BOO!!!

Well it's just downright scary how long it's been since I've posted to this thing. Happy Halloween, everyone! Not too much to report from Utah. We had a checkup on Monday and my doctor once again said that I'm having a "textbook" pregnancy. The baby is head-down and now it's just a waiting game. By the way, did everyone get the e-mail form Mike Harris with the picture of Henry John (being held by his big brother Anthony)? If not let me know and I'll forward it to you. I'm still working but starting tomorrow I drop to 3/4-time (five 6-hour days per week). I decided to do that a few weeks ago when I was feeling tired, but now I'm back to having energy again. Still, it's good for me to start weaning myself from work (and work from me). Hope you all have a spooooky day! I'd love to see some pictures of the kids in their costumes (hint, hint) :).

Good morning

Long lost mother reporting here. Had a day off yesterday but worked 7 straight before that. I thought I'd accomplish a lot yesterday, including a blog post, but here I am today. Last evening we attended an Edward Jones seminar about being ready for retirement. It was held at Home Run Inn in Darien, so how could we not go? I've already decided that I'll start taking my Social Security in 2008 when the income limitations become a non-factor. After that, I should be able to sharply curtail my working. I still like to work, but not too many hours, and not for the new front end manager we've got. I'll spare you the horror stories, but no one likes working for her, and she herself doesn't like working at our store. She's requested a transfer, but those requests aren't always acknowledged.

I made a (3rd) batch of jalapeno jam. This time I used the "less sugar required" SureJell and it jelled very well but only made 5 half pint jars. The first 2 batches of 2007 turned out to be hot pepper sauce and hot pepper syrup. Don't know what I'm doing wrong, but we'll use the stuff for something. Pop and I like hot pepper syrup on zucchini pancakes, which are still not out of season around here. We have a great many acorn and butternut squashes, so if you would like any let us know.

Today I'm taking Gram to Sears to have her new hearing aid fine-tuned. She's had a cold for the past several days, so I'm hoping to also get her in to see Dr. Kurt while we're out along Route 59. She's working on a Christmas letter to enclose in her cards, since it's so difficult for her to write. We'll get her laundry and stuff done today also, since I'm working the next 3 days.

Monday will be "Navy Fear," inspired by Sami seeing the commercials on PBS. Which reminds me, I went to the website and found the coupon to save $3 per ticket but I seem unable to print it. D.J., can you help out here? It will save the 6 of us $18. We plan to take the Pace bus to the train but still need to work out the times and stuff.

Dave and Melissa, I just saw your latest accomplishments this morning. What a lot of work you've done! It should look fantastic by the time you're finished.

Julie, thanks for sending the pictures from the shower last weekend. Only about a month to go and I hope you're not too uncomfortable. Thanks also for the NASA article. Pop sent it to a lot of people and he's gotten some wonderful feedback. I hope that Brandon is fully recovered from the bug that got him last week. Hope you avoided it altogether.

Pop is up and about, so I shall go grate zucchini for this morning's breakfast. Did I still not tell you about our mini-vacation and Pop's class reunion?

Sending my love as always... Mom

Basement Progress

I think last time I posted I mentioned about four steps that we would have to complete to get our basement back. Somehow that list keeps growing... probably has something to do with the fact that I know there will be no better time to do these things than when there is no carpeting to destroy. We decided to use wood baseboard and door and window trim and stain and polyurethane all of it. Last weekend with Melissa's help we were able to complete finishing about 200ft of boards. It was great family time :)

We are super happy with how the bar turned out except for the face of it didn't seem to hold the stain very well and is lighter than everything else we stained (it only looks darker in the picture because of the lighting). I can blame Peter for that... he had stained it and put a coat of polyurethane on it before I could see it. Should have used another coat of stain. So anyways, of coarse I'm thinking about stripping it down and refinishing it otherwise I might regret it for some time. Anyone ever strip polyurethane and stain and have some pointers? I might try that this weekend or lay tile or paint - can't decide :(

Here are some pics - notice in the garage on the bottom left of the picture all the finished boards stacked up. Only took me 24 hours and Melissa 12 to finish that phase... all in all it hasn't been all bad and gives me something to do besides play video games.

hope all is well!

Hey Birthday Girl...

Julie- have a wonderful day! Don't work too hard. Maybe you have the day off??? Do you have anything special planned?

Enjoy! :)

Mourning...

My world has been quite gloomy the past few days. My Grandma Grace (moms mom) passed away Wednesday night at 11pm. She was hospitalized under inpatient hospice for about a week and was transfered to a hospice house Tuesday afternoon. My emotions are bittersweet.

My Grandma Dorothy continues to suffer in tremendous pain with little relief. She has tried every pain med but one, which she will be trying on Monday. She has a pain patch that offers a smidgen of relief , but it's the only one that doesn't make her head spin. Please pray for her.

Busy bee Dave continues to work in the basement. The bar is up and will be stained on Monday. It's so beautiful! The style and router work is more than I could have ever dreamed of.

Speaking of squirrels, Chloe, Fuzzball and I watch one yesterday morning bury a nut in our front yard. Very entertaining.

Don and Peggy, you do look very relaxed in your pics. Glad to hear about your adventure. Thanks for the video of Dave and company. We had a blast watching it. Rob made a cameo.

Julie, hope you're feeling great. Your woodpecker story was thrilling. Good thing Chloe and Fuzz can't bring presents home for us...I would have freaked.

Crazy Squirrel

Sometimes it pays to wash the dishes. Like this afternoon, when I looked up and saw a squirrel climbing up our kitchen window and heard him jump onto the roof over the bay window. Chris and Sami arrived to late to see him climb up but went out to see if they could spot him running around. A few seconds later I heard a noise and caught a glimpse of the squirrel sliding down the window and take off, followed by two delighted kids. He escaped by crossing the street.

Have a great weekend all.

WE'RE BACK

We returned yesterday after 5 nice days of driving around Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa. Except for taking I355 to Palatine, we never drove on an interstate road. Dave is making considerable progress on the basement, but he worries me that he spends all his time working. I'm hoping that he and Melissa were able to take a little time this week and enjoy the autumn.

By Saturday evening we got to New Glarus, WI. There was an Octoberfest going on, so we wandered around for awhile and explored. Even had a brat for supper and listened to their entertainment. While walking down the sidewalk, Pop was wearing his orange Illinois t-shirt. A cop passed us by and said "Excuse me, sir, but I'm going to have to ask you to remove the shirt." Illinois had beaten 5th ranked Wisconsin that afternoon. The next night, the Bears beat the Packers so we really did a number on Wisconsin. Visited about 4 or 5 Wisconsin state parks and spent Sunday afternoon at the House on the Rock. There's a ton more to see there than when we were there many years ago. Does anyone remember??

The first 2 days we were gone it was really hot and humid, but it got better by Monday afternoon. We crossed the river and spent Monday night at Pikes Peak State Park in Iowa. A really neat place, situated high above the Mississippi with magnificent views. The Great River Road going south from there is quite scenic. Crossed back into Illinois and went to a couple of Illinois State parks, including Lowden, where the great Blackhawk statue by Loredo Taft is perched high on a bluff. Is that not where you guys went for outdoor education while at Madison?

We got home Wednesday evening and are trying to get back in the groove. The garden is still spewing out zucchini and yellow squash, but now the cold spell may put a damper on it. We had butternut squash soup for lunch, and will be having acorn for dinner.

Pop's 50th reunion begins tomorrow evening with a supper and get-together. The festivities go on all day Saturday, ending with a dinner at the Oak Park Country Club. The beat goes on on Sunday, when Dennis Law has organized a day of reminiscing for a lot of people who weren't part of the class of '57 but hung out with them.

Got our driveway sealed today. We had $90 we didn't know what to do with....

Tomorrow, Friday, I plan to spend a few hours at Gram's, doing her laundry and getting out some of her winter clothes from the store room. I also need to figure out what I'm going to wear this weekend. We might drive the PW into Oak Park Saturday, so we can change out of our football game clothes and into our evening clothes.

I shall return to my chores for now. Hope all is well and that we hear from each of you soon.

Love, Mom and Pop

Beautiful October

Greetings from the Naperville branch of the family. We're doing OK - old age brings a strange assortment of aches and pains, but most of them go away after awhile. Gives you incentive to get old, right?

We're planning to take a few days vacation, from Sat the 6th through Thursday the 11th. We shall be exploring southern Wisconsin, seeking fall color and fun hikes in various state parks. On the 12th, a 3 day marathon begins of reunion activities for the OPRF High School 50th reunion. We expect to see a whole lot of people we know from years gone by. We'll begin this Friday by meeting George and Linda for dinner, since they're coming into town a week ahead of time.

Gram has an appt. tomorrow (Thurs) afternoon at 3:00 to get her hearing aid. Hope it works well so we can proceed with our little vacation. We'll be missing the Devonshire fall festival on Sat. the 13th, but D.J., Michele, Chris and Sami will proudly represent us.

It sounds like Dave is feverishly working on his basement. We'll be stopping by on our way out of town Saturday to drop off Pop's biscuit joiner and some nail guns and nails. Dave is building a new bar, which I believe needs to be completed before the flooring goes down. He's off next week, and even Melissa has a few days off at the end of the week, so I'm trying to encourage him to break out of the basement and spend a day or 2 or 3 enjoying the good weather and the fall colors. We've had some gorgeous weather - warm days, cool nights, mostly clear skies.

We've tried to watch all 7 episodes of "The War" on PBS. There are a few episodes that Pop had to miss, so I recorded those and we'll probably take the video tapes with us. I fell asleep during parts of these, so I will be glad to watch them again. It was a really worthwhile series, in case you get a chance to see it.

I'm going to attempt to go to bed now, since I need to get up at 4 tomorrow. I'm not going to try to watch the first Cub playoff game which starts in Arizona after 9 P.M. Pop will leave me a note of the score. Go Cubs! Go Carlos Zambrano!