The color red is becoming a favorite of mine.

Hmmm.

Is it the color red or the sugar?

All of my strawberry rhubarb jam is gone, so I made a few batches of freezer jam after a Costco run on Saturday.

Absolutely yummy.

Or, at least I remember it that way.

Haven't tried any yet.

Maybe I shouldn't ... that dentist ... my yummy jam (not to mention the licorce) is going to finance his warm weather vacation over spring break.

The hot pad was a Christmas gift from my Mom. Marimekko material ... and I love it. I'm going to look for some fabric and fashion myself a few more!

Dentists

Why aren't dentists on our regular medical insurance plans? I don't get it. You meet deductibles with one plan ... and then another. Long before I knew what this week would hold, but after I knew that we wouldn't be in Phoenix, I scheduled appointments. Like my kids haven't missed enough school already! They're missing more.

One appointment for an exam.

Another appointment for a cleaning. (Now I really miss our dentist who did exam/cleaning together .. they had no hygenists.)

Then you start the work. By this time, my week of vacation is gone. The dentist is out of town on spring break and they are only open during the hours I am at work. What is up with that??

We are going to sink mortgage payments into teeth ... and I guess Jari will get to take them to the dentist. :) Won't he be thrilled!!

2 exams down this morning.

2 cleanings this afternoon.

I already need a nap.

March and half of April ... looks like we played in snow a bit!

A Year in Alaska is done!!

Today I managed to finish the last page I needed for my book. Oops! I have one more that I need to do. It is nearly done, but I needed to add something to it ... Brock's confirmation page. That one will be forthcoming. If you click on the pictures you can actually read all the writing on these ... and see my growing wrinkles! :) Will try adding a bunch on here. Problem is that they take forever to upload. Maybe I'll do 6 at a time. Wish there was some other way to do this, but I want to share them with all of you.

I think I've given up on this thing.

I like pitchers that are glass.

I particularly like this one!

When we moved up here, the last thing left in the fridge was the pitcher with some liquid in it. And I couldn't take it with. So .... it now lives at Jenny's house. I don't know what it is about this pitcher ... maybe it's any pitcher. I just live to serve out of glass. Not guests. My family. I like to have a glass pitcher on the serving counter when I serve dinner.

I bought one at Fred Meyer and was thrilled! Then one day I was in a hurry. Took the pitcher out of a hot dishwasher and craaaaaccckkkk! it was gone. Lesson #13472 learned! Several weeks later I went and bought another one. It has been surviving ... until now. I took this one out of the dishwasher the other day. It was not hot. I did not add cold liquid. :) It was already broken.

I did go to Fred Meyer last evening .... I didn't buy another pitcher.

S'pose by the end of the week I'll see myself heading off to buy another one. Maybe I ought to just give it up.

But I really like this one!

An entire week went by already?

What have we been so busy with that I haven't gotten around to posting on here for an entire week? Sick household. Kids were off school Monday & Tuesday. Back to school on Wednesday for calls from the school nurses. Come pick them up. DH, who was home, picked them up and we started. Brought 3 of them to the doctor Wed late afternoon. Negative strep. Postive Influenza B at least in 1 kid's nose.

By now ... we've turned the bend and are on the mend!! Let's hope we have this under control and can spend the rest of our winter with nonsick people here. It has been miserable. Every bug that goes by has taken a resting spell at our house this winter. At least I'm not alone. Seems to be the common theme in many places.

Monday again

I loaded these backwards ... as is a bit obvious! This morning I started working on finishing the last couple of pages the I need to do to complete my year. Maybe they'll be done by the end of the week! Then I can send everything off to print. Am anxious to see them done.

Dinner is in the oven and I have a few minutes on here.

Kids are off school today and tomorrow. Alyx went to work, Anna is over at Wally & Lisa's and Tia is bored. Capital B bored. I'm tired. Exhausted.

3 days of work left this week!! I can't wait for a few days off. Was asked if I wanted tomorrow off and said "no thanks". The schedule is light and we are overstaffed for tomorrow. Eventually, if there are no willing folks to take the day off voluntarily, they will force days off. With 7 vacation days coming right up, I really need to work the 3 I have left. We usually have a lull after the first of the year. November & December are very busy. People have met deductibles for the year and are anxious to get elective procedures done. Not so this time of the year. Hopefully it picks up soon and things keep on staying busy.

We had a busy weekend. Friday evening I went skating with the girls. Well ... I didn't go skating ... they did. The boys joined us later. Too many people on the ice for my feeble feet. I sat in the warming shack and held babies. Nice trade off. :)

Saturday I got the laundry part of the basement organized. I love Lowe's organization department. Am rationing how many things I can get each pay day. Eventually I'll have what I want. Lawrence Byman was in town and we had a wonderful Parenting Discussion in the evening. Then did some web cam connection with my parents who are vacationing in Phoenix. Was so fun to see them and share a cup of coffee. I'm afraid Jari downed 9 pieces of pulla in front of them ... will have to make sure the freezer is full when they come to visit.

Sunday we had services and then a Youth Discussion. Nice day filled with uplifting activities.

So ended another week!

We could use some snow. It is actually 42 degrees outdoors and there won't be any left soon! Let's hope that if all of it melts we get a royal dumping. The yucky dirty brown stuff that is sand covered could really use a fresh dusting.

Off to do some "mom" duties!

And then there was Thanksgiving Day

And another one!

On a Wednesday in November of 2007 ...

This has been so much fun. I'm sure I could have been a bit more creative with these pages, but I'm thrilled that I'm getting the memories captured on pages. I have several more to do and then they are being sent off to print. Yay!! I can't wait to slip them into a book. Maybe it will be an excuse to go get a bookshelf. Those things are in severe short supply around here.

By the way, I have a difficult time reading these until I get them onto this blog. Then I can size them huge and be able to see without spectacles. I went back and fixed all the oopses on the last page.

If you're up for a cup of coffee at my house .... I came home early from work and baked 8 braids of pulla today. Coffee is always on! :)

It's Friday!!!

Thank goodness.

For some reason, this has been the longest week in history. On Tuesday I had to remind myself that it wasn't Thursday. Was not a good sign. So today we were done early at work and I said "I'll go home". Can't have extra staff just sitting around twiddling thumbs. I'll grumble when I see the paycheck, but I'll be thrilled today!

So ... the big dough bowl of mine is full of pulla dough that is rising. Might get me out of doing that tomorrow if I get it done today.

I think I got my Valentine's gift from my dear hubby yesterday. I love flowers. I love cards. I eat too much chocolate at work ... don't need anymore of that. What I love most of all are the little things. Remember that laundry pile of mine that was doubling in size every time I looked at it? I've been busy backing up pictures on cd's and scrapbooking between it all. Doesn't leave much time for the laundry pile. I came home from work yesterday and went to drop something off in our bedroom. On the bed was 2 huge piles of clean laundry. Dear hubby did 6 loads of laundry yesterday. The best kind of roses that a person can ever receive. Ain't he just the sweetest thing ever?

I need to go wake up Alyx ... she's working shortly and needs to get rolling on out of here. She likes these naps too. We're all a fan of them. I'm trying real hard to not put my head on the pillow right now. If I could be certain that it would be only 30 minutes, maybe I'd go for it, but I'd probably lose an entire hour.

29 degrees outside and I should really go for a walk instead. It is beautiful!! The silhouette of the mountains are visible when I head to work. Not to the point of being able to drive without headlights yet, but dawn is certainly starting to light the sky at 7:45 in the morning. Bring on the vitamin D ... maybe that will take care of the nap problem.

On the outside looking in

and seeing this makes a mom's heart smile. Teen curled up in a comfy chair with a book. Ahhh. Wonderful! My To Do List this week isn't moving. It seems to be getting bigger and nothing seems to be getting done! My hubby, on the other hand, is busting records again. Good thing he's a busy guy and can even out the score.

• drain (sewer) piping in the basement all got moved yesterday
• the back room in the basement now needs electrical wiring and ducting moved (am guessing that will be done this week as well)
• we are getting a boat load of insulation this week at 1/2 price ... our basement needs it!
• now we have another plan for the basement (we love changing plans midstride)
• my laundry pile is growing by the hour and not moving anywhere
• I have 5 days of work and then am on vacation!!!!!
• I am not so good at backing things up on my computer
• that is a terrific problem when the computer sounds like it is an airplane ready for take off
• I'm cheating in blogging this morning ... I've been filling cd's with pictures for the past few days instead
• have a staff meeting this morning at 6:30 a.m. and my hair is still wet
• I think that means I'd better get a move on!

Monday morning comes much too early

Saturday we went to go to the Willow Carnival. Last weekend we missed the Outhouse Race, but it looked like this weekend might be kind of fun ... and we'd never gone there. There was a Radar Run going on. Pay a very minimal fee, put your snow machine on the starting line and have someone clock your speed. There was a bit of chill in the air and exhaust fumes were hanging low. And ... my feet were freezing. I wore the wrong boots. Another interesting attraction was a collection of old snowmachines.

Hmmm .... it was hard making a decision on my favorite ... not that I needed to! This little bumble bee looking thing ....

or ... this one is sort of priceless. We had sort of planned on spending the day out there and it ended up being only several hours, but was fun to do something different!

And lastly, my favorite picture of the day! I don't know how to play with lighting on the camera and the day was sort of a white one. That probably doesn't make sense. I'll add another picture to show you. This would be Denali. The first time I've ever seen it. Can you believe that people climb it? Voi etta. So many people come here with the hope of seeing the mountain and it is cloud covered. So we were thrilled to be able to see it!

This is a white kind of day. Almost hurts to look at it.

Once again, no Hatcher Pass this weekend. Intentions were good, but by the time everyone was up and rolling on Sunday ... it would have been nip and tuck in the time department. It permanently stays on the list of things to do .. no need to add it back on.

Music is a beautiful thing

Espcially when it is your child who is playing. Anna hasn't been able to take violin lessons since we moved. There are no strings programs here in the schools. We left an awesome strings program in AZ. I could have found a private instructor ... and still should. However, this girl is motivated! The piece she is working on is my favorite version of Canon in D ... and she's doing wonderful at it! There is a group of strings folks here who play at various venues ... the library at Christmas for example. I need to find out more. I think she would enjoy it.

Slowly getting there!

I don't have a clue what I'll do when this is project is done. It has been quite fun so far! Perhaps I'll start sorting through the thousands of photos I have in boxes. Imagine how many books on cd I could listen to while I sort. Sounds delightful!

Off to work. 600 mg of Ibuprofen and I ought to be good 'til about lunchtime .. and I'm on call until 11 pm. This is nasty. Brock was complaining all last week of not feeling well. Am hoping to feel more like myself by Saturday.

Sunshine in my dusty windows makes me happy!

For at least 2 months of the winter, sunshine doesn't reach our house. I wondered how we would handle that, but it has been fine. Now I celebrate the return of the sunshine. I absolutely love it!

Seems as if that nasty flu bug is working it's way out of here. Brock is back to normal, Jari is feeling a bit better, and I went to work yesterday ... with Ibuprofen onboard. We were finished early, too many staff (wow!?), so I volunteered to leave shortly after 2 pm. I love extra gifts of moments. It was like I was given an extra 2 hours of time yesterday. They bought me: 2 naps, 2 trips to town, 4 loads of laundry, catch up long distance phone chat with a dear friend, yummy dinner, and 2 hours of PTO instead of 8. Not bad.

The forecast is for snow for the next 4 days. I've learned a little about weather forecasts. In Phoenix they were: today will be sunny and hot. Now they sort of have to predict when those clouds might dump something and it seems to be a bit difficult. Murphy's Law prevailed tho'. If we don't haul up wood, it will snow. We want snow, but we would really like some wood as well. So the boys were busy for a while yesterday afternoon.

My naps were punctuated with music. We have this chair in the living room that is super comfy for nap taking. The other one won't fit in here and is on the screen porch. Anna was determined to learn Canon in D yesterday and I felt like I was being serenaded with music. She is really good and is doing it on her own ... without an instructor. I'm so proud of her!

Page 2 and Monday

Page 2 is up and done! Am now working on organizing the road trip pictures. I also managed to lose some pictures that I was going to include in this page. I found them on Bebo, but can't manage to find them in my computer. Frustrating. So much for my wonderful organization skills. Will see how long it takes to get the next few pages done.

The flu bug is hanging around. Probably need to get Brock to the doctor. He doesn't seem to be able to quit running to the bathroom. Today, Jari & I both started doing our dashes. I worked anyway .... spreading cheer and flu. Haven't decided if I'm going to stay home tomorrow or not. I could really use a day of crawl in the covers and just sleep it off, but am wondering if it will do any good anyway! Take some Ibuprofen and just bite the bullet. Will see in the morning.

We found out that we have another couple yard lights tonite. We must be half dibble. The lights have been there, but it is simply amazing! If you put light bulbs in them .... lights up enough of the yard that you can actually see out there. Might save a few spills.

Snow has been falling this evening adding a nice new white coat to the ground. Took a trip to the library with Anna & Tia earlier. Got myself 3 more books on tape. Now what am I going to do to keep busy while I listen? Have to do something so it is guilt free listening.

I tried to trim Tia's hair the other day and made it a disaster. She's waiting for a retrim. If this one doesn't work ... we are off to the hair cutting place tomorrow.