Last Day of February, Yea!

Went to a B & B Saturday, Cobblestone Manor in Auburn Hills. Just to get away, some R & R. It was beautiful. They have a wedding chapel and gardens apparently. Would like to go back for a stay in the spring. Ate dinner at Obrien's Seafood, it was nice. Went back to the room to just chill out in front of the fireplace. Breakfast was pretty good. Nothing out of this world. Took my dad out to lunch at Arby's. Sure didn't want to eat. Made home-made pizza for dinner. Out of this world. Put some roasted garlic on it.

Bye Bye February!

Just Wanna Curl Up on the Couch With a Book

It's blowing snow and frigid. Wind chill no higher than 9 degrees today. Would rather be in FL even if it's only in the 50's. I do not even want to go out today. But alas I must pick up my kindergarten charge and also need to buy salad for tonite's card party. Aw shucks. At least I didn't have to go out with the crews this morning. Kinda felt sorry for them as they were packing up and cleaning the snow off the vehicles.
Yesterday I went to the library and picked up the book my sister is reading; "Food Matters" by Mark Bittman. While there I picked up a flyer for book sale they are having on March 6. Can't wait. Also, a flyer for Storytimes with Miss Carol. Syd and I are going to check that out next Wednesday. Also, fortified the babysitting stock with Dragon Tales Cd, and 2 videos, and 3 books. Yesterday we took Bay to the vet. He's a whopping 68 pounds. No more people food!

February is Almost Over

Hooray! Looking forward to:
milder temps. (not yet, and big snow storm on the way again.)
My sister coming home from Fla.
The dinner theatre in March.
Maybe being able to walk outside.
Maybe taking a weekend vaca.

Any Number Can Die

Here is the information about the play. March 20, 6:00 p.m. or March 21, 3:00 p.m. Dinner Theatre. $15 Call the number to order tickets or mail me a check.

SNOW Day

4 to 6 inches forecast. All the kiddies are happy and sleeping. I'll still be doing the same ole stuff. Monday is laundry day. Still getting the stuff together for the tax man. Appointment is Wednesday. I'll be on the puter most of the day. Enjoy your day for those of you who got to sleep in!

Another Blue Skies & Suneshiney Kind of Day

Got up early to set up the day and see the "boys" off. Took Niki to her ACT practice test location. Went to the Hollywood diner for an egg white & veg omelette. Stopped at Wallyworld to pick up some things. Heard an advert. on the radio for the Flint Farmer's market, so we headed back downtown. Bought 1 piece of baklava & split it. Got some baby cukes to make cuke Thai salad for dinner tonite. Got a cute gift for someones birthday that is coming up. Decided to make pizza for lunch so went back down Corunna Rd. to VG's. Picked up some ingredients for the pizza. Came home made some awesome pizza. Thanks to Von R.K. in Florida we now know how to make REAL pizza. Sarah worked on ACT ii with me. I know 1/2 of Act ii, need to get going; need to know the whole act by Monday. Called "Your IT", they are getting some refurb laptops in on Monday. $289 and with Win XP: just what we need. So, the old laptop will be handed down to me. Yea!! Now I am watching "Dances with Wolves" and waiting for the boys to get back. Then I'm going to take a bath, work on the play some more and then make Pad Thai for dinner.

Plenty of Sunshine

That's what the weather channel said. Yeah, plenty of sunshine and plenty of cold. ha ha I really do appreciate these last 2 days of SUN. Makes everything more bearable. Even the fact that I had to come back from Florida. I've just been getting around and trying to get things accomplished. Yesterday before play practice I even went over to the middle school and walked a mile and 1/2. Boy my legs were really aching last nite. Got to get back into the swing of things there. My goal is to walk the 5k in the Crim this year.
The play is coming along fine. Next week we are supposed to be "off book," which means that we should know our parts. Hmmm. We'll see. I have all weekend to work on that.
Last nite I made an awesome black bean soup. It's so good if you put a little avocado in it. Also, I must confess I am behind on the book study I am doing. I haven't even started yet and it's already week 2. Lot's of catching up to do.

Back to the Daily...

Phooey! Feel like I have jet lag. I guess it's just vaca lag. My head hurts from the weather change, and I'm tired. Hard to get back into the swing of things. Out of the routine, I guess. Tried to do a little laundry, billing, bill paying, shopping, babysitting. A mostly productive day, I guess. Didn't feel like cooking so Sarah took me out to dinner. Was craving the salad bar from Ruby Tuesday. It was scrump-dilly-icious. Stopped at Macy's for a bit, just in time for the pre-order for the spring give away. Bought a bar of facial soap, the lady gave me a sample of facial cleanser for my travel bag. I pre-ordered the facial cleanser and a lightly tinted facial sunscreen. Can't wait til it comes in. March 22. The weather is cold and damp. I need to try on all my new BEALL's clothes to cheer myself up. :)

Back to Cold & Snow

Snow and cold. It was snowing as the plane descended back into Flint Bishop Airport. Mmm. Yesterday was the warmest, nicest day in FL. It must have been almost 70. I sat out in a lounger and read. Then we picked some oranges and sqooze them and drank some fresh juice. Lunch at Mexacali. Of course, the stubborn one (me) insisted on siting out on the deck. It was rather chilly because the wind had switched over to a more northerly direction. Back to the house for more sitting in the sun until the clouds appeared and wouldn't leave. About 3:30 I had to go in the house. Left for the airport bout 4:30. Plane departed on time, 6:30 p.m. Made our 30 minute connection in Atlanta with 10 minutes to spare. Just trying to reorganize at home today.

Sand, Sea and Sky

It warmed up quite nicely so we decided to head down to the beach. We went to the public beach. There was a beautiful blue sky and the ocean almost looked inviting; almost. I sat down on the sand, was even able to take off my sweatshirt and just soak up the rays. The sand was quite chilly. :) Really, it just felt wonderful~ the soaking in of vitamin D. I think we're taking a real vacation day tomorrow. Turn the work phone OFF!

Another Day in Paradise

Friday dawned cold and cloudy. A trip to CEC (oh sorry, we've been spelling everything because of the little ears!) Chuck E. Cheese was in order. Tokens were flying out of the little cups. An hour later after choosing prizes we were out the door. Opps, now it's pouring rain. Lunch at Chick~Fil~A at the mall. Pretty good nuggets, sandwiches and wraps. The fresh lemonade was awesome, and even a diet variety. Later in the afternoon a Bealls extravaganza was in order. Bathing suit-o-rama. They have rows and rows of amazing suits. AND the clothes are so cute~Florida style. We each picked out a suit and I even got an extra set of bottoms to replace the ones that stretched out from the chlorine in the gym pool.
After much laughter and picking on me about dinner choices, we ended up at Applebee's because we all had an Applebee's gift card. Several hours later, 2 sleepy-headed girls went off to la-la land. The grown-up tried to stay up and watch the Olympics. One never made it at all, one made it to Albania, 2 made it to China. Never even made it to the torch. It's a mere 44 this morning with a high forecast of 54. Oh well. Tomorrow will be better and we are going to the beach no matter what. The natives may not be going with. LOL
I heard that yesterday it snowed in 49 states. Hawaii was the only state without SNOW!

Blue Skies, Sunshine and Dolphins

Yesterday dawned sunny and a bit crisp. Temp only in the 40's at rising time. It did warm up a bit so we went down to the beach area. We checked out some campgrounds for possible future trips. Then we did a little shopping. I had to buy a sweatshirt because it was so chilly. Then we drove to the north side of the island to check out a few more shops that someone told us about. We decided to have lunch at the City Pier. It's a long pier out into the bay and a little shack of a restaurant at the end. There were people fishing of the dock. I had a shrimp po'boy and Sarah had a grouper sandwich; both were very good. As we were leaving some people were talking and pointing out to sea. We turned to see what the fuss was and saw 2 fins slicing through the water. They were pretty close. It was an awesome sight.
I made homemade spaghetti sauce and we had pasta, salad and garlic bread for dinner. Cooking on vacation? Yes, it's relaxing to me. Cheaper than eating out too. Today is going to be a hang out day. It's suppsed to rain. There is talk of a trip to CEC. (Chuckie Cheese) I am learning to spell and talk in code around the little ears. A 2 yr old and 4 yr old.

5:30 AM Flight and 10 Inches of Snow

Left for the airport at 4:00 a.m. sigh. The roads were snow covered and icy. Checked the computer before we left, and the flight status showed "on time." We had already checked in online so all we had to do was check in one bag. Headed upstairs and over to the gate. We actually boarded early. Snowflakes were flying madly outside the window. At 5:30 the pilot said they were going to de-ice the plane and that the process would take several minutes. It actually took about 30 minutes as they made 2 separate passes with the de-icing machine. We proceed a bit down the runway after the de-icing and then came to a halt. The pilot came over the loudspeaker and stated that he was going to come in to the cabin and do a visual inspection of the wings. He came out of the cockpit with a large flashlight and proceeded to lean over people and flash the light out the windows to inspect the wings. I guess he approved because he went back in to the cockpit and we took off. It was a little nerve wracking!
The flight went without a hitch and we landed in Sarasota 15 minutes early. It was windy and a brisk 54 degrees. Better than a foot of snow and 25 degrees with 30 mile/hour winds any day of the week. Had lunch Chipolte's, a ff mexican place. Dinner at Wing House on 41. The high reached 57. Tomorrow is supposed to be 63. Yipee. A trip to Ana Maria Island might be in store.

Snow Snow Go Away

It was snowing quite heavily at 10 this morning. Since about noon it has slowed down, but has been steadily snowing only lightly. The weather peeps say it will snow all night and be quite windy. Whew. Hope we get to leave. It might be touch and go. The latest dude just said it will snow until 7 tomorrow morning. Hmmmm. Supposed to leave at 5:30 a.m. Probably won't sleep a wink tonight. Oh well, have to get up about 3ish any way. Need to finish packing. House is clean, laundry is done. Banking, bills etc... check. Just waiting to GO!

No Snow Please

Biggest storm of the season, right? NO! We are supposed to be flying out 5:30 a.m. Wednesday morning. Running around like a maniac trying to get ready. Called Airtran today to try and switch the departure to Tuesday morning. It would cost $500. No way. So we're stuck with Wed. Hope the snow either gets done early or misses us entirely. What are the chances??

Sunday, Sunday

Had a nice visit with my dad. He wanted to go to Arby's so that is where we went. He was in a good mood and really enjoyed getting out. He wanted to go to the cemetery so we stopped by there for a few minutes. Did a short job in Novi which I skipped out on because I was on the phone with my sistopher the whole time. Went to Kroger's to get some food for the next few days before we leave. BIG MISTAKE! Remember I said no more shopping on Sunday? AND it is Superbowl Sunday. Yikes. It wasn't really all that bad though. Came home and picked up my computer from Tom, thank you for fixing my sick computer. It had the flu. Walking back up the driveway when we drew near unto the van there was a huge flutter of wings. A humongous hawk flew up from the plow. I think it's one that's been hanging around in the back yard. It kind of frightened us for a moment. Anyway, welcome home Renee.
Going to make homemade potato skins for the Superbowl. That way you can take lots of the potato out. Otherwise, just trying to tie up the loose ends before leaving early Wednesday morning for FLORIDA!

Finally, A Bad Week is Almost Over

What can go wrong, will go wrong. The garage door broke. $225 to fix that. My computer caught the flu. It's very under the weather. I wanted to buy a new camera. Had 3 different ones home. Finally settled on a Cannon Powershot. Best Buy charged $75 "restocking" fee to return the one before that. Lame. The policy is on the back of the receipt. Duh, who looks at the back of the receipt? Maybe they should tell you that when they say, "oh if you're not happy you have 30 days to return the camera. URgh! On top of all that, people are just bugging me. Yar! Blah, blah, blah okay enough complaining.
Got a new book tonight. Biggest Loser' Simple Swaps. Lots of stories and recipes. Looks really good. Going to call it a night. G'nite. zzz