Black Friday

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081128/ap_on_re_us/wal_mart_death

You know something...people, get some sense.

Even without the tragedy of a death, if you knock down the doors of a store and storm the place, they're going to close the store and make everyone leave.

Duh.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Emma is wrapping Christmas presents, Anna is sitting under Oscar, and I'm thinking of cleaning my house. HAHAHA....a thanksgiving joke for you there. ; )

I've been making orange juice...DH went to the food pantry to help yesterday and they had a box of oranges in which some were turning green and they were going to throw them out, so DH brought them home and I picked out the good ones and juiced them...SO good!

I went to the library yesterday, too, and got a box of books for free! They have been discarding, going through the juvenile section, and yesterday they had lots of fiction...they've been having out-dated science books, but yesterday they had nice things like books by Carolyn Haywood...

http://www.alibris.com/search/books/author/Haywood,%20Carolyn

We already have lots of her books, so it was nice to find some we didn't have...and for free. ; ) Free is always nice. : )

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm up Too Late!!!

It's like, 4:00 in the morning, and I'm still awake, puttering around on the computer. Shame on me! : P I might as well stay up all night now. ; )

It's snowing a little...we went for a walk in it, and it was simply lovely. : )

Today the girls and I cleaned out their playhouse/storage building, and then they played in it. It was such a mess when we started you couldn't even get through the door, but it only took about three hours to finish it. They actually got rid of some toys! I was amazed...usually they won't part with anything, but this time they filled three boxes for the thrift store! (I won't mention the three bags of trash we also got out of there.) ; )

In the evening we went to a funeral...well, we went and signed the book and Daddy talked to the husband of the woman who died. The funeral home was SO full...it always amazes me how many people come out of the woodwork for a funeral. I saw people I haven't seen in almost 20 years! I wouldn't have recognized them, either, but they were talking and I listened in. lol

I guess I *could* blog about all the really cool things my girls have been up to.....but it's 4 a.m. and I can't think of anything. ; ) They've watched Jurassic Park and The Lost World several times this week...watched Daddy play an X-Men game...oddly enough, nothing else comes to mind. They *must* be doing *something*...I just have no idea what. ; )

Wednesday we went to Mom's to help clean, since she's been so busy lately. The girls worked very hard helping. Emma folded laundry and cleaned the basement, and Anna cleaned the bathrooms, swept the floors, straightened book shelves and cleaned mirrors. I got to pick up broken glass outside, and (of course) stabbed myself. : P

My Meez

I *love* my Meez! I don't know why, but they move better on the Meez page, and she turns around and looks all around and bites her fingernails, while consulting her map.

She's lost in a painting! I think it's so cute. : )

Interersting Happenings This Week

Emma and I went out Tuesday, for a little *girl* time, shopping along with running a couple errands. She had her birthday money to spend, so we went to the mall. I suggested a clothing store (kinda wishing she would see some "cute" clothes and want to buy them), so we headed up to it. There was a kiosk in the middle of the aisle, and a tall...TALL...fellow came out and asked if we had natural fingernails. I said yes, so he drew me over to the kiosk and went into his spiel about fingernail ridges. Then he poked a buffer at me. I jerked back, and he said "It's just a buffer, it won't hurt." and poked it at me again. (Now to get the whole picture, you have to realize I'm wearing a floor-length black cape.) I gathered up my cape, swooped away (as Emma described it) and said over my shoulder, "But it might have FUNGUS!". LOL Because of my hearing problems, I'm fairly sure I said it louder than I meant to, and after the swooping off I looked back to see Emma still standing there with her mouth open. When she finally caught up to me, she was saying, "MOM, you EMBARASSED ME!" AND she's described my "swooping" to anyone who would listen, going as far as to put it on her myspace page..."Emma is embarassed because my mom swooped in the mall today." ROFLOL!!!

Yesterday was Daddy's day for interesting happenings. You'd have to know him to understand it, but he gets into the strangest things. (For example, last summer we went to an art show, I went to the restroom afterwards, and when I came out he was in the theatre's projection room helping work on the sound.) Anyway, last night he was looking for a CD he bought, and couldn't find it, so he went back to the store to see if he'd left it there. (He hadn't...Anna carried it out, and it was beside her seat in the van.) He was driving through town, and happened to see a fellow he went to school with, who he was wondering about the other day, so he stopped to talk, and lo and behold...the guy is in town playing the lead in a movie they're filming here! (To *really* get what this means to Daddy you must realize it's his dream to get all into movie-making thingeys) He helped for a while...stopping traffic so the actors could run across the street...and talked for a while, then when he came home, he was still so buzzed about it, he took the girls back to watch. So he and they got to watch a movie being made! (The girls were thrilled...Anna keeps saying, "I got to shake hands with an ACTOR!"

Trying a New Sort (for me) of Meme

Bold the things you’ve done and will admit to:
(Bold isn't looking bold, so I'm itallicacizing.) (Is that a word? If it is, I'm sure I didn't spell it right.)


1. Started your own blog

2. Slept under the stars

3. Played in a band

4. Visited Hawaii

5. Watched a meteor shower

6. Given more than you can afford to charity

7. Been to Disneyland/world

8. Climbed a mountain

9. Held a praying mantis (and got pinched by it)


10. Sang a solo

11. Bungee jumped

12. Visited Paris

13. Watched a lightning storm at sea

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch (WAY back when I was young and had time)

15. Adopted a child

16. Had food poisoning

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty

18. Grown your own vegetables

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France

20. Slept on an overnight train

21. Had a pillow fight

22. Hitch hiked

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill

24. Built a snow fort

25. Held a lamb

26. Gone skinny dipping

27. Run a Marathon

28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice

29. Seen a total eclipse

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset

31. Hit a home run (not hard when you're playing with 8 & 9 year olds.)

32. Been on a cruise

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors (how far back ancestors? My ancestors have been in the area I live in for over 200 years...before that, though...)

35. Seen an Amish community

36. Taught yourself a new language

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person

39. Gone rock climbing (but not with all the equiptment)

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David

41. Sung karaoke

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt

43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant (probably was more Daddy's idea than mine, actually)

44. Visited Africa

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

46. Been transported in an ambulance

47. Had your portrait painted (not very well, by Daddy)

48. Gone deep sea fishing

49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person

50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling

52. Kissed in the rain

53. Played in the mud

54. Gone to a drive-in theater (or was it a drive-in resturant? I was *very* young, whatever it was...)

55. Been in a movie

56. Visited the Great Wall of China

57. Started a business

58. Taken a martial arts class

59. Visited Russia

60. Served at a soup kitchen

61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies

62. Gone whale watching

63. Gotten flowers for no reason

64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma

65. Gone sky diving

66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp

67. Bounced a check (oops)

68. Flown in a helicopter

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy?

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial

71. Eaten Caviar

72. Pieced a quilt

73. Stood in Times Square

74. Toured the Everglades

75. Been fired from a job (kind of a "we'll call if we need you"...it was a temp job, anyway.)

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London

77. Broken a bone

78. Been on a speeding motorcycle

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person

80. Published a book

81. Visited the Vatican

82. Bought a brand new car

83. Walked in Jerusalem

84. Had your picture in the newspaper (thankfully, hidden behind my kids, but you could still see my arm and hair. lol)

85. Read the entire Bible


86. Visited the White House

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating

88. Had chickenpox

89. Saved someone’s life (if we count suggesting that Daddy try to talk William into going to the *clinic* instead of the hospital, and William went, and probably wouldn't have lasted the night if he hadn't...)

90. Sat on a jury

91. Met someone famous. (I know a woman who is semi-famous now, who wasn't when I was a kid and came and told stories at the library.)

92. Joined a book club

93. Lost a loved one

94. Had a baby

95. Seen the Alamo in person

96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake

97. Been involved in a law suit (semi involved...Daddy hit a car, they sued, then didn't show up)

98. Owned a cell phone

99. Been stung by a bee

Emma's 13th Birthday

This is the day of the thirteenth birthday of EMMA! This is the view from the spot Emma chose to spend the day of the thirteenth birthday.

This is the sister, building a lean-to, in sight of the view, from the spot Emma chose to spend the day of the thirteenth birthday.

This is the Emma, with the crystal she found, beside the sister, building the lean-to, in sight of the view from the spot Emma chose to spend the day of her thirteenth birthday.

This is the birthday girl, searching for crystals......

This is the mamma, too lazy to re-type all that over again. Finish it in your mind, as you go. : )

She had a lovely birthday. It was warm and sunny...until afternoon when clouds blew in, but it didn't rain until we were home. She wanted to go crystal hunting, so we did that in the morning, went out for pizza for lunch, then came home to a cherry cheesecake...and presents, pictures of which I'm not posting, because my house is too messy to show online. ; )

Tomorrow is her birthday party...I need to go frost the cake....I'm decorating it with these....

http://jas.familyfun.go.com/recipefinder/display?id=50565