat anything!