skipped notes

Many things have happened in the last whiles. Not the least has been that our computer has been in a state of hiccups. It worked, but only if the phone was on. Very odd and the kindly man who visited us removed a phone jack splicer and now it is faster than ever!

One of the most amusing things that I have had happen, has to do with whales. My Sunday school class is made up of boys grades 3-5. I have a running total of 1-7 depending on the day and the weather. This particular Sunday we had two. We talked about the story of Jonah and discussed how whiny he was (really, he was!) and then made itsy bitsy Jonah's from pipe cleaners and whales from empty milk jugs. As the boys wanted to make boats and I had extra stuff, they did. Using the whales and pipe cleaner dudes, you are supposed to toss the dude in the air and catch it in the whale mouth. Simple, huh? So, I sent the boys out into the sanctuary to play while I tidied up the room. (my room opens out into the sanctuary and is VERY cold most of the time). After I finished my chores, I walked into the sanctuary, where the sounds had changed from really noisy to not so noisy, and almost froze in shock! I had forgotten there were two baptisms that morning, which meant the baptismal was full of water.

Now, if YOU were a boy and had a little guy who floated, boats, and whales, and water...what would YOU do????

Exactly. They had pushed aside the curtain hiding the baptismal and were having a great time! I suggested they keep quiet, roll up their sleeves, and admonished them not to fall in and proceeded to watch them slosh Jonah from the tipsy boats and then scoop him up with the big mouthed whales. I also was thankful that no more...umm....proper member came up during the play to become distressed with turning the baptismal into a tub!!!!


Here, for your edification is a whale I put together from the leftover bits. I got the directions online and it was very simple! Jonah was more difficult. He is just a couple bits of pipe cleaner twisted together and clothed in a bit of cloth. I had more red than other colors, so our Jonah's are a bit sunburned.

Books being read: Not the Brian Jacques one pictured, although it is VERY good. I picked up some more Tamora Pierce again and one written by an 88 year old lady that is the size of the Portland Yellow pages. It is about a women's club...have not gotten very far in it yet and can see where it should go, but as it has about 3 and 1/2 inches of closely type written pages left, I am not sure how convoluted the trails to those ends will be!!!

AR notes

OK, here is yet another Henry. Personally, I think it should be black instead of silver, but that is the way it came. It comes in this small box that Jon is holding...really! And see what was in it? Looks kinda like it needs a lampshade, huh?

And when you open the stock up you find:

Lots of parts, this last item is the rear sight.

Here it is all empty. Now it can float! But it is NOT a certified flotation device. I could not find any mention of such thing in the manual.

Once it gets put together in the proper order you have a
U.S. Survival Rifle, perfect for Bear Grylls..if he ever decided that pre-killed raw zebra wasn't tasty enough.

you gotta go and see this!

On the blogs I read and vist (on the right) there is one called Living the Travel Channel. My friends Karla and Paul are in the (I hope I got this correct...) UAE for a while and this is their very interesting blog. In the latest post, she and her husband bought some toys because they are pretty offbeat...well, there is a beat to the desert warrior camel, but it IS off beat, too!!!! Anyway, pop over to their site and watch the videos Karla made..be prepared to chuckle.


On a more US note, freezing fog is really beautiful!!!! And Rod and Dot are having their anniversary today...of many years!

this photo was taken in '07.

Dinner Muse

Well, he might not be a muse, but he is amusing! I am so glad I did not have to go to school with him today! He is in rare form...or maybe he is just himself and we were more attune to it today.

Dinner takes less than a hour, to eat, not prepare. Our conversation covered a wide range of subjects. I made a soup using potatoes that I had used in a previous roast. I don't peel my potatoes for two reasons (I am lazy and they are supposed to be more healthy). Jon observed that 'these potato peels come off just like model decals do...'

Appetizing, huh?

Steve made a comment about his hair. It is shorter, but it has a tendency to curl and it annoys Steve. He asked Jon why he pulled his hair forward around his ears. Jon said that he just gets it all wet in the morning and lets it do as it likes. It is expressive hair.

'Expressive?'

Later, we were discussing music to sleep by. (Jon has been listening to a Jim Croce greatest hits he found on the side of the road) When Jon was little he listened to lots of piano music. One of my friends got us a CD by David Lanz. Jon did not remember it, so I put it in. As we listened to it, he remarked, "It kinda rings a bell. Not like a church bell, more like a Christmas bell you hear outside of Walmart."

He's our ding a ling.

As dinner neared the end we went through the mail on the table. Jon had a letter from the church. It had been sent Jan 9 and we just got it today. Steve asked if it had Grandma's address on it. At the same time I asked if it read PO box 42. Jon, confused said, "It reads 97813."

Which is the zip code. One question at a time, parental units!

His parting comment after dinner was: Do you know what depleted uranium music is? Obviously, we had no idea and wondered if it was something Mr. Griggs taught them about in science. His answer: Heavy Metal. And it was NOT Mr. Griggs, it was pure Jonathan.

He gets his permit in two weeks. Maybe.

The oddest thing I find, is that this son of ours is the almost the exact same age as a friends'...and HER son plays sports and dresses well and likes girls. Jon does guns, casual camo, and jazz music.

And random comments.

skips in the record.....

Let's see, it's a good chance that the taxes on our house are going up. Due to the new addition we had a very nice assessor visit us and I found out the house had not been re-valued since 1979!!!!!!!!

I have been called a few times to sub in Pendleton, but have had to refuse. Not because I am too busy, but because we live too far away! In Tillamook I could get ready in 15 minutes and get to town. I could do that here, but they usually call me about 40 minutes before they need me. I think we are about at least probably 30 min from Pendleton and then I would have to find the school and then some parking! Parking lots in Pendleton schools are very large! I am so frusterated!

There is a job I am doing an interview in the morning for. It is part time, which is a very good thing. The bad part is that the job is from 5am to 8am..and I detest mornings. But, I will do it because it would be a very good job and it is in town. The very worst part is that I don't think I can count on one finger the jobs I have gotten when interviewed for them. I have walked into interviews professionally, casually, positive, nervous, and nothing seems to work. Maybe if I walk into it knowing I won't get it...but that seems so defeatest. Sometimes, I am the second one chosen and the first one bails, so I get it by default. We'll see what happens!

And this morning, Jon put on one of his 'new' Salvation Army shirts (it is cute, all white and says in purple and orange letters, 'ExFed'.), and arrived for breakfast. Now, I washed that shirt just after we bought it. I dried it and then folded it and put it in his room. I generally don't do this, but got really grumpy with the state of his floor and tidied up for him. He was grumpy back, but the deed was done! At any rate, the 'new' shirt was thoroughly wrinkled! I, in a very annoyed voice, said, "Jon, I washed that shirt, dried it and folded it, and now it is wrinkled."

He responded, 'yeah.'

"Why?????" I asked.

'Well, it looks better this way,' he answered.

And there we have it.

vote for snowman!

Visit the today's snowman site on my links and vote for your fav snowman. I put ours in, but didn't give it a cute name. This is my first snowman contest!!!! LOL.

No snow, snow..No snow, snow...

Kind of like he loves me, he loves me not!!!

We had fairly clear weather to PDX to get Tony to the airport. Most of our lovely Christmas snow had melted and we ran into some gicky stuff in the Gorge, but all in all the roads were fine. We had dear Z meet us again at the airport. I managed to take the pix when his eyes were closed. Tony wore his War Pigs shirt from boot..Boom Shakahlakah!!!!!

Before we got there, Tony ran around Best Buy and got a new puter..I looked at cameras and did not find one. There are too many cameras out there..it is too hard to decide!!! Then he had to rush to the boarding area cuz we dinked around too much!! It was very awful. I cried and cried.

On Friday, Jan 2..it snowed again. I only took one photo because they were starting to look all the same!!!

This snow pretty much vanished. There was some left, but nothing to bother with. Until Sunday night. It stormed and blew and snowed and we even had snow coming in our skylight!!!!!! It was amazing and of course, there was no school on Monday for the first day of school!!!! At 730 am we had a huge drift on our sidewalk, which Jon did NOT move. He said it looked too cool!!! He was right, but it is in the way.

Everything is pretty much back to normal..we have wind and it is kind of warmish out. Very amazing Christmas break. Jon hoped that school would be out on Tuesday, too..just to make it even on both ends of the break, but they went back today! I think he said today they ended up with 19 days of break due to the weather!!

Digging out plant books...I can see that spring might be somewhere around the corner!!!