012 ~ CEC night

Chuck E Cheese night!


It's been planned for some time now - a treat for my niece, Dany.  We didn't have a big group for various reasons but it was still nice.  The kids had lots of fun and gathered lots of tickets (885)! That's almost 3 tickets per token. :)


Pizza, of course, was the favorite for the kids. Italian breadsticks went fast too.  But I stuck with salad for my main course, indulging in a just a small slice of pizza.  


Trying to keep two very over-tired kids from falling asleep on the long drive home was another amusing aspect of the evening.  Someday we'll tell tall tales of the night we started the "Count the Roadkill" game that resulted in "sightings" of such exotic roadkill as elephants and black bears, amidst the often repeated "sightings" of rabbits, possums, birds, pigs, horses, cows, dogs, cats, skunks, and the occasional deer!  I believe the kids "counted" close to 100 assorted roadkill victims in the 36 miles of interstate.  I'm sure the DNR would be stunned to know this!  LOL

011 ~ Theatre

Last night I went to see one of my daughters.  This one is a theatre major at UW-L. She is (imho) very talented; as an actress, as a director, as a stage manager, as a designer, as a musician, as an artist... let's just say that anything of an artistic nature will be something she can do easily and most of the time exceedingly well.


Today's pic is the set of last night's show taken just prior to the show starting:

I give you: "Like Mother, Like ..."

010 ~ What's Ahead

Reminders of what's to come...

This morning I woke to 22 degrees!  The coldest yet this season!  
Of course, being in Wisconsin, we know 22 is nothing when it comes to winter temps!  The time is coming when 22 will seem like a heat wave.  But not this morning!
Today, it is a reminder of what's to come, what's ahead in the coming weeks and months. 
This pic is from a few years ago, but clearly shows well over a foot of snow on the ground - probably from early 2007 or 2008.  I'm trying to recall when we added a window unit a/c to that last window - summer of 07 or 08 is the closest I'm getting. LOL


This is our typical winter!  Cold sets in by end of October... getting colder as the weeks pass.  By the end of December we're happy if we stay above zero for a little each day.  It's unusual to not have snow on the ground by then.  Maybe it's only a few inches but it's usually there, and there to stay.  As the new year begins the cold turns to subzero and the snow just keeps on building higher.  Nobody expects to see anything different until late March or early April.


Hmmm...


What's ahead?


Do I really want to go live out in the country, in a beautiful farmhouse, during this time of year when my one vehicle isn't so reliable?


Where will my Melaleuca business be in six months time?  Grown enough to replace all the household income lost in the last 3 months? enough to do away with the disability check? enough to afford us a newer vehicle? a better home?


Will my youngest girls have their own incomes? be able to afford their full-time ministry?


Only time will tell. :)

009 ~ Frustration & Fun

Frustration was the word of the day Thursday!


Internet, phone & cable were on when we woke up.  Having gone out a little before midnight Wednesday night we all went to bed hoping it would all be working fine in the morning.  And it was, at first.  Every so often pages would fail to load but then 10-15 minutes later would load up fine.  Phone calls would get intermittent silence, odd interruptions of static, or just be completely dropped.  One phone call I had took us three times of calling each other back to completely say all we needed to discuss!  Very frustrating!


It was also the first day that I can say I was up and doing more normal things since I got sick back on the 11th, and especially so since the 15th when my illness took a bad turn for the worse.  I found myself tiring very quickly even though I did not feel sick (except for the coughing).  Also very frustrating!


So much to do - and so much keeping me from doing it!


When such days happen, and they will from time to time, I like to do something to get my mind off the frustration and not be so stressed from it.


The result is a bonus of two pics for today's blog (yesterday's really)!

In pic one we have four players in a game of frisbee.  Taken at the end of summer picnic.  It was a small picnic, somewhat impromptu, but those that came had lots of fun!

In pic two we have four more players. What we only catch a glimpse of here is the ninth player, who was in the middle at this time - we see only a bit of an arm at the far right of this pic.
The frisbee game began with 3 kids throwing the frisbee over the kid in the middle.  Gradually more people took an interest and we ended up with a rough circle of eight, with a ninth in the middle.  If the one in the middle could catch the frisbee then whoever had thrown it had to switch places with them and they became the one in the middle.
It was hilarious fun!  I took over 300 pictures of the action.  And we all have some really great shots showing people jumping for the frisbee, running or tumbling into each other as two or more tried to get it at the same time, or just plain laughing and having fun with the game!


It's a nice way to forget the frustrations of the day!

008 ~ Not My Fault!

I'm going to have to come up with a plan for dealing with inclement weather and downed internet connections!

Today's pic shows the choppy waters of Lake Tomah from a month ago.  The winds from the Oct 26th and 27th make this look tame!
I wish I could have taken some pics of that, but illness kept me inside so no new pics of any kind right now.


All over the news I've seen videos of what this massive storm system has done.  Huge waves in the Great Lakes make their shores look like ocean beaches in a surfing championship.  Some reports said waves on Lake Michigan were 22-24 feet high!


This system beats out the worst of the worst storms of the past, especially since no tropical system was involved in it's formation.  Very rare!  


Just like it's rare to have so much prolonged issues with internet connectivity.  Charter's been very good about getting things up and running as quick as possible.  And you would think that if we were going to lose service it would be during the worst of the storm ~ but this came near the end, as the winds were dying down some.  Not sure what exactly went out, but around 11ish on Wednesday night (when I was reviewing pics for this blog) internet connections started "fritzing" (going off, then on, then off, etc) and after about 30 minutes or so of that we lost it all!  Not just internet, but cable tv, and our phone!  Perhaps I should consider acquiring their "backup" plan for phone service so I'll at least be able to make emergency phone calls during times like this.

007 ~ Surprise!

That moment of surprise!


This is my niece Dany. Her mom surprised her with a new (bigger) bicycle back in September.  Her friend, Marissa (in background) helped in the surprise.


For Dany it was totally unexpected.


For me today, organizing pics from recent shoots was a great way to keep my mind off all the stuff blowing around outside! With winds at 30+mph and gusting up to 60mph all sorts of things are surprising people as they fly past!  Of the many pics reviewed today I particularly like this one.

006 ~ PINK Sky At Morning

'Red sky at night,
Sailor's delight.
Red sky at morning,
Sailor take warning!'


That is the first thing I thought of when I went outside this morning about 7:20a.m.!
I called a friend of mine to take some pics because I was without my camera at the time and wasn't sure I'd be back home before this eerie pinkish gray sky faded away.
Happily, she indulged me... and she went outside and took ten pics right away!
So credit for today's pic goes to my best, best friend, Lori of Lori Lokken Photography and she has a blog about her photography business as well.
Thank you Lori, for taking such great pics!


The sky lost it's eerie pink coloring by the time I returned home. :(  It continued to change all day however: pink turned to gray, which later turned to blue, and still later back to various shades of gray.  The clouds came and went and came back.  We do have storms moving closer from the west and the system is set to bring us really strong winds for a few days!

005 - Late Again!

I really hope to do better when I'm finally well!  This "cold / influenza / pneumonia / sinus infection / ear infection / who-cares-what-it's-called" that I've been ill with for 2 whole weeks now is messing up a lot of things for me... and my family & friends!  Rarely have I been this sick!


Of course, it might help recovery if I could just have everything and everyone stop.  You heard me!  All y'all need to stop what y'all are doing so nothing happens where I'm needed.  Then I'd make a complete and rapid recovery and then life can go on. ;-)


Today's pic is here only because I love it so much - one of my favorite flowers in one of my favorite colors for this flower.  

004 ~ Life Lesson #1

Four days into this 365 blog and already I've "missed" a day! :(


One thing that's constant in my life is that there is always so much to do!  Years ago someone actually took note of all I did in a typical day and all I needed to do and then tallied up how long it usually takes for such tasks.  The results?  All that I do - if I didn't multi-task or rush through it - would take me some 36 hours, and that did not include any sleep!  (just to give you an idea of how busy I am)


Even now, my life stays just as busy, only in different ways.  


These days I'm challenged by many "disabilities" that make some tasks take longer, make some need to be delegated more, and make for many unique solutions.  But this week I'm even more challenged by illness. :(  I got sick (like a semi-truck hit me - and I could tell you the exact moment, but my phone had died a short time before so I can't say the exact time) :-p on Monday, over a week ago.  At first it was like just a bad cold or something, but on Friday (a week from yesterday) instead of continuing to improve as I was, I suddenly got worse.  That night fevers went up and down, as high as 105, and I was seriously contemplating heading to the ER, but waited.  Come Monday I was really, really sick - but I still had so many important things to do.  I finally went into my doctor's office on Tuesday morning.  I left with 3 new prescriptions to treat a sinus infection, an ear infection, and pneumonia!  That afternoon the doc calls me to say that after reading the x-ray the radiologist, and her, are concerned this level/type of pneumonia usually require a stay in the hospital to recover. That will just not do for me - a stay in the hospital right now would make it so much harder for me to do all I need to do!


Today's photo is to remind me why I should take care of me first:

Apologies for the glares and the slight bend in the image.
This takes me back to when I was first learning that lesson!  
Newborn triplets will take a lot out of you... but if you put nothing back (by caring for yourself) you'll soon not be able to care for them either!
They are 'grown' (over 18) now but as stated above my life is still crazy busy and all things considered I think I need to really remember this lesson now!

003 ~ Friday, Oct. 22, 2010 - LATE!

Friday's photo is a day late because I spent nearly all my free time on Friday trying to find out who services THIS LP TANK!


There's no name on it that we can find.  The colors don't match any of the known providers in the area.  And none of the local providers have put any LP into this tank in over a year!


Why am I doing this?  Why did it take up so much of my time Friday?


All this week, even though I have also been very ill, I've been making phone calls to determine the cost of various utilities for a farm house we are looking at renting soon.  


This house first came to our attention about a year ago but things didn't work out then for us to get it.  Since then, Sis & Dany have moved out of our home and into a place of their own.  We're now down to five here (it's been as high as nine occupants).  Now, through an odd turn of events, it's back in the limelight and we are seriously considering moving into it by December!

002 ~ Abstract Music

Today's photo comes from my room.  It's a piece of artwork from my (very talented even if I do say so myself) daughter's many pieces left behind when she left home for college four years ago.

I intend to retake this photo someday as all the ones taken so far seem to miss a part of it on one side or another. :(


But I love this piece!


It was something she did during her senior year in high school ~ that was a very busy year for her ~ but it never was completely finished.  I don't remember why.  When you look closely you can tell what's not yet done but you're left wondering just how would it be done?  Which color would it be given?  Would some texture be added into it?  Or maybe it would be given a different perspective?


While those answers would be nice I like to look at what is there already.  The huge treble clef encompasses most of the piece in size but is tipped over far to the right as tho the top has fallen well below middle C.  The staff winding thru it: is it going up or coming down?  The flat (unseen is this photo) sits up in the far right corner in a black hole.  Flags from a hidden note peer thru the right side, waving toward the head of some unseen stringed instrument, perhaps a violin. In the bottom left corner (missing from this photo) are a quarter-rounded octave of piano keys with a twisting unpainted path leading from them up to the small flat in the black hole.


There are many ways to interpret this piece.  In my simplest form I'd see the many roads one takes in life, similar directions but clearly different paths to get there. Each full of various things to slow us down, or make us race ahead; things to stop us for a spell (to recover or to just smell the roses), or things to overcome in some way if we wish to move ahead.  Music is part of everyone's life in one way or another.  For some it is their life ~ everything is or become musical.  For others it's just a small piece, something to stop and pay attention to now and then.


I look at this abstract piece every night before going to sleep.  It's helps me to focus on the happier things going on in my life.  It makes me think of the artist, and then of each of her siblings. The ever expanding circle of people in my life (past & present) all come to mind in my prayers.  Amazing that so much can be found in this 20x30 unfinished painting!  Like this particular piece of art, life is never really complete, there is always more to come.  

001 ~ Day Is Dunn

Something just reminded me... with less than 10 minutes left of the day... that I wanted to begin a 365 blog today!

And so it begins with