Sunday AM coffee

We spent most of the day yesterday shopping for an outfit in town for Chyann.

Shopping used to be fun and easy.

Not so much anymore. 

High point of the day was eating at Panera bread again.

I had the Napa almond chicken salad sandwich and am now totally jonsing for MORE!

Spent some time this morning googling a recipe to copy and think I found one that's pretty close. 

Can't wait to try it - YUM!

But back to the shopping. 

She decided on a simple dress with a flowing knee length skirt in the most gorgeous shade of midnight blue.

She looks absolutely lovely in it.

We are really looking forward to the induction ceremony on Wednesday.

Caden arrived home late last night from his trip to Madison.

His buddy Walker took 1st as state wrestling champion!

YAY for Walker! 

I said Caden would be totally jacked up to start wrestling now and he is. 

Guess we'll see how his physical therapy for the severs and osgoods go. 

Don't think I mentioned that, but he has had two sessions now and it seems to be helping some.

Basically because he favored his right foot so much (severs) it put more stress on his left knee - which got the OSD, which in turn goofed up his right hip. 

His hamstrings are so tight that it also throws everything off. 

Stretching and strengthening is the plan in PT.

I measured the marks on the wall yesterday just to get an idea of how much he's grown and see it's damn near 2 inches from middle of Oct until now. Now that's some seriously fast growth. 

Pumpkins kittens are doing well. 

They are some loud little buggers - yowling and meowing.

Random picture from about 2008 I think. 

They grow up so fast.

Have a nice day :)

A cat tail and more

Another week is done. 

We had rain on Thursday that made our snowy driveway extremely treacherous.

Caden fell and waxed his buns twice on the way up to the bus stop - OUCH!

Course the rain turned to snow later in the evening and we got a nice sluchy inch that froze overnight.

Supposed to be in the 40's and 50's this weekend.

Let's hope so, get this snow gone!

Yesterday after school Chyann and I found these little cuties.

Their mother is Pumpkin pie, that stray kitten we found about 18 months ago. She comes and goes so we hadn't seen her in a while and didn't realize she was pregnant. 

She has got to be the dingiest cat ever. No idea why she wouldn't have the kittens up in the loft of the barn in a bed of hay, instead she had them in a pig feeder with no bedding to speak of and exposed to the weather. 

When we found them they were super cold and barely alive.

Course Chyann was determined this was a rescue mission and we had to save them.

Yes, I'm a sucker because they are now in my house.

We happened to have some orphan kitten food so we mixed that up and put them on a heating pad to help warm them. Pumpkin came too and she was not interested in those kittens at all. Like she had decided they were too far gone or something. I think they may not have eaten at all they were so weak, but really perked up after they had some formula and even more when their body temps had come back up. 

Then their Mama decided she was interested in them.

Which is good. I sure didn't want to have to had feed them on a full time basis.

Interesting enough that dark colored kitten has on a tiny stump of a tail and one of the white ones has this little curly stump of a tail. That one with the orange on it's head has the only normal looking tail. Other than the tail abnormalities they appear healthy. 

I wonder if they are Manx type cats or even Japanese bobtails - I guess those are typically white or calico colored. Both types of cats are basically genetic mutations.

Anywho, Chyann has been a little baker recently and last nights experiment was a tie dye cake mix. 

Sure looked pretty before it went into the oven, but they didn't rise much and were a pain to get out of the pan after they were cooled so one layer was a bit mutilated.

She was a bit disappointed it wasn't a perfect looking cake, but it did taste great and was fun to make. 

Caden is in Madison watching one of his friends compete in the State wrestling tournament. 

I'm sure he'll be coming home having decided he needs to join wrestling too. 

Later alligator. 

The color yellow and Spring

So it's officially Spring!
To me Spring is the color yellow. Fresh, bright and happy.
Yellow is my favorite feel good color, there is just something about it that soothes me.
From yellow paint, yellow shirts, yellow flowers, lemonade, whatever - let it be yellow.
If we ever build a house or re-do the siding on this one I want it to be yellow.
My Mom says I love yellow houses because I grew up in two of them. Maybe.
I'm thinking about re-doing my kitchen yellow with red and white accents.

And yes it's time to start thinking about our summer plans.
Baseball, summer jobs for the kids, camping, trips, and riding horses - all that fun stuff that makes summer fly right by. Then add in the projects that need to get done this summer like repainting the garage door, shutters on the house, the porch, maybe the barn, a new roof, new carpet, clearing out the basement, the garden, flowerbeds, the lawn, planting trees, cleaning the barns, resurfacing the driveway. Just thinking about all of it makes me want to dive right in and get it done NOW, but no. It's not quite time yet. Make a list, get the priorities in line so we can get a chunk of those things done as soon as the snow melts and it drys up some.
deep breath


Colton has been home for Spring break this last week. I must have been delusional when I thought we'd see more of him than a few hours here or there.  He's been in and out, but mostly out. Which I understand - he's got his own agenda that doesn't necessarily coincide with our plans. He is 21 and all that, but still call once in a while - let us know what is going on.

Have you ever heard of pacific rose apples? Saw them at the store the other day and decided to try them. I've got to say they are probably the best apples I've ever had. Even better than honey crisp and that is saying a lot. I've been slicing them up and pairing the slices with extra sharp white aged cheddar cheese. It is the BEST snack ever! Add a little wine and a few grapes and we could call that dinner. Which I did last night. Delicious.


Not much else going on here.
later :)

Sunday morning coffee

Yesterdays jewelry party had me dazzled by all that glitters so I was easily persuaded to have a party sometime in the next three months. 

Today I'm kicking myself.

Sure they had some lovely stuff, but man o man I didn't/don't NEED any of it and now I have to have a party?

Damn.

The ear piece on my new glasses broke this week and I have to wait seven to ten days for the new parts to come in. I'm stuck either carefully balancing the broken glasses to avoid getting dizzy or having them fall off and wearing my old ones with the super scratched lenses. Maybe I should just wear my sunglasses all the time and avoid all that. 

Chyann and I went to Panera Bread yesterday for lunch. 

WOW!

They have the best soup and sandwiches!

Loved their food, we'll definitely be going back there soon.

Had a fun, but exhausting day shopping with Chyann and was very glad to get home to park my arse on the couch for the rest of the evening. 

Casper giving Chyann's cat a good sniff.

When I was a kid we lived in Wasilla, AK and down the road lived a girl my age.

We became fast friends with our mutual love of all things horse related.

Course as lives change and families move we lost contact. 

I think the last time I heard from her or saw her was in the early 80's.

For some reason I got to thinking about her and decided to do a little internet search for her.

She was pretty easy to find and I found that she writes a blog too.

However her blog is more a story of her life by chapter.

It's been interesting reading about her life and who she has become.

 I haven't gave any indication that I know who she is - that we used to be childhood friends.

I don't know if I will either. 

Something to think about anyhow.

Have a nice Sunday.

A Blue ribbon day

Our school had a Dr Seuss week recently and Caden won first place in the potato contest!!

Potato contest you say?

Basically take a potato and somehow make your favorite character from a Dr Seuss book.

Caden chose the Cat in the Hat from the first book - the one where the Cat has a fancy cleaning machine with many arms to clean up the house.

Imagine his surprise when they announced he had won first place!

He was so thrilled!

Even won a HUGE box of cheesy gold fish crackers as first prize and received a blue ribbon! 

As the temperatures yo-yo between freezing and above freezing we are steadily loosing our snow pack.

So much so that Chyann came home from school the other day and announced she was riding Jenny.

DaddyO said nope too much snow.

Of course she argued and said no there's not and decided to take Jenny on a walk instead.

He said sure try the backyard, see how far you get.

Snow up to both of their knees.

She had to concede that he was right - too much snow.

If the snow wasn't moved during the winter it is literally that deep all over our pastures, yard, trails - everything.

My favorite picture of them.

Course behind the barn we had moved some snow for the horses to get around and she snuck in a quick ride there

I've got a jewelry party to go to today - at 1030a. 

Who in the world has a "wine and bling" party that early in the morning?!!? 

Then I'm off to town with Chyann to hit the mall -

yuck I'm not excited about that at all.

Colton is home for spring break now, it'll sure be nice to have him home for longer than 24 hours. 

Anyhow. 

I'm off :)

Sunday AM coffee

Oh yeah.

Still sick.

WTH.

I can't quite get over this crud.

Even broke down and went to the doc. 

Got antibiotics for the sinus/bronchitis crap.

I am getting better, however quite slowly it seems. 

Course Monday started out at -30* - one of our coldest nights yet and throughout the week we've really warmed up. Today may even take us to 45*! 

The melting has begun in earnest!

Our forecast has only 30's and 40's on the horizon and no overnight's below zero.

I heard earlier in the week that before this weeks warm up we'd had a stretch of almost 60 subzero nights and that this is the third coldest winter on record.

I believe it.

It's been a brutal six months.

The great lakes are over 90% frozen and because of that the weather patterns will be slow to turn warm for us as well. Funny how those huge chunks of ice can effect the weather eh?

Anyhow - picture from March 2012 and wow wasn't it dry that year in March.

Casper pushing Jennifer around.

I'm not sure what ol' Scotch got into or did to himself, but he's got two nasty gashes along the right side of his jawbone. What a pain in the arse that has been to clean and doctor up. 

Casper found some burrs and got them tangled up in the long hair (picture a beard about 3-4 inches long) under his jaw. It's a knot of burrs all the way down to his skin. I put some MTG on it yesterday hoping that it might loosen the burrs up so that I didn't have to shave that chunk off and leave him with a sizable bald spot, but when I went out this morning the knot hadn't loosened at all so I'll be shaving him after Chyann rolls out of bed. 

Speaking of Chyann.

My darling daughter has been nominated for our schools chapter of The National Honor Society!

How's that for wonderful!?!?

We are very proud of her. 

The school is having a big induction ceremony the first week of April for the kids who have been nominated.

How exciting! I can't wait!

later :)

Sunday AM coffee

The bowling party was a lot of fun yesterday. I don't know why we don't bowl more than once a year because we sure have fun doing it. My only question is: Why does it give me such a sore butt? Bad form (which I have - I can't hardly keep the balls out of the gutter)? Need to add a few dozen more squats to my exercise routine? No idea since I really know nothing about bowling, but man is my bum sore today.

After the bowling extravaganza we came home and put the very last pickup load of next years wood in the basement. It's unbelievable how much wood we've gone through this year. Let's hope this last bit of wood will carry us through until it warms up, otherwise I guess we'll have to actually use the propane furnace or you know start burning furniture.

COUGHcoughCOUGHcoughCOUGHcoughCOUGH
I was really feeling pretty good until I got outside in the cold and helped with the wood. Now it's a cough-a-rama.
Hardly slept at all last night and I'm sure no one else did either with the nonstop racket as I hacked my lungs up.
Lovely, just lovely.

I had a sharp wake up call the other day when Chyann brought home a catalog of class rings. CLASS RINGS?!?!?! OMG! She'll really be graduating in a mere two years. How's that for an OMG moment?!
Deep breath.
COUGHcoughCOUGH.
No deep breaths at this moment.
COUGHcoughCOUGH.
The catalog sure has some beautiful rings and OH MY are they expensive. A low end plain jane ring is about 275! Then start adding your choice of metals, stone, engraving, ect and the price goes up astronomically. At this point she doesn't know if she even wants one and says a lot of kids in her grade are not going to get them.
Colton got one and almost immediately outgrew the size and never had the desire to have it re-sized so it sits in a box, never to be worn again.

I never had one. Did you? If so do you still wear it?
I know two adult women who still wear their class rings. Does that mean everyone else has lost theirs or just lost interest in wearing them so they are like Colton and have their rings stored in a box as a treasure from their youth?

Back to the graduation thing. Chyann already has big ideas for her graduation party. She says she's making a list and will have it perfected by the start of her Senior year. Only thing she'll tell me for certain right now is that she "wants her family here". She says no family came for Colton's graduation and she wants them HERE for hers. Well. Guess we'll see.

COUGHcoughCOUGH

Ok. ok. ok.
ENOUGH with the COUGHcoughCOUGH already.

Happy Sunday to ya :)

The FIRST of March

Did you know that today is the start of meteorological spring?
Yes it's true.
Obviously that doesn't mean much at this point as we were below zero again this morning and don't expect to make it much past 5* today, but next week? Our fortunes may be turning since towards the weekend the forecast is actually showing that we could hit 30* and only have overnight temps about zero instead of the crazy double digits below zero we've had for much of last week. I'll take it!

Not a lot new around here.

I've had a head cold/sinus thing going on much of the week. Slowly getting over that.
Took Caden in for a physical and he got some regular childhood vaccinations. He had a moderate reaction to the dtap. More specifically the tetanus in that shot. His poor arm got so swollen, turned red, sore and achy.
Last time I had a tetanus shot - back in 2003 my arm swelled up to about the size of a baseball and got red/streaky down my arm. The docs don't recommend me getting one again unless there are special circumstances where the benefits out weigh the risks. At this time I'm thinking Caden wont get another one either.

I got all excited yesterday when Colton told me that he was going to do an open mic performance at his school the end of this month! He'll sing and play a minimum of three songs on his guitar. If there is anyway possible I'm going to be there to see that! I'm just thrilled to hear that he is going to do more musically. He's got such natural talent and ability that I hate to see him not use it, at least occasionally.

Anyhow.
Today is the end of season basketball bowling party and it's time to get moving.

Have a good day :)