just miss kim

snow day!

Nothing like getting a phone call at 5:42 am. My first thought is answer it... it's going to wake up the kids and it's probably bad news. Dan, who has the phone on his side of the bed, lets it ring at least twice so he can read the caller ID. Really? You need caller ID when the phone rings in the wee hours of the morning?

No, just answer the thing.

The funny thing is that it was actually good news. There's no school today for any of us. I love the unplanned day off. I'm dreaming of curling up on the bed to watch all my DVR'd shows, doing a lot of scrapbooking, and maybe a couple of loads of laundry. And I had the foresight to buy 4 different varieties of cookies last night at Wal-mart. I'm a thinker. Snow day, a little Ghost Hunters International, and cookies.

Yup, it's gonna be a good day. Hope you have a great one!

let's talk Branson

Part of what depressed me the last few weeks was the possibility of losing our Branson vacations for the year. Not completely, because we have already purchased All City Season Passes to the theme and water parks there. But we were talking about reducing the number of days, finding less expensive accomodations, and dropping a lot of shows. Which we still may do, because being financially responsible is important to us.

I didn't even feel like planning our trips. And then yesterday, a switch flipped and I'm in full planning mode.

Must do's for us are Silver Dollar City, White Water and Celebration City. We didn't visit any of those parks last year, and we missed them (although, hey, Disney was a great substitute). We want to see Dixie Stampede again. We'd like to see Shepherd of the Hills and the new Noah's Ark show. Of course, we must see the Haygoods as much as possible during their final full season. Or at least I must see them... not sure the entire family is on board with that one. After all, their theater actually hovers above a driveway. Brady has visions of his mother causing a stampede that then causes the theater to collapse right on a motorcoach parked below.

I have a few shows we've never seen, but would like to try. Not sure we'll get to all of them, but I've got a list. At the top is Grand Jubilee. From the reviews I've read, the format is along the lines of another show I enjoy, Pierce Arrow. A quartet of men, a female singer, and a comedian. I was in such a Branson mood that I had to make the eye candy from Branson, so I chose Jason Pritchett, who is the most recent addition to the Grand Jubilee's quartet, New South. He was on America's Got Talent last summer (with another group we have to see in 08 -- The Duttons). I hadn't seen him before in Branson, but I definitely plan to stop and see him this year. Is he not a cutie? Oh, and he sang really good too. I've been listening to New South at MySpace and think they sound great. Even if they do sing "Seven Bridges Road", which I now realize must be required singing for any male group in Branson. Cuz every show, there it is. I'd never heard the song before I started seeing shows in Branson, and now I have the words memorized.

So I really should go jump in the shower. I have to be at work in 57 minutes. But there's some brief rambling about Branson. Oh, and we're looking for moderately priced cabin for our Memorial Day trip. I am just over staying in hotels. If anyone can recommend something on Indian Point, or even just in that area, I'd love to hear your personal experiences. I just need clean. And enough beds for 5 people. I'm not real picky.

Have a blessed Wednesday!

feeling better

Well, we got some good news today.

When the water heater started leaking, it did major water damage to our house. We had no idea that it had any damage inside, we were so focused on what needed to be fixed outside. Then when they came inside to see if it had come inside... well, yup, there it was. Category 3 water damage.

We've been living in essentially 3 rooms in our house -- the master bedroom has become our living room, we have part of our kitchen (although we are storing stuff from the affected rooms in the kitchen) and 1 bathroom. Brady's room, the 2nd bathroom and a portion of our living room are all "under construction." When I'm being polite, I say we're remodeling. When I'm being honest, I say it's devastating.

However, things are looking much brighter today. I feel like I've turned a corner and can see the sun starting to shine. Thank you to all who commented or sent me notes over the past week. I know I was depressing, I just couldn't pretend otherwise. So thanks for sticking with me. I'm feeling more "normal" and plan to get this blog back to normal. Starting with eye candy tomorrow.

OK...

so we had a good weekend. I have no photos of it, but it was fun. We went to my parents' house (although they were out of town until Saturday night) and we did this whole nostalgia thing... ate dinner at the DQ, as I mentioned earlier. Saturday for dinner, we bought BBQ from a trailer in the American Legion parking lot. When I was younger, the guy running the stand used to live next door to us and I can remember how yummy it smelled when playing outside. It tastes even better. We bought Mykiah some dental wax at the drug store, and checked out the Webkinz selection in the Hallmark store. Played basketball at the elementary school playground. Ate homemade biscuits and gravy (my kids have only ever had the kind that comes from an envelope when I make it). Kiah and Grandma made peanut butter and chocolate brownies. Sometimes you just need to be together, doing nothing, enjoying the moment. So that's what we did. Not sure what tomorrow will bring, but we'll be together.

still kicking

I'm still here, but not much in the mood to blog at the moment. I'm hoping to be in a better blogging mood this evening, so you may want to check back then.

Brady-ism

Eating at Dairy Queen tonight...

"Mom, can you open this ketchup packet for me? It's Brady-proof."

apology

I have no blog post today. And lots of excuses. If you've got any good thoughts, send them my way, because everything just keeps getting worse.

ravioli lasagna

I've been craving lasagna and on Saturday while doing the grocery shopping, Dan said it sounded good to him, too. We were standing in the frozen section at the time and he was vaguely gesturing some of that *nasty* Stouffer's frozen stuff. Sorry, I just can't do it. It has such an aftertaste.

I also didn't want to put a lot of work into making a big lasagna that wouldn't be well received. This is what I decided to make. I doubled the recipe and made it in a 13x9" pan. It's so easy, even people that don't usually cook (cough*Shari*cough) can make it. And it's got all the flavors of traditional lasagna, just much, much easier to prepare. We had it with some garlic bread. It was very tasty and the kids loved it. New recipe to add to the "tried and true" category.

Oh, and I didn't put this on the recipe card, but I did actually thaw my ravioli for 2-3 hours before putting the recipe together. I just sat them on the counter, but you could just move them from the freezer to the fridge the day before you're going to prepare it. If you don't want to thaw them, or forgot, just give them a 2-3 minute dunk in boiling water before putting together the lasagna. But thawing is much easier... no handling hot ravioli.

Mark Wahlberg is going to be eye candy this week. I don't know if he has been before, but Dan was watching some war movie with Mark in it and it made me remember how much I like him. I went through a stage where "Rock Star" was my favorite movie ever.

I'm telling you, this water heater thing will never end. OK, I'm really hoping that's a lie. Should get some more information today. But really... it's been 10 days now. That's a long time for a situation to not be resolved. And Ches is still asking if she can flush every time she uses the toilet.

On a happier note, I thought I'd share some layouts I've scrapped lately. I added a couple of new teams to my list, and had a great weekend scrapping. Nothing I love more than unwinding with my mouse and some photos...

two birds, one stone

Two of the things I wanted to focus on this year were getting moving and listening to more music.

Since our treadmill arrived last week, I've been able to do both.

It's a great treadmill. I use an upper body cross training workout that gets me up to 3.5 miles an hour with up to a 60% grade. Every once in awhile the thing stops and tells me to grab the dumbbells and do some kind of curl or extension for a minute. And gives me the chance to catch my breath and get a drink of water.

While I'm on the treadmill, I listen to my iPod. Love that I can load it with all my favorite music and zone out. And trust me, it's amusing when Dan gets on and uses it and I catch him singing NSync under his breath.

I also completed the "new bra" part of my New Year's "resolutions." It's a little disconcerting to go almost 20 years thinking you were one bra size and realize that not only are you not that bra size, but you're in the triple letters. It's nice, however, to finally put on a bra and know that it fits and that I look better.

So there's my update on how the resolutions are going. Hope yours are going well.