Okay so I'm a bad blogger

Oh, so infrequent in my blog entries! November completely was off the wall for me. I had two serious medical problems and was in the hospital on and off for a month! Nearly losing your pancreas and liver is very scary. I'm completely okay now and very grateful for a healthy body and a great family. I missed the kids terribly since the hospital didn't allow visits at first!

My oldest is going to be 14 at the end of January. I'm too young for this. Mentally speaking I think! Blake is 9 years old and as energetic as ever. My dd Vi will be 4 at the end of April. Kristen, 13 is getting her Confirmation in May. They grow up so fast!

My mother started in real estate and had her first closing! She has another one set to close and has her first listing! I'm so incredibly proud of her! My mom is so quiet and reserved that I wasn't sure if this was a fit for her. However, she is really proving herself. She stuck with it even when she didn't succeed at first.

I got out of public accounting. I now work 40 hours a week instead of 80 and got a bump in salary. My coworkers are friendly. Imagine that! The cool thing is that I work 3 minutes from my sister's house so I've stopped by for lunch sometimes!

Up early. Why????

My coffee is brewing and let me just tell you that night of the living dead Patti needs it. I had to drive Kiki to school today because she had two pans of brownies for orchestra, her violin and backpack. Orchestra just has to be at 7am! Coffee still isn't done. No I'm not impatient.

Last night Kiki went to her dance classes and she was one of 3 children there! The students who attended the infected Jr. High stayed home. Imagine that? I have renewed faith in society. Parents who follow rules and have common sense. It was nice that she got some individualized instruction. Apparently, the instructor for dance is smart too. She began each class asking if any of the students went to the infected school. If they did, she was going to suggest that she call the parents and they be given an opportunity to go home instead of participating to follow the directions of the department of health. Instructor told me, when I picked Kiki up, that apparently the director of dance, who I spoke to, decided that it was a very good idea to ask the students to follow the suggestion of the department of public health. I was floored that they listened.

Coffee ready. Ah! Okay, got some of that into my bones!

I got my act together and have some pictures of Blake's First Communion from last Sunday! He's so handsome and was the only one wearing a beige tweed suit. Every other boy had navy or black. I thought Blake looked handsome! Okay, the most handsome but I'm his Mom and I'm allowed to say that. :)

On the way to the church, Vi was her usual, 3-year old self. She had a fit about something, scratched Blake's cheek with her fingernail and covered her eyes the rest of the trip to the church.

Here's the cross at the front of the church. Love that carving.

Here are Vi, Blake, and Kiki outside before Communion. We were early since I lied to Warren about the time we had to be there. LOL

Now this is not a sign from St. Stephen that all is right with the world but rather glare on my camera lens despite my UV filter and hood. I had to laugh when reviewing my photos from that day because it almost looks like St. Stephen is glowing!

Here is Blake with my sister who is Blake's Godmother!




Here is Blake with all of us outside the church.

The next two pictures are from inside the church. No pictures or video are allowed during Mass but we were allowed to take pictures of the children entering the church and they gave us an opportunity at the end to take pictures of the group. I told Blake that I thought his marching partner was lovely. Blake said, "yes, I got to march with the prettiest girl in my class and she is nice too." LOL

Last, a picture of just Blake on his special day.

Well that is all for this morning. Just wanted to share our photos and our special day.

Great! Swine Flu is here.

As if we needed anything else. There is a probable case of swine flu at the other Jr. High in our district. That school is closed until Friday. The Jr. High that Kiki goes to is still open and so is Blake's school. Students at the infected school are not to congregate in public places. So what do they do? Go to the mall, dance lessons at the park district, etc. Grrr! The park district will not refuse the students from the infected school entry to the park district programs.

So the plan is to take Kiki to her dance classes tonight, and see if the two students in her dance class who attend Algonquin school show up. If they do, I'm handing the parents a copy of the press release from the district superintendent with the relevant language highlighted. If the parents don't take their kids home, I'm talking Kiki home. I just don't get why people are so irresponsible! I'm hoping I don't see these children at dance class.

So now I am unemployed

Yes, just a little scary but we are okay. So glad we live well below our means! I wound up getting a new job that has a nice salary hike. I've also been able to spend time with my children and husband so the way I see it, I won out in a way. My new job is business professional and is a corporation. No more tax seasons for me! My children and husband will definitely appreciate that!

Dh was feeling energetic and he turned all the soil in my garden. I then kidnapped Kiki and dragged her first to the dress shop to find a dress for tomorrow. Would you believe my 13-year old does not own even one dress? Well now she does. It's really cute on her. Kiki said she likes it because it's green and because it makes her look like she has boobs. lol Shocked the heck out of me!

So after dress shopping, we went to the gardening store and bought my garden plants: peppers and tomatoes. We also bought 2 flats of annual flowers. One each of pink snapdragons
and purple and white pansies. My pansies are like the photo but they have the edges lined in white.
We also got some bulbs for the front. The way I feel about gardening, is that it is okay for me to bend over and dig in the dirt in my private backyard. However, I don't want to have to fuss each year to make my front yard look nice. The neighbors don't need to see me bend over and dig in my garden. So the bulbs will mean that I don't have to replant my front yard each year but have it look nice year after year with pretty flowers. Right now I have hyacinths which are blooming in the front of my garden. They smell heavenly and are right outside my living room window. I've also got some lavendar growing in the back part of my garden by the window. The smell together is really nice! Also, some yellow tulips. I'm guessing everyone knows what tulips look like.

For the front parts of our garden, we got anemone bulbs. It's a mix and the flowers are white, red, purple and fushia. It's for the front part of the garden because they only grow about a foot high.

Then comes the middle part of the garden beds. I have some perenial plants in already but they are early to late spring flowers. So, to add something to the summer season I got liatris, which is a purple spiky looking thing.

We also got tigridia, which needs a photo because it is very unique looking flower.


Then for the back part of the garden in the front yard. The idea is to plant the tall plants in back, the mid height in the middle and the low in the front. Kind of like chorus where the tall ones have to stand in the back and the short, cute girls get to stand in the front. :rock :snicker (Yes, I was the gangly looking tall girl relegated to the back row!)

I got a mix of oriental lillies, which include the stargazer lillies that I like so much.


There are some white and light pink lillies that are also oriental lillies. Oriental lillies grow from a bulb and tend to not spread and go all over the place like daylillies often do. However, the bulbs often will grow little babies over many years and if you dig them up and separate the babies from the parent and replant every 5 years or so, you'll get more.

I also got some tiger lilies. They bloom earlier than the oriental lilies which should help to keep my garden interesting.

Both the lilies that I got will get to about 3.5 to 4 feet tall. That's why they go in back.

Then I got sone dinnerplate dahlias. I got lavendar ones and pink ones. They grow about 3.5 to 4 feet tall and the blooms are the size of a dinnerplate!


This next picture shows how big they get! Bigger than a child's face. Amazing, huh?

To finish off the plants in back, I got some red and yellow cannas. They get up to 5 feet tall. Here's a picture of some red ones.

I haven't planted my bulbs yet but we did everything in the back yard, except for some of my large round pots. I actually ran out of flowers for those so I'll go back and get a few more flats early next week. I'm planning to do the bulbs in the front yard Monday. Vi was great today helping me plant my veggies and annual flowers. :awe When we were all done, she cried and cried. Poor baby!

Now I am off to tailor Blake's pants for tomorrow. My boy is making his first holy communion!

First post of the year

Yes, I'm a bad blogger. *hides under desk* But we finished out the summer, had a fun time with autumn, and the holiday season. My husband is being moved to this crazy work schedule 2am to 10am. Crazy!

I'm been trying not to make a big deal out of my headaches but they are getting bad again which is pretty annoying. I spent nearly a week in the hospital with a migraine last fall which wasn't great but luckily, I found a daily medicine that seems to help. Except the past two days. It is such a relief when the pain is gone that I'm reminded what is important and try not to take the good things in life for granted. It is weird how I can still function when I get a migraine. A few years ago I would have called my more mild migraines debilitating but they are somewhat tolerable. Sometimes they get very bad and that sucks.

I try not to worry because the doc does an MRI every year to make sure nothing is seriously wrong because of these headaches. I worry that something will happen to me and then Warren will have to take care of everything himself.