Monday....

Volleyball

Paxton had a volleyball tournament in Post Falls today. She went up skiing with Heinen's yesterday and I met her afterwards. We went to Post Falls and spent the night to get up early and go to the tournament. They were in a tough draw and ended up loosing their pool play. That meant that this afternoon they went into the consolation bracket.

Get some air!

This picture cracks me up. It looks like Paxton is trying to listen in on the opponents. I don't think that was the intention.

This is a blurry picture but it was one of her kills. The girls ended up beating a Timber Lake team, a Kootenai team and then loosing to an East Valley team to take second place in the best of the worst. LOL. Don't know how they ended up in the entire tournament, but better than they did in their first one! It was a COLD day in Post Falls but a good day of volleyball.

Nick played Special Olympic basketball today in Cheney. Their team went 3-1 and earned a spot in the State Tournament to be played in Wenatchee in March. Kyle officiated games so there are no pictures to share. Boo. Nick did well and was pleased with the day.

I am ready for bed! This week should be calm compared to last week. I am thinking anyway.

Good Words

Never follow someone else's path;

it doesn't work the same way

twice for anyone...

the path follows you and

rolls up behind you

as you walk,

forcing the next person

to find their own way.

J Michael Straczynski

Unmarked Bauer Beauty

Last weekend on my trip to the antique store with Nick, I found this "unmarked" Bauer creamer. Isn't it adorable?! The unmarked price tag was great too....didn't have to pay high end for the Bauer sure thing. Other creamers that were marked Bauer were going for $160 and $150 smackers. This one DID NOT cost anywhere near those amounts!

The week at school, {the first week of second semester} is finally over! Wow!! Grades are posted, schedules are adjusted, schedules are printed, report cards ran, report cards mailed, transcripts updated. Whew. Next week should be a breeze.

Random Questions & Answers

Your cell phone....on mute

Your significant other....at work

Your hair....just dyed

Your mother....the smartest woman I know

Your father.....the smarted man I know

Your kids.....true blessings

Your favorite thing.....family

Your dream last night.....don't think I had one

The room you are in.....living room

Your fear.....spiders

What you're not.....clingy

Last thing you did before logging on.....switched laundry from washer to dryer

Where did you grow up.....on a farm

What are you wearing.....sweats

Your computer.....HP laptop

Favorite place.....ocean

Your mood right now.....relaxed

Missing someone.....yep!

Something you're not wearing.....high heels
Your life.....blessed

Big #7

Can't believe we have been putting up with this guy for 7 YEARS now! Just kidding! Cash is the best! Look out 'Beautiful Mind' because this mathmatical wizard is going to take your spot. This kid knows square roots and he is only in the FIRST grade.

He walked right up to me when he saw me.....he knows that when it is birthday time and I am there that means birthday picture! Here he is showing me how old he is

Not sure why is making it look so hard here! Happy Birthday to You!! We love you to pieces!!

Next with the camera was this young beauty: {cake and all!}

She posed for this one and then afterwards she took my camera around taking pictures of everyone and everything. Just for her I will show you the one she took of me. My kids get after me because I am always the one with the camera and no pictures of me....so here goes:

Lovely. Just lovely. LOL

A Good Thinker

Love this:

The dialogue with God which begins with the confession

of one's own failures is not depressing; it is liberating.

At last, perhaps even for the first time, we have

been honest with ourselves about what we are;

and we have been honest with the one Person

before whom there is no deception.

Emilie Griffin

Semester Two Starts...Ready Or Not

Today was just what we were expecting...CRAZY!! With the start of the second semester, the crazies come out. All the kids get the opportunity to set a schedule prior to the real one taking place. The day of the real one...everyone has changed their minds. It is something that just makes the counselors fit to be tied. KIDS! I think they should all have to start whatever they finish. It seems that I am the only one on earth that feels this way. With the first day out of the way the rest of the week should go smoothly. Should that is. Tomorrow there is a survey that has to be completed for some of the students. We are going to have it during the STAT class so we will see how that interuption plays with plans of the teachers. I really don't particularly like days where the schedule gets some sort of a tweak. People tend to freak out because they don't handle change very well. This sometimes carries over to my day. How about a little cheese with this 'whine'??

On to something better. This weekend I went to town on Saturday with Nick to run a couple of errands. They were short and sweet and I ended up at a couple of my favorite antique stores. A month or so ago I needed forks so I bought some forks at one of the antique stores. They were so pretty. Well, this Saturday I found some spoons that I had to get because they were cute also. It is fun to have a variety of utensils. My next mission is to get some dinnerware. I have been looking for something I like but haven't had any luck. I am not interested in getting a bunch of matching place settings either. A few of one, a few of another, and a few of another would be great! Mix and Match. That's my new theme. Here's what my spoon and fork patterns look like:

Awesome huh!

The Jets and Bears lost yesterday. Looks like the Super Bowl is going to be the
Steelers vs Packers. Not too interested in either team winning. Do you think that both teams could tie at 0-0?? And there really wouldn't BE a winner???

Purge, Clean, Empty

You would think it was spring around this house! I opened my cupboard today and decided I was tired of stuff barely on the shelf or falling down when the door opens. I went through my cupboards in the kitchen, pantry and in the hutch and threw a bunch of 'stuff' out! I am not a pack-rat by any means. I polished silver, wiped down shelves, brought out some plates to use and now can open my cupboard doors without fearing anything falling down.

I also did laundry, ran a vacuum, did some stuff for school, colored my hair, and traded dad a chair for my back room. It was a pretty productive day if I do say so.

A Little Insight....

a month.....April

a day.......Saturday

an adjective....run

a color.....red

a flower.....daisy

a musical instrument.....piano

a fruit.....grape

a shoe.....flip flop

a plant.....ivy

a taste.....sweet

an emotion.....joy

a song.....Hello World

a store....Pottery Barn

a book.....The Notebook

a scent.....Channel

a tool.....hammer

a tree.....Crooked Willow

a verb.....love

Train Ride

Mom called first thing this morning telling me to go look at the train going by. It was stunning! Full of 44 wind machine blades (probably not the technical term).

By being on a train it saves a lot of semi-truck work. Imagine passing a line of these on the freeway one after the other!

Kyle and Eric went to work at Commercial Tire. Kaylee came by for a quick "hi". She has amazing blue eyes! What a treat.

It's Friday

This was the view outside my front door this afternoon when I got home from work. There was fog along the irrigation ditch, sun, clouds and blue sky depending on which way you were looking.

These clouds were to the north of my house....they were spectacular!

This view is looking south....the pump house is going to get painted this summer if it kills me! Maybe I shouldn't say 'kills' me, but I really want to get that done!

This week was a quick one at work....probably having Monday and Tuesday off had something to do with its speed. The semester is over as of today. Finals were yesterday and today, early dismissal today; the schedule was a disaster every day this week. Oh well, we made it through.

Watching the Australian Open tonight. One of the doubles match got into a tangle with the opposing players. Come on guys! Venus had to withdraw due to an injury. Isner is playing against Cilic; losing right now and Roddick is still in the hunt. 2 Americans left....good luck guys! I would love to see Roddick take the trophy. Don't think Nadal and Federer agree with me.

Looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning. Last night was not a good sleep night. I woke up several times. Not sure why. Ready to make up for it tonight.

Thought For The Day

Be kind and compassionate to one another.

Ephesians 4:32

Back To School

Back to getting up with the alarm clock this morning. Work went pretty good. It was busy enough that the day went by quickly. That was a bonus. Kids are taking finals today and tomorrow. Schedules have to be tweaked, fixed and ready to be handed out Monday morning. Shouldn't be too big of a problem.

Our Wednesday meeting was at Arlene's tonight. We witnessed the brightest, fullest moon coming up over the horizon right before dinner. What a great reminder of "only God"!

Jessica sent me these pictures of Paxton at Ki-Be at a volleyball game so I will share them since I don't have any of my own today. Enjoy.

Bookwork Day

Got a lot accomplished today....in the office that is! I got up early today; no sleeping in on the last day of vacation. Geeze. I started laundry and then picked up the house. I checked out some blogs and then decided I had better get down to getting my office desk cleaned up. Going through the piles of bills, unopened mail, credit card bills and church stuff was just the start of being in the office all day. I went online and got all my 4th quarter reports finished and submitted and paid, did my Annual 940, December's B&O report and then started in on the credit card bills. After I got them all matched with jobs and accounts I got my checkbooks all up-to-date. I next tackled the files from 2010 and got them in order and in a box labeled and ready to access in case I need them when I do my 1040. That cleared a lot of space for the 2011 invoices and statements, etc. But why stop here??? The final big job that is no longer weighing on my shoulders to get done is my W-2's. They are filled in and in envelopes, ready to be mailed tomorrow. YEAH!! The only other big thing I have to do is get my 1099's done and my 1040. At least the January 31 deadline is not looming on my "to do" list anymore. Feels pretty good.

Brad got dinner tonight. He did a great job. Just kicking back on the couch right now, watching the Australian Open on tv. Roddick is playing a Russian and is just now pulling into the lead. Fish is playing Robredo and it's all over but the crying. Serena {edit: Venus not Serena} is the only ranked American woman still in the tournament. Not USA's year.

Back to the office tomorrow. Sure was a great 4 day vacation. Wouldn't mind having these more often!

Great Saying....

I found this on a blog and loved it so I thought I would share (can't remember which blog, so my apologies to the original owner):

On The Right Track

Here's the saying for January 17 on my calendar-a-day:

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

Jane Austen

Volleyball....Not Such A Great Day

So the O-Town Club volleyball team played in Kennewick today. They didn't have such a great day; they didn't have such a good day. Maybe it's because they haven't been playing together but at practices. They definitely should do better next time.....let's hope! Nowhere to go but UP!!

I like this picture...it's blurry everywhere but at Paxton. The girls played "in the pit" at Kennewick HS. They were down below and all of the spectators were up above.

Each team takes a turn doing lines and scorekeeping. Here we are.

This is us in the consolation bracket. The only good thing about not doing well was our day got over at 3:00 instead of 8:00.

Our next tournament is at Treaty Rock in Post Falls 2 Sunday's from today. Hopefully practice will go well and a few things will get ironed out.

Rainy Saturday

Kyle went to work today at Boise Cascade and I started watching Clear Color (the photo editing video from Erin Cobb). I am totally amazed at how easy she makes it look. I haven't tried any of my pictures yet; am just going to watch it a couple of times and soak in all I can. Then give it a try. I have no doubt that it will take more than my BASIC knowledge of taking photos, let along editing photos to start getting the hang of things. The number of pictures I take is going to have to increase and I am going to have to start taking things a little more serious. THEN I may be able to be a decent photographer.....someday! I have plenty of time. Going to take things slow so I don't become too frustrated too quickly.

This afternoon I went and made a couple of ATC cards. I bought a kit from Donna Downey and am just goofing off with them. Hers all use specific colors and stamps that I don't have and am not going to go out and purchase. They are turning out just fine with what I have on hand. A nice way to relax. Here are a couple of pictures of my table top:

Direct TV and FOX have split the sheets and Direct TV no longer carries the channel. Unfortunately all the playoff football games are unable to be viewed! This just bites. We are going to have to come up with one of those tv boxes so we can see our local channels.

Tomorrow Paxton will play volleyball inKennewick. I am looking forward to watching volleyball again. Hopefully things will go well for their team. Should be interesting.

Spending the Weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's

Emma and Mattie get to spend the weekend at grandma and grandpa's house! Kara and Eric are in Hawaii so the girls get a vacation also.

Moving their stuff from my car to Jan's. Weekend fun, here they come!

Mabton school lost electricity today so we switched venues for the basketball games tonight. I filled in for one of the ticket takers so got to see some of the games. Once that got over I am ready to be on vacation time myself! NO school until Wednesday!! YEAH!!

Wrestling For First In League

This morning we woke up to black ice on roads in the northwest part of Franlin County, which translated into a 3 hour school delay. Whenever we have these unplanned, disrupted days, they ususally turn into crazy days at school. Today was no exception. I had a webcast/conference call at 9:30 and it was crazy from then on. There were also attendance appeals today for those kids in trouble with attendance and credits. That ties up 5 of our office people and that means more work for the 2 of us left. It's ok, just hectic.

Our wrestlers were wrestling for League Champs tonight against Ki-Be. We ended up losing 36-30. There were some exciting matches. It was what they call a dual match, with Ki-Be, Connell, Riverview and Burbank all coming for matches. Connell wrestled Ki-Be and Riverview. They beat Riverview easily.

Here's a couple of shots of our favorite wrestler (-:

Ryan wins with a pin.

Ryan waiting for his second match.

Jacob won his matches. Here he is thanking the ref.

Ryan during his second match against a kid from Riverview.

He pinned him! Good job!

Pay Phone

You don't see pay phones very often anymore, if at all! This one sits outside the front door of the high school. I don't think it works anymore. I can remember phone booths! Those are extremely rare, at least around our parts! I guess I just wanted to take a picture of this to keep a part of history....ok. Enough!

The big snow storm we were suppose to get last night came and went without being too big of a pain. We did get maybe 2 inches of snow around here but that's about it. We didn't get the freezing rain which was suppose to come also so that was a bonus.

I was in charge of the Wednesday girls meeting tonight. Kyle helped me out big time by having dinner done for me when I got home. He took Kyle and Nick and went to have pizza in town. The spaghetti and meatballs were great.

Briar texted me tonight asking me if I knew that a small bottle of Tide cost $15.00!! Outrageous! My response: "wait until you have to buy it for a family!" Love these real world lessons!!

Happy Birthday, Nicholas!

Today Nicholas turned 16 years old! Happy Birthday!!!!
We sang Happy Birthday had cake and he got to see what his presents were. I can't say that I am a great wrapper of presents, especially as the kids get older. He did get a duffle bag and got to "unzip" it to find all his other presents inside. He was thinking that the duffle bag was it but after we convinced him to check inside the duffle bag, he was pleasantly surprised to find several other things waiting for him, including a couple of packs of Pokemon cards.

Here he is actually unzipping the bag and getting a look inside! His sister called him tonight which was a big bonus. 16 years old! Wow! Where does the time go?????

Excitement!!

I have always followed Karen Russell's blog. She is a photographer/blogger/scrapbooker from Oregon. She takes fantastic pictures and I took a class from her on-line a couple of years ago when I got my Canon camera. A couple of months ago she blogged about a photographer named Erin Cobb, whom she paid to come and teach her her photography and also some editing. Well, I started following Erin's blog, because what is good for Karen should also be good for Jennifer! Erin has decided to put together a video of how she edits her photos and I just bought it and downloaded the 'class'. I am so excited to see if I can really get it to work for me. It involves using PhotoShop so that is a big intimidating. I just ordered a couple of "Photoshop For Dummies" books from the library. Maybe with the 4 day weekend coming up I can get some time by myself, in front of the computer and get down to some awesome photo editing techniques! Wish me luck!!

This morning it was a bit hard to get up and get going. Once it started though, the day went by. I am randomly cleaning up cobwebs here and there, putting stacks of papers away, and getting some home decor back up in some blank spots left from Christmas in anticipation of the Wednesday Girls meeting here at my house this Wednesday.....uh the day after tomorrow!

Auburn is beating up on Oregon now in the Fiesta Bowl. I am rooting for the hometeam but it doesn't look good. At least it's not Florida, Texas or Ohio playing AGAIN for the championship!

Aren't These The Cutest??

I bought these yesterday for Kaylee. I think they are adorable! I really wish they made these in bigger sizes!!

Yesterday was Erika's Bridal Shower. Kathy put it on for her. It was a great shower. She got a lot of cool house things. After the shower was the Bachlorette Party. I didn't attend that part of the festivities but I am sure they had a fun time.

Kathy...the hostess. Good job my friend!

Hung out with Kyle today. We went into town and just window-shopped at a couple of antique stores. Nice, relaxing afternoon. Work tomorrow.....yippeeeee!!!! Not!

JETS WIN

The Jets beat the Colts 17-16!! Jets are Kyle's favorite so you can imagine the smiles around here!