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We’re still de-cluttering and organizing and moving furniture around here. Tonight (yes, a Friday night cleaning!), as I cleaned our office, I found a bunch of my old tapes. Yes, tapes. Pre-CD’s. I used to make mix tapes all the time. I used to have a Walkman that I carried around campus, while rollerblading, everywhere. Pre-iPod. Ah, technology.
Anyway, back to the tapes. It was a little walk down memory lane. Andy had a good time perusing my selection, laughing about some of my choices then. I laughed too.
I was a fan of musicals, especially Andrew Lloyd Weber stuff. I was also into the teeny-bopper stuff like Tiffany, Debbie Gibson, Belinda Carlisle. I LOVED Nelson! I even saw them in concert, flowing hair and all!
There are a lot of memories in these tapes. I’m glad I took the picture, because now I’m ready to toss the tapes. Gotta keep getting rid of stuff.
I like this fun bloggy carnival that Lissa started. This week, I’m thankful for free*, mid-week family entertainment, and balmy temps in the mid-40’s on November 19!
Tonight we went to the Holiday Lights Festival in downtown Milwaukee. This is when they flip the switch for the holiday lights in Pere Marquette Park, then shoot off fireworks. The weather held out with a few drizzles here and there, but truly amazingly nice for this time of year! We had a lot of fun.
 
 
 
*Disclaimer: The festival was free, but we had to pay for parking, as well as dinner out (at one of the least kid-friendly restaurants we’ve ever been to!). But that was our lack of planning ahead, and the fact that the festival started at 5:30 and ended around 6:45-prime dinner hours!
This week over at Beth’s, she challenged us to capture the sunrise or sunset, or to interpret sunrise/sunset at will. I went literal.
Here’s the sunrise out my back sliding door just the other morning. It’s prettier out my bathroom window upstairs, but I was in the middle of working out in the morning and wanted to catch the shot quickly and get back to my Wii EA Sports Active (awesome workout!).
(I had to decrease the exposure by quite a bit to get the colors of the sky.)
The weather hasn’t been cooperating too much for me to catch a sunset lately-it could be because I forget it gets dark at 4:00 now and I miss it! There was a great sunset the other day while I was at work, and I so wished I had had my camera with me, but it might look a little weird walking around the hospital, treating patients with my camera slung over my shoulder. Probably a HIPAA issue, as well!
Anyway, I do have a couple of pictures of a sunset around here from this past 4th of July when we were out at our friend’s parents’ lake house. They get gorgeous sunsets out there!
I wonder what everyone else captured?
Or maybe he needs a haircut.
Yup. Haircut.
Remember this post from September? I submitted a photo to “Signspotting” and received a check in the mail for it. I wasn’t sure where to find the picture, but I figured it had to be out there somewhere! Today, I found out where it was.
This arrived from FedEx today. Yeah me! I can’t believe it! I just found the book on Amazon-it’s really there! One of my pictures is in a book! This does a lot for a girl’s confidence!
I’m having this overwhelming urge to clean, organize, de-clutter, get rid of old junk, and prepare for new stuff coming in. With Caden’s birthday just a short time from now, closely followed by Christmas, we will soon be having an influx of more stuff. And we’ve just been inundated with stuff from Noah’s birthday. It’s just making me realize how much stuff we have, and how much stuff we really don’t need.
Today I worked on our very cluttered office desk, which included working on our kitchen desk and our kitchen counter, as office-type stuff and paperwork tends to spill over everywhere. I still have a huge pile of papers to go through before I’m done, but I don’t think that’s going to get done tonight.
While I was reading another blog, Stop, Drop, and Blog, I found myself reading all about how I’m feeling right now. She has two boys, 4 and 2, who are just about to celebrate their birthdays. And of course, their birthdays are shortly followed by Christmas. So it really was just like reading about my life (minus the amazing photography)! She had a great idea: have each of her boys choose three toys to donate to children less fortunate than them. I’m all over that.
In the next week or so, I will be putting the boys to this task. I’m hoping that the three toys may lead to more. I’m also hoping the boys learn about the importance of keeping a clean room. And part of that is due to decreasing the amount of stuff that keeps a room from being clean. Another thing they could learn, as FireMom pointed out, is that we outgrow things. Most importantly, I want the boys to understand the idea of sharing with others who aren’t as lucky as they are. We are very blessed with what we have and what we’re able to do. There are so many others who don’t have the opportunities we do, and the boys need to learn that. It’s an important life lesson.
So I’m ready to make my way, room to room, to get rid of some of our stuff that we don’t need. I have a laundry room full of bags of stuff to be donated or sold. I have a closet shelf full of clothes to be donated. I’m ready to be rid of a lot of our stuff.
Today the Wisconsin Badgers played the Michigan Wolverines, and won! the final score was 45-24. It was a great game for me, seeing as it’s the first, and only, game I’ll go to this year. Andy and I took his sister, Lis, and our friend, Doug. We usually park at the same place for every game, and we tailgate with our friends and their parents/parents-in-law. And then, for the last game, we make chili for our tailgate. It was a great day for our tailgate and the game today! Temps were in the mid- to upper-50’s, everyone had great food, and the Badgers won! Here are some photos.
We were serenaded by the tubas from the Badger band.
I make a pretty mean batch of chili!
This guy is a mega-Badger fan! He was mixing some awesome-looking Bloody Marys before the game, and continued to serve up some great treats after the game. Check out his belt!
Our friends brought their three kids-a bit of a challenge at the game! But how cute are they?!
 
 
 
Seriously?! I could just eat this kid up! He’s so sweet!
 
After the game, we came back to the car, found ourselves to be parked in by about seven cars, so we camped out for a bit. Andy decided to have some more chili.
Tonight, I’m exhausted! And Andy just left (at 10:00 pm) for a hockey game! I’m off to bed soon.
Another blog I’ve discovered is Quiet Life. I found Donna through The Pioneer Woman. Both are amazing photographers, and I dream of being that talented. I also love that Donna is in the Madison area! Cool!
Anyway, she had a “Friday Fill in” post today, and I decided to participate.
1. The last band I saw live was… Oh my goodness! I’m having a hard time remembering! It’s been way too long! Guster? At Summerfest a couple of years ago?
2. What I look forward to most on Thanksgiving is napping after stuffing myself silly!
3. My Christmas/holiday shopping is mapped out by my boys who have circled numerous things in the Toys R Us catalog!
4. Thoughts of a clean house fill my head. (Only thoughts, not reality!)
5. I wish I could wear leggings with a cute long sweater over them. I don’t think I can pull that look off!
6. Bagpipes drive me nuts!
This was fun!
Now I’m off to make my first batch of chili of the season for our annual chili tailgate at the Badger game tomorrow. Go Badgers! Kick some Wolverine patoot!
Lissa over at Whooo’s That Girl started a new blog carnival last week and I think I’m going to give it a try. It often helps me to have a topic or suggestion for my blog posts, as I’m not the best writer out there.
Anyway, thank goodness for Google Reader! As I’ve embarked on this blogging thing, I’ve found many lovely blogs to follow. My friends’ blogs, lots of mommy blogs, and photography blogs. Until I found the master invention of Google Reader, I had a hard time keeping track of those blogs.
I suppose there’s a flip side to the wonders of Google Reader. I now spend a lot more time on the computer keeping up with everyone. It takes up a bit of my free time. And it takes up a bit of my not-so-free time.
But it’s still fun. And I’m thankful for it.
Go see what others are thankful for over at Lissa’s.
p.s. I love that she has the same name as my mom! Not a very common name!
Beth’s assignment was a bit of a challenge this week, which seems to be the norm lately! I guess she’s trying to get us thinking or something!
Anyway, an idea presented itself last night. I had just put the boys to bed and was settling down onto the couch to catch up on “Dancing With the Stars” (thank goodness Aaron Carter is gone! He creeped me out!!!). Suddenly I heard Noah crying. He was standing at the top of the stairs, holding the side of his mouth. He pulled his hand away and I saw blood. Not gushing, but there was broken skin.
Through his sobbing and tears, he managed to choke out something about “Caden” and “hit” and “book”. I called Caden into the bathroom (where I was trying to clean up and calm Noah after he freaked out seeing blood on his hand) to get his side of the story. He mumbled something about a book and then gave a small “sorry” to Noah. Noah finally managed to explain he got hit in the mouth by a book that Caden was trying to give to him. Okay, small talk about how Caden wasn’t trying to do it on purpose (“Yes he was!” in a whiny voice from Noah), Noah’s lip will get better quickly, and how they are to stay in their own beds at night, and then it was back to bed.
Here’s Noah this morning (with a stuffy nose and pink eye, mind you!):
I didn’t find out what book it was until Noah told me this morning. This just puts the icing on the cake! Seriously. This is the book that was involved. Are you ready for it? I couldn’t make this up!
(Back to the pink eye thing…I had all sorts of plans for today. After Noah got on the bus, Caden and I would hang out until it was time for him to go to school. Then, I would go pick up Caden, take him to a friend’s house for a short lunchtime playdate, and come home and go for a run or something. Well, Noah woke up saying “My skin came up and stuck to my eye and kept my eye from opening.” which is 6-year-old-ese for “I have pink eye!” So scratch everything except for taking Caden to school, picking him up, and taking him to his friend’s house for a playdate. Oh well. Noah and I had a good time hanging out together.)
Go spy on the real life of others at Beth’s. It’s like being Peeping Toms, but legal, and not so creepy!
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