Ups: My goodies are getting good reviews - the October Little Black Box has gone out and November's won't be far behind. Check it out! Hopefully my little business will start to take off here pretty soon.
Downs: Tonight is J's first real trick or treat experience. He's going with K, which makes logical sense, because my neighborhood isn't conducive to trick or treating. The houses are spread out, there are no sidewalks, it's not well lit. K lives in a nice tidy little subdivision with proper sidewalks and the houses close together. I like living in the country, but I know we can't go door to door out here. So, logically, it makes sense that he go with K and have fun trick or treating with his stepsiblings. Emotionally, though, I hate it. It's his first trick or treat, and I won't be there to see it. I'm miserable. I told K to take lots of pictures, and I'm going to go console myself with the biggest cup of chocolate frozen custard that I can buy.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Friday's Feast
Feast #166
Appetizer
Name a great website you would recommend to others.
Mine, of course! LOL If I'm getting away from shameless self-promotion, I'd recommend Organized Home or Recipezaar - Organized Home has a lot of good ideas about decluttering and keeping your household running smoothly, and Recipezaar is my go-to source for good recipes.
Soup
On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 as highest), how often do you dream at night?
I'm sure I dream every night, but I very seldom remember them. So if I'm rating how often I know that I've dreamed, I'd have to say a 2 on a 1-10 scale.
Salad
Did you have a pet as a child? If so, what kind and what was its name?
I had several pets. My first was a kitten named Melody. I then had another kitten named Alexander, a variety of goldfish, a crawfish named Clovis, a dog named Angel, a horse named Missy, and another dog named JB.
Main Course
If you had the chance to star in a commercial, what would you choose to advertise?
Coffee. I couldn't function without it, so I'd be happy to talk about it.
Dessert
What is your favorite kind of hard candy?
I'm really not a big fan of hard candy. I do like peppermints, though, and the occasional butterscotch.
Appetizer
Name a great website you would recommend to others.
Mine, of course! LOL If I'm getting away from shameless self-promotion, I'd recommend Organized Home or Recipezaar - Organized Home has a lot of good ideas about decluttering and keeping your household running smoothly, and Recipezaar is my go-to source for good recipes.
Soup
On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 as highest), how often do you dream at night?
I'm sure I dream every night, but I very seldom remember them. So if I'm rating how often I know that I've dreamed, I'd have to say a 2 on a 1-10 scale.
Salad
Did you have a pet as a child? If so, what kind and what was its name?
I had several pets. My first was a kitten named Melody. I then had another kitten named Alexander, a variety of goldfish, a crawfish named Clovis, a dog named Angel, a horse named Missy, and another dog named JB.
Main Course
If you had the chance to star in a commercial, what would you choose to advertise?
Coffee. I couldn't function without it, so I'd be happy to talk about it.
Dessert
What is your favorite kind of hard candy?
I'm really not a big fan of hard candy. I do like peppermints, though, and the occasional butterscotch.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Thursday Thirteen #11
Good grief, it's been a while since I've done this. Too much going on and the need to actually work have contributed, I guess. Here we go with the latest entry.
Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
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Most of these are sensible, practical household things, but not all of them. 1. Have the nasty carpet taken out and replace it with hardwood or laminate flooring. 2. Build a nice deck/patio area in the back yard. 3. Get a storage shed/workshop put up (probably one of the ones you can buy at Lowes or Home Depot, but big enough to have room for yard equipment and for him to do some woodworking). 4. Take a family vacation to Disney World! 5. Have a radiant heat barrier installed in the attic to help cut down on electric bills. 6. Redo the landscaping in the yard. What I have now is less than spectacular. 7. Fix all the little plumbing annoyances around the house (nothing that rises to the level of needing a repair right now, just stuff that's annoying). 8. Save more for retirement. 9. Set up an education fund for J. 10. Pay off debt faster. 11. Take a trip to England/Ireland/Scotland/Wales. 12. Get new window treatments throughout the house. 13. Corian countertops and sink for the kitchen. I'm sure there's more, but this list will take us a good little while to work through, so it's a good start! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. sassy lucy |
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
Saturday, October 13, 2007
First six weeks already?
So I'm a bit late posting about it, but I had an end-of-six-weeks conference with J's teacher on Tuesday. They don't give a formal report card at the end of the first six weeks for kindergarteners, since the whole school experience is one big learning curve for them, so we get that information in the conferences. My little boy is doing well in school! His teacher said he has lots of good skills already - he was able to identify 51 of 52 capital and lowercase letters by sight (the lowercase q tripped him up), he was able to identify 20 of 26 initial sounds, he was able to give words that started with 21 of the 26 letters, and he recognized 13 of the 34 words they're supposed to be able to recognize by sight by the end of the year. She said she got the impression that he could have given her the other words and he could have identified the other sounds, but he just didn't want to, and I said that was likely exactly right, that he's that way with me - when he's done, he's DONE, and there's just no getting anything else out of him. She also said he only counted from 1 to 10 out loud, and again, she had the impression he was just finished and there was more there had he chosen to share it. She's got him pegged on that, and he and I will work on the idea that when there's a test, you tell everything you know, not just until you're tired of doing it. He knew all his colors and shapes, and she said they'll start reading books next week! Yay!!! I'm hoping that once he realizes that he can pick up any book and read it, that the reading will really click for him. I know the skills are there, he just doesn't put it all together unless he feels like making the effort. She said he loves to talk, that when they're reading in the big circle, he's got a comment for everything - she loves the enthusiasm, but they've gotta stay on task, you know. (Same thing here with bedtime stories, a comment for every page.) She said he's a good kid, and he's doing well, so I'm tickled. And they're cutting out rest time starting next week (she said none of the kids ever sleep anyway), so perhaps that will make bedtime just a tiny bit easier.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
My Peculiar Aristocratic Title
A little bit of randomness for a Thursday night!
 | My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Her Most Serene Highness Lady Lisa the Extemporaneous of New Invention Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title |
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Time for a big update!
I haven't really updated in a while, and I DO have stuff going on besides Bright Blessings, so let me try to catch up a bit.
A couple of weekends ago, we (Brian, J and I) went to east Texas to spend the weekend with Brian's parents. J was mostly very well-behaved, although he had a fit when Brian and I tried to get him to ride on the golf cart (well, more like a ramped-up go cart for getting through woods and over bumpy places and stuff) - he didn't want to ride and didn't want me to go, but Brian's mom got him settled down and Brian and I took a ride around their property. But other than that and getting antsy in church on Sunday (and the pastor was long-winded, so I was a little antsy myself), he was fine. He's adopted Brian's parents - they're now Memaw and Pepaw. LOL We got to see the baby calves, and play with all sorts of equipment (backhoe, lawnmower, you name it, J wanted to pretend he was driving it), and go out to the lake in the big woods, and Brian and J played in the dirt with monster trucks. Julian was so tired Saturday night, I don't think he moved at all for several hours after he went to sleep!
We got home that Sunday around 6:30. It was only about a two-hour drive, but it felt like forever. Brian left to go back to Waco around 7:00, and just after he'd gone outside to get in his car, J started pointing toward the door and crying. We had to go outside to tell Brian goodbye again, and when Brian drove off, J just sobbed. He said, "Mama, I miss Brian!" and he just cried like his little heart would break. I wanted to cry right along with him, and Brian said he nearly lost it when he saw how sad J was. So, something just needs to work out. My family likes Brian, his family likes me, J adores him, it's been nearly two years - enough already, we need something to break our way. J told me last night before bed that he missed Brian and wished he could stay here all the time, and this morning he told me he wanted to go see Brian's family again.
I think some trips out to the country would be good for him - Brian has two nephews, and none of them are afraid to get out and get dirty and do guy stuff, and a little dirt is good for a growing boy! I figure it won't take too many trips before J not only will *want* to ride the buggy through the woods, but will want to drive it, and it won't be long after that before he wants to try to do wheelies on the 4-wheeler like Brian's younger nephew. I grew up in the country, so this is all like home to me. I can't tell you how many go-cart and 4-wheeler crashes my cousins and I had when we were growing up!
On the "ending up in the same place" front, Brian has a possible job lead. He'd applied (for the second time) for a position with the National Archives a couple of months ago. He'd interviewed back in late 2005, early 2006, and was one of eight selected for an interview out of over 400 applicants, but didn't get the job. The woman who was hired went back to the art museum world, and the position came open again. We'd both sort of given up on it this time, as it had been a while and he hadn't heard anything. He got home one night last week and found a letter - just one page, and he thought, well, crap, that's the end of that, it's a neg letter. But the letter said his application had been forwarded to the hiring manager for further review, and he'd be contacted if he was chosen for an interview! It's not a job offer yet, or even an interview yet. But it's a step further along in the process, and I can't imagine that he wouldn't be called for an interview this time, since he's already interviewed with them once. So if y'all have prayers, good thoughts, lit candles to spare, we'd appreciate them. We've been seeing each other for just about two years now, it's time for this long distance nonsense to be done with.
We've even talked about figuring what Brian would need to make in terms of a part-time job, should a solid permanent job offer not pan out by next May. Brian's lease is up in April, and he wouldn't want to bail on his current job during the school year (their busy season) without a solid offer, but he said that if his lease runs out and nothing has worked out, he'd find something part-time to do until something did, and just go on and move up here anyway. So, EEK and YAY all at the same time!!! At some point, there will be a wedding, then - I reckon it's just a question of when. (I'd really prefer the National Archives job to work out, though!)
More to come....
A couple of weekends ago, we (Brian, J and I) went to east Texas to spend the weekend with Brian's parents. J was mostly very well-behaved, although he had a fit when Brian and I tried to get him to ride on the golf cart (well, more like a ramped-up go cart for getting through woods and over bumpy places and stuff) - he didn't want to ride and didn't want me to go, but Brian's mom got him settled down and Brian and I took a ride around their property. But other than that and getting antsy in church on Sunday (and the pastor was long-winded, so I was a little antsy myself), he was fine. He's adopted Brian's parents - they're now Memaw and Pepaw. LOL We got to see the baby calves, and play with all sorts of equipment (backhoe, lawnmower, you name it, J wanted to pretend he was driving it), and go out to the lake in the big woods, and Brian and J played in the dirt with monster trucks. Julian was so tired Saturday night, I don't think he moved at all for several hours after he went to sleep!
We got home that Sunday around 6:30. It was only about a two-hour drive, but it felt like forever. Brian left to go back to Waco around 7:00, and just after he'd gone outside to get in his car, J started pointing toward the door and crying. We had to go outside to tell Brian goodbye again, and when Brian drove off, J just sobbed. He said, "Mama, I miss Brian!" and he just cried like his little heart would break. I wanted to cry right along with him, and Brian said he nearly lost it when he saw how sad J was. So, something just needs to work out. My family likes Brian, his family likes me, J adores him, it's been nearly two years - enough already, we need something to break our way. J told me last night before bed that he missed Brian and wished he could stay here all the time, and this morning he told me he wanted to go see Brian's family again.
I think some trips out to the country would be good for him - Brian has two nephews, and none of them are afraid to get out and get dirty and do guy stuff, and a little dirt is good for a growing boy! I figure it won't take too many trips before J not only will *want* to ride the buggy through the woods, but will want to drive it, and it won't be long after that before he wants to try to do wheelies on the 4-wheeler like Brian's younger nephew. I grew up in the country, so this is all like home to me. I can't tell you how many go-cart and 4-wheeler crashes my cousins and I had when we were growing up!
On the "ending up in the same place" front, Brian has a possible job lead. He'd applied (for the second time) for a position with the National Archives a couple of months ago. He'd interviewed back in late 2005, early 2006, and was one of eight selected for an interview out of over 400 applicants, but didn't get the job. The woman who was hired went back to the art museum world, and the position came open again. We'd both sort of given up on it this time, as it had been a while and he hadn't heard anything. He got home one night last week and found a letter - just one page, and he thought, well, crap, that's the end of that, it's a neg letter. But the letter said his application had been forwarded to the hiring manager for further review, and he'd be contacted if he was chosen for an interview! It's not a job offer yet, or even an interview yet. But it's a step further along in the process, and I can't imagine that he wouldn't be called for an interview this time, since he's already interviewed with them once. So if y'all have prayers, good thoughts, lit candles to spare, we'd appreciate them. We've been seeing each other for just about two years now, it's time for this long distance nonsense to be done with.
We've even talked about figuring what Brian would need to make in terms of a part-time job, should a solid permanent job offer not pan out by next May. Brian's lease is up in April, and he wouldn't want to bail on his current job during the school year (their busy season) without a solid offer, but he said that if his lease runs out and nothing has worked out, he'd find something part-time to do until something did, and just go on and move up here anyway. So, EEK and YAY all at the same time!!! At some point, there will be a wedding, then - I reckon it's just a question of when. (I'd really prefer the National Archives job to work out, though!)
More to come....
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
The Little Black Box
Lookit!!!! I'm on the list!!!!
http://thelittleblackboxes.com/etailers.html
The listing for Bright Blessings is a good way down the page, but it's there! I hope people who get boxes with my stuff in there like what I sent. Eeek!!!!
http://thelittleblackboxes.com/etailers.html
The listing for Bright Blessings is a good way down the page, but it's there! I hope people who get boxes with my stuff in there like what I sent. Eeek!!!!
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