ok kiddo... time to flip around.

so i had a doctor's appt this morning. my little dude is still in breech postition. i'm not happy about this. if he doesn't get his ass in gear and flip around it looks like i might have to have a c-section. not that there's anything particularly wrong with a c-section itself, but i don't want to have to go through the recovery of the surgery. i've never had surgery. i'd like to keep it that way. from what i understand recovery form a c-section takes many, many weeks.. and you pretty much can't do a damned thing that may in any way put stress on your body. i can only assume this includes most activites involving my 3 year old... like for instance.. getting up and down on the floor to play or even picking him up... he weighs in over 40 lbs these days! and most mornings i have to carry him downstairs to wake up before daycare. he's still little, and still requires to be carried on occasion.. when sleeping, or just for comfort, and the poor little guy won't understand why i won't be able to carry him, and getting ready in the mornings will be a disaster seeing as how he'll still be going to daycare while i'm on maternity leave. even if he doens't go.. we still have to pay b/c that's the way daycare works, so we might as well have him go. and i don't want to stray too much from our routine, such as letting him sleep in for those 6 weeks.. will screw us all up.. this kid doesn't adjust well to the time change.. gets all out of whack, so we need to stay as normal as possible.

so needless to say the CNM suggested two weeks ago to to the "breech tilts" or whatever which involves getting on my knees, and my head on a pillow.. i tried it that first day and all the blood rushed to my head in aboput 30 seconds, and was just downright painful in the face.. lol.. i know sounds funny, but it's true. so i didn't do it again that day.. and well forgot about it for the two weeks.. between working and dealing with Christmas stuff, i completely forgot about. so now i have to do it twice a day for 20 mins at a whack. great.. but i'll do it b/c i don't want a c-section unless i have to.

Merry Christmas!

Evan as Bob the builder.


me at 31 weeks prego... christmas day

a rant.

i'm still itchy all over my belly and now my forearms. the doctor said it looked like hives and to take benadryl, or use the lotion if i wnat to avoid beign sleepy. i can't figure out what i'm allergic to. i dont' have allergies. but i did expect to develop some after evan was born.. well i guess i deveoped one this time around. the weird thing is, is that i haven't eaten or used anything that is new to me, so i'm having a hard time trying to figure out what causing all these little itchy bumps. i've had them for over a week now. i htink it may be the name brand tums or soemthing.. i've always consumed the generic ones, but jay bought some real ones at the grocery store for me recently when i was running low. who knows, so i'm going to try and remember to pick up some rolaids instead.

evan woke up at 1:15 or so this morning wide eyed and bushy tailed... great. he didn't fall back asleep until 6 this morning.. yeah so me and jay are working today on about 2 hours of sleep. woo. i bet you hear the excitement. the good news is that we got all of the Christmas presents wrapped last night, and i did jay's this morning after he left for work.. why not the kid was asleep and i had an hour to kill. still haven't shipped the package out that's going to the cape. hopefully today or tomorrow. we're hunting for a box that's big enough for our nephews present. apparantly my sister bought our son an electronic drum set. ha. whatever...

got to drag the kid out the door and into the car while he' s sound aleep now. thank god for global warming so i don't have to weasel him into a coat in the process. and my regular coat won't really zip any more either so thank god it's still prety warm out until i find one that will fit around my monster gut. i refuse to pay alot of money for a coat i only plan to wear for a couple of months.

enjoy your day.. i hope to take a nap when i get home, as long as i don't accidentally fall asleep driving to sutton and charlton today.

yikes!

third trimester has begun.. it bagn a couple of weeks ago actually, but i'm not good at updating, so suck it up. my belly is definatly bigger, and i complain baout being fat.. although that usually happens when i need to bend over to pick something up ot squeeze by someone and can't fit. lol. at my last dr's appointment i had gained 2 lbs in the past month and 2 cm of belly. my stomach has becoem super itchy this past week. it's annoying.. it the type of itchy you get when you have dry skin, only i dont' have dry skin on my belly b/c i lotion the damn thing all the time hoping to cut down on any more strech marks. i go to the doc's again on weds.. we're into the every 2 weeks for appoints time. holy cow! where has the time gone. the baby's room is full of wine making crap right now.. we got 2 aging in the carboys.. a shiraz and a riesling. we have sooooo much wine in our basement like about 100 bottles... probably more... if not now then definately after we bottle the 2 batches that are up in the baby's room. yeah.. we're lazy about it this one. not even the crib is up. whatever. we were waiting until after christmas to do all that stuff.

speaking of which we just had our christmas party last night.. it was a hit.. everyone, but me, got loaded... it was pretty funny. and because we had the party our downstairs is pretty damn clean if i say so myself! we tend to have alot of clutter simply b/c we don't have any drawers to anythign to put stuff in, we've been looking at getting a cabinet thing with drawers for the kichen and a smaller sized draer chest for the dining room... but we have no extra money for that so... we're just looking and not buying. such is life i guess.

one of our friends, and older man in his 50's, called me "eureka" last night, and it made me smile and brought on immediate memories of being called that as a child from my great uncles, and grandfather. i still have an uncle that calls me that once in a blue moon, but that's old hat.

You know you're from Wareham if...

You know you are from Wareham if...


You went to a boys and girls club dance
You have been in Mr. Jordan's office
You have waited 2 hours to get a haircut from Mike&Al's
You skipped study and went to Charlie's for pizza
You have ridden the slick-track at go-cart land
You've jumped off stone bridge and almost hit a boat.
You think people that have never seen a cranberry bog are blind or crazy.
You can point out Tesno, Shang-hi, and Swifts, without them showing up on any map.
You played Wareham Youth Soccer, JBA, Tigers, Little League, or just took gym class too seriously
Bob Perry was your ice cream man before he opened the stand
You have ridden the OWL.
You remember the Tunnel under the middle school
You went to the middle school before the renovation
At least once a day growing up you drove on Rt. 6, Glen Charlie rd., Cranberry hwy, Minot Ave, Onset Ave, or Sandwich Rd.
You have had hot dogs from the Mill Pond Diner gas station.
JBA shorts were a part of your wardrobe.
JBA shorts are still a part of your wardrobe.
Wheelbarrel and buffer are actually words…with meanings.
You wondered exactly what it was Mr. Oliver actually taught.
You participated in the DARE program.
The DARE program failed you.
You have referred to your hometown as "the Ham"
You get pissed off when out-of-towners refer to it as Ware"um"
You played basketball at the courts in the center of town.
You have referred to bike cops as rent-a-cops.
The Wareham 500 actually counts as something to do.
You have been to the x-mas parade for the candy.
You have been in the x-mas parade.
You know Gina Davis' hometown
You still remember REACH and BLONDFACES from 7th grade science with Lipof
You know of Eddie Mumbles and Crazy Walter
You went to Minot Forest or Decas
You remember the yearly bonfires
You remember the movie theatre in Buzzard's Bay
You used to go to the movie theatre in Buzzard's Bay
You were a member of team auriga, pheonix, cepheus or some other constellation in middle school
You had a moral obligation to jump rope for heart
You refer to Wareham as being on the cape even when it isn't.
Field day was the greatest day ever
You know someone who won the lottery or went broke trying.
You trick-or-treated 5 years past your prime.
Every year you went home with a letter saying you are exposed to asbestos but don't worry
You remember the Smurphs on the wall of the gym at minot
You remember before there was a Wal-Mart
You worked at Water-Wizz.
You graduated at night.
You still live there!
considered yourself part of tesno crew.
visited the hill in onset for a lil smoke session

some pictures

just added: a picture of evan's birthday cake that i made for the kids. the grown ups cake was bigger and looked very similar to this gluten-free version :)




here are some pictures we took tonight.. don't mind the strech marks.. you can blame evan for those.. i do :) 26 weeks prego...


I'm not stoned or anything.. i was looking at something other than jason



evan found the christmas decorating stuff... i managed to get him to forget about the christmas tree one by saying we're doing that one another time. it seemed to work. i hid it.. better than jason hid them. we let him to the gingerbread people. why not. they came out cute huh?

evan has turned the big 3!

that's right.. this past friday, Evan turned three! i can't believe it's been three years since that lovely (ha ha) night at the hospital.. just to think i'll be going there again in a few short months. woo.. we had 2 birthday parties for the kid. one for his friends around lunch time and then for dinner we had our friends and family over. it works best if you have separate parties i found, then it's not terribly overwhelming and crazy.
then on sunday we traveled to buzzards bay for a baby shower for a friend of mine form high school. it was supposed to be a surprised, but her mother let the cat out of the bag and ruined the party surprise, but she was surprised at all the people that were there. i didn't tell her that i was going to be there even though i knew that she knew about the party. after she got to the hall and hugged her family and her bestest friends, she was making her rounds. evan was there with me and almost walked right into her. when she realized who he was she looked up and smiled and got all excited to see me. i think i surprised her :) unfortunaly i had to leave the festivites early b/c our plans of having my husband play for the day in boston with his best friend got foiled... so jay came down with me and went shopping at the outlet mall, christmas tree shop, and job lot, to find that nothing was of value today for christmas shopping. he said the christmas tree shop was crazy busy wo he was there for less than 5 minutes before he left.

my mom stopped by the shower to deliver a birthday present for evan. one of the gifts was a little remote control puppy that squeaks... i mean barks.. and it walks.. he loves that thing. he was playing with it in the car the entire time he was awake on the ride home. so what if he was asleep before we got very far. then when we got back and stopped at mimi's house to pick up her car, he insisted we get it out from the car and play with it.

many of his presents this year were big construction trucks, that were not only a super bitch to get out of the packaging, but make lots of noise too. i reallyh don't mind toys that make noise, but these things are really loud.. deafening almost, so we taped over the speakers on the bottom to cut the noise level. so far so good.

and to top off the week, we discovered that we need to pay nearly 1000k to get jays car fixed. all this past week it has been making this noise that has been getting progressively worse. so we brought it in... the tie rod, the bearings (or somehting like that) and the ABS tone ring were all shot. the most expensive repair: the ABS thing. apparantly this part, no one keeps in stock anywhere b/c it's made special for each and every vehicle and comes attached to the axle, so needless to say they have to replace the front axle in jay's car. having this ABS thing broken is bad news b/c this is what tells your ABS to kick in when it needs to. so we've had a busy week.

thanksgiving will be at jay's aunts and uncles this year. i'm .. i mean 'we' will be bringing homemade rolls, and boiled onions, and a pumpkin pie too. it's hard to believe it's only 2 weeks away..

this morning the street cleaner drove down the road even though it's been raining. i was very excited to see this... i meant they were going to pave the road today! woo hoo! our road has been like an obstacle course the past month or so with all the bumps and raised structures they do before paving. i was beginning to wonder if there were ever going to pave our stupid road. when i came home today it was as smooth as a baby's bottom.. it was a nice touch to the end of the day.. !

who knew i could be famous?!

another one bites the dust

another halloween has come and past. and like usual in this house it has flopped once again. our little dud this year refused to go out. instead he opted for sleeping, but not before we tried going.

here he is going as Greg Wiggle...he of course wouldn't stand still so i couldn't gt a good shot, but we make do.


he was so excited all day to go, and when we got home he played for a while with the neighbor for it was a PERFECT night for trick or treating.. it was warm and not raining you could go and not freeze! hell i Was excited. i pulled out my 4 year old cape and witches hat.. i was ready. then jeff and becky show up about 5:30 and becky and i head out with evan who wanted nothing to do with it. go figure. we went 20 feet with him crying when he his lollipop fell out of his mouth, and that was the end. lol.. we went back to wah it off and he fell asleep. without dinner again. crap.

this time change is really messing him up this week. he's not napping during the day anymore, which is fine, he's usually chipper all day until it's time for bed, only this week, we haven't been getting dinner done before he falls asleep. this means that he wakes up at 1:30-2 am b/c he's hungry and then is up until 4. but atleast he's alright with me passing out on his bed or on the couch while he watches tv. so needless to say i'm tired

yay

ok.. when you switch over to beta blogger it has you save you old template by default, but it doesn't tellyou how to get it back..i just found the stupid link to do that.. this makes me very happy. not that i really *love* my particular layout, but it mean si don't have to do it over! and find all my links and what not. woo!

this is what happens when i'm bored at work

i thought i'd giv ethe new blogger beta a whirl.. now i have to update it and stuff, so i'm using an altra generic layout, and i have to upload links and shit, an di dont' know any off the top of my head so i'll get to it at some point. so far it's not terrible, but man i guess i shouldn't be bored at work. i'll ge myself into trouble with my blog and stuff.

i should be paying attention to my online class that i'm taking right now

.. but why would i do that. i haven't blogged in a while, and i'm well overdue for an update. life has been treating me well. i think i need to add oil into my car, sometimes my car makes a slight unhappy noise wehen i put my foot on the gas... and i know i'm well overdue for an oil change. i can never seem to keep on time with that. mostly b/c i remember when we're out of money and/or i'm in a place where i can't do it.. like driving the beast for work halfway across the state.

oh well. real estate is going well. my first transaction is moving along smoothly. a friend of mine is buying a condo. hopefully we'll be closing on the 28th or so that means money.. exactly how much, i'm not sure /c i'm sure the listing agent gave the guy a break on the commision b/c he' ssuch a big wig in his office he's probably allowed to cut the commision rate a little, and then century 21 will skim some off the top too, so we'll see.

i've lost 8 lbs this month! woo.. this diet is working :) but yet at the same time my belly is getting bigger, as it should at this point.. i'm almost 21 weeks now! i'll try and post a picture soon.. it's like i got fat overnight b/c of the losing weight thing. lol.. makes me wonder how much i've actually lost b/c i'm gaining weight too as i'm losing it.. it's weird, but hey it's a good diet ;) it doesn't work well for many people though.. just happens that babies work for me!

the leaves here are near peak if not full peak this week.. they look gorgeous driving down the highway... i went through shutesbury today, and not one tree was green absolutely gorgeous. made me wish i had my camera, but didn't think of it. however if you live out of the area, don't you dare travel here b/c the locals may shoot you for driving 20 mph down the highway!

life just gets in the way of blogging it seems

work has been stressing me out for a few weeks now b/c my boss is a douche. although since i nearly blew up in front of him over it, i've been feeling better. here's what happened:
a few weeks ago my boss pretty much said to me, but not in these words, "you need to take a pay cut for no good reason, or you have to find another job". what? yeah. so that sucks.. see i've been working this job for the state for over 2.5 years now, i started the january after evan was born. this ENTIRE time i've been getting paid salary, aka full-time, for a job that that on most occasions hasn't taken me over 24 hours a week to do. from the beginning i wondered why this job was paid salary, but my boss just shrugged and said whatever. okay. sounds good to me! so at some point in august he said to me casually, we're going to have to give you more stuff to do. okay i said b/c my number of clients is way less than what it once was, and i had alot of spare time within my 24 hours a week, so i assumed he was just going to give me stuff to do to fill up that extra time. a couple weeks after that i was in the middle of a phone call with a guy from the state when he says to me, "i need you tomorrow (tuesday) to go out and survey with me." i said, " i can't", he says "why not" i say, "because i have to work at my other job"... he was very annoyed. and i was pissed that he got mad at me. i told him that this job just wasn't paying enough that i needed to get a second job, and that the only day i had to go was tuesdays...

we proceeded to have a 'discussion' about how i've never had a raise at this job, but how i've never complained b/c i was getting paid for more than i worked, and how the cost of living has gone sky high thanks to gas prices, and what not.. we're just not making enough money. he says to me "well i'm gonna need you to work 32 hours" wtf?! "i say highly pissed off, "i can't afford the childcare for anymore time to work.. i've beent elling you that for over 2 years." he goes, "oh well what about tuesdays you don't get paid to go into real estate, so how does that figure?" he caught me off guard with that one. i forget what i said, but near the end of the discussion, heh, i told him that i was pregnant b/c i knew it would annoy him, and at the time i was 8 weeks, unnoticable. he has the gall to ask me it it was on purpose. and i said yes.. and he's all like how you gonna pay for that. i said, we'll figure it out. asshole. in a discussion later with another coworker, she commented on how inapproopriate it was of him to ask me that about my being pregnant. and she's right, and i was so pissed at the time i didn't notice.

the next day i told him i'd come in the extra day. i came in for 2 or 3 times that extra day, and i had absolutely nothing to do... no surprise. i literally just went online and blogged or went to the forums or whatever for 8 hours. so i stopped goin in. it was a waste of money i couldn't afford.

so about 2-3 weeks later, he asked me if i wanted to switch to hourly and a rate that if i worked 32 hours hours it would be the same as what i'm getting now, or if i wanted to just work the 32 hours for the same money. i said i'd have to think about it.

i was going to do the 32 hours a week until i went on maternity leave, and then go hourly after that, but my boss was sressing me out. everytime he would talk to me or email.. (okay well nearly all the time) he was chime in with "32 hours".. grr.. so i was only able to pick up the extra day at daycare this past week, but i had to do a thing in springfield all day weds so i couldn't go into work. i put that day on the calendar at work that i'd be out. at some point earlier in that week it donned on me that if he's requireing me to work 32 hours as full-time that i'd have no possible way to schedule doctor's appointments without a problem... my job isn't benefited so i'm not alloted any vacation/personal or sick time. so i was stressing out about it big time.. so i had emailed him last week to say just to make me hourly starting asap. last monday i think it was, he brought up the situation, and i nearly flipped out on him. he's just so frustrating b/c he doesn't understand why i'm upset about the whole thing.

if the big wigs in the department are the ones that said i needed to up my hours, fine. tell me that. it really got to me that he told me it was b/c i had another job. my job with him is adead end job for me. no benefits, no pay raises, and no way to move up, there's nothing there. it's just a job, and he doesn't see that. this is a guy who gets paid big bucks at umass who inherited enough money from the death of his father to pay off his mortgage, build a garage larger than his house, purchase a cessna airplane, build a hanger for said airplane, and buy an army transport vehicle which he often drives to work. he pretty much has no bills b/c he paid off his now ex-girlfriends studnet loan bills in exchange she was paying all the utility bills. they recently broke up b/c he left his long term girlfriend of over 8 years for a 22 year old chick from boston. he's 46 years old... he not pretty and can be downright degrading but not realize it.

so that's that work. i'm annoyed with it, but since i nearly blew up on him, i've been feeling better. real estate is going well so far. a friend is buying a condo, but other than that i don't have much going on. i've been doing some office work for my broker. she's paying me so it's fine. atleast i can hope that this job will be worthwhile, ya know. it has so much potential, unlike my stupid state job. so with the 2 jobs i've hardly had a chance to get online these days. seems like i have even less time to cook dinner. such is life, but oncei get in the groove of working the 2 jobs i'l be fine, and the house won't look quite so messy. heh

woo!

so not only chirstine gonna be an auntie again i am too!

pictures from the weekend

here are some shots from the weekend:

we went to the butterfly conservatory, which the kids loved, and the staff was showing off soem of the other creatures they have besides the gorgeous butterflies flying all over the place. here you see a giant hissing cockroach on my arm. it's native to madagasgar, and apparantly has as much protein as 5 hamburgers! i guess people eat these. no thanks.


Here is Christine sitting on the sandbox. she and scott took tons of pictures over the weekend.


Here's evan ad james on the turtle sandbox. it makes for a good trampoline. evan was posing nicely, james would barely sit still for 2 seconds.

here's the big sis' family looking over teh rail on mt. sugarloaf, our local mini-mountain... 670-something feet above sea level.

here's a face shot of our nephew james and his mom, my big sis.


here's my son acting like a big cheezeball while i ran into stop&shop for something.

the view from mt. sugarloaf. the connecticut river, and the holyoke range are the main members of the shot here. you can see all the farm land too that goes down the river.



a closer shot of some of the farm land

and to top off the weekend, the poison ivy i've been battling with on my right leg got better earlier in the week, but i developed more poison ivy on my feet and toes, which i blame on the cat. it itches like a bitch... although luckily the bumps aren't as bad as a co-worker at the office.. she had to get the shot. yuck

(insert witty title here)

summer has come to a close. labor day weekend has come and gone, and any warm weather after this point is few and far between although we're about to have a couple days of nice weather. christine and her family came up for the weekend i had a great time. christine and scott got tones of pictures from our adventures, but we only got a few. i'll post those later i dont' really have the time at the moment. the best part was watching the boys.. they had a great time with each other.

crap, i've got to go wake up evan.

fall is quickly approaching

the weather up here has definatly taken a turn in the direction of fall. woo! new england is known for it's beauty in the trees as they go to sleep for the winter. especially norhtern new england. around columbus day weekend the colors are peaked in our little nook of the state and everyone decides to drive out route 2 a clog the main highway that spans the northern half of the state. thanks alot leaf-peepers, can i kill you now? grr. it can get so bad on weekends ends that the blinky signs on the highways that normally announce constuction warnings and amber alerts now warn us locals of "foliage traffic" ha. it's a big thing out here and i dont' really know why. i grew up in southeastern mass and am used to the changing into fall colors. it's something i've experienced my entire life. i suppose i can understand someone who comes fromt he desert and see it for the first time to be in awe and see how pretty it is to live up here, but for local people to drive around and look at the leaves every.friggin.weekend just baffles me. i don't get it. drive to the store you'll see some leaves. stop causing traffic! i've always enjoyed playing in the leaves. when christine and i were kids we would make huge piles in front of the house, get on the railing to the porch and jump away. we'd have a blast. we'd also make little walls resembling a house and play neighbors or something. that was fun too. i'd evan make an effort to walk through the leaves on the way to and from the bus stop even thoughthe bus stop was only like 20 ft from the house.

the nights here are cold and the tomatoes are turning. i just love fresh garden grown tomatoes. the crap they sell in the stores over the winter are so bland and so expensive. we've been making pasta sauce with tomatoes we've been getting from the farm stand and from jay's grandmother's garden. we've got 3 grocery bags full we need to peel and boil down. we've also got to make some apple sauce this year. we ran out of the batch we made 2 years ago. we never made any last year. never got to it, and besides we had so much left from the year before.

summer is quickly coming to a close. it happens. jay starts school next week. he's looking forward to it. i think he was bored a bunch of the summer without things to do. that and he said he's sick of staying home ith evan while i'm at work. ha.. i said to him last night, "yeah, so.. you've had like 3 weeks or so at home with him while i work, i've had him for 2 years while you've worked. " he said it like it was a big deal that he's been home with evan so much, that evan's gotten on his nerves (b/c well he's 2 and he's whiney, which is understandable) and that it's different from when i have him at home and jay's at work. i don't think so buddy. lol it's alright.. now he knows what it's been like for me the past couple of years. :)

last week was our "vacation".. which pretty much meant we didn't go to work for a week, we didn't go anywhere special, although when evan was at daycare one day jay and i went to historic deerfield, which was interesting. we learned that the library has a season pass that they lend out to patrons for free so we took advantage and went. it was pretty neat. i remember going tot he capt kendrick house, and the one room school house as a kid. i wish they brought us back when we were older than 8 or 9. i thoguht they were pretty kool, and i've always been interested in local history stuff. ever since we got back form vacation i've been working alot. working my umass job as usual, and then i've been doing a bunch of office stuff over at the new job at century 21. and i worked yesterday too which proved to be good.. i picked up a buyer! and i'm doing an open house later in granby. and then it's back to work as usual tomorrow. it's been non stop it feels like, and i'm just not used to it. i've been wokring 24 hours/week for 2.5 ertty ( <--evan typed his name.. hehe) for 2.5 years and all of a sudden i'm workign full time again. i've been tired all week, which is why i haven't posted at all.

but it's time now to pay attention to my family before i have to report back to work around 12 for the open house, and jay has to go back to work tomorrow.

toodles

it seems like everone posted on their blogs yesterday but me... that's what happens i guess when i have to work all day and don't really have anything evetful to mention. perhaps later today i'll post something good.

i know i already blogged about it, but my boss is making me market myself, and thus i have to make an official announcement.

i'd like to announce my candidacy for governor of massachusetts....

wait wrong announcement.i don't think i could ever run for governor. i'm not good at making decisions. i'm too indecisive, or i just don't care so i just say whatever.. anyhow onto the real announcement:



I'd like to officially announce my new postion as a Realtor in Massachusetts. yup.. want to buy or sell a house? or want to know how much your house is worth in today's market.. i'm the one who can help you. even if you live far away from me you can still help me make some money. give me an email or a call and tell me what you need. if you want an estimate i can do that, but if you want to buy or sell i can refer you to someone closer to you. in another state in massachusetts, whereever. that little phone call will usually get me 20% of that agents commission.. an easy way to make a few hundred bucks, and to make my life that much richer.. so please call or email me..i need some clients. i won't be too sad if you want to wiat a few weeks or a month or two, just don't forget about me and make me beg you for business again.

i'll be mailing out official announcement cards to the neighborhood.. and to a few other people as well..

and people who live on the hill in turner's should be expecting junk mail from me in the near future and every couple of months after that.. that's the main area where i'll be marketing myself. why not.

that is all

finally..

some great weather has arrived in the valley! this past week as been absolutely gorgeous.. perfect weather if you ask me. we had one day that was super humid, but some storms came through and solved that. and frankly one day of humidity is nothing. atleast it was only mid 70's-80 something degrees out, and not over a hundred and humid again. it seems like either everyone is bitching about the weather or no one b/c they're so happy that the weather has finally shaped up they don't dare say anything about the weather. similar to the winter when the weather finally breaks 35 degrees, it's like heaven. i've been caught driving down the highway with the windows down b/c the air feels so much warmer! it's the first sign spring is near... even if it does drop below zero again the next day, there's hope for warmer weather.

if anyone out east of worcester is wondering where weatherman todd gross has gone to after he randomly got fired form channel 5 or 7 which ever one he was at, he has migrated west to news 22 in springfield, and made a home here. last weekend we were watching the news and jay says.. "who the hell is that guy telling me the weather?" i said, "oh him? that's todd gross... he's from boston. he got fired from his last job and no one knew why.. must not've been able to find a job back east so he had to come out here. that's okay. he's pretty good" steve lacy, who's out in boston on channel 5 and we think we've spotted him on NECN as well. latoyia foster who's a reporter for NECN is from news 22 as well. it seems that there's a big switcharoo going on amongst the stations. i wish boston would take tom bevacqua from our area. he's dumb, looks terrible, and frankly i don't know many people that actually enjoy his weather forecasts.

i made my first round of zucchini bread the other day, and it came out well. i made 2 batches. i have enough mashed zucchini left to make atleast 4 more batches, and zucchini season is far from over! usually i make so much i sell it at the church bizarre.. why not. i can't eat it all, and one of the only other things that you can do giant zukes is to stuff them, which is super yummy. what you do is take your favorite stuffed pepper recipe, but put the meat mixture into a hollowed out zuke, cut in half lengthwise. talking about that just made me in the mood for galumpki's.. aka.. stuffed cabbage.. yum.

has anyone else bought from walmart's garden section, a hanging flower pot kit thing in a box? i bought 2 different butterfly garden ones with a gift card i got from my birthday, let me just say my birthday is in late may and they haven't done anything thus far.. well one of them sprouted, but never got further than that. i was disappointed. what a waste of money. so while i was working out in milton the other day i was talking with my clients about plants.. they run a greenhouse, and i told them about said hanging pots, and how they haven't done anthing, and we got talking on mint, and then she commented on how they did them in hanging pots, and they looked really nice. so i hacked away at my over grown mints today while evan was napping adn put some in said pots.. they look kinda meh right now, but thier thin.. gotta give them some time to fill out. jay said i should trim them so the stems are shorter.. hmm.. didn't think of that. it's not a bad idea, it'll force some growth for it to fill out. perhaps i'll do it in a couple of days. let the roots take and all that. i figure somehting in the pots is better than nothing in the pots, right?.

use common sense if you have a outdoor fire pit please...

i posted this on the forums, so some of you may have read this already, but it's very important that people use common sense.

please do not put combustables in it in this heat unles syou plan on starting the fire right then and there. yesterday (7/31) i was outside and noticed some smoke coming from my neighbor's firepit thing.. it's black and metal and a cylinder shape... i said to jason, "um.. the neighbor's firepit is smoldering and i don't think anyone is home." so jay said he'd be right out to look at it... and low and behold a fire was starting b/c they left some wood or some cardboard or something in there. jay knocked on the door to see if anyone was home while i got our hose ready. and by the time i got the hose over the fence flames were actually starting. no one was home, so we put it out with our hose. now that whole deck could've gone up in flames if we weren't there to put it out. all b/c they were careless and left shit in there. they keep their pit on the deck and usually it's okay but this time it was pushed into the corner very close to the railing. when they came home 10 mintues later i told them, and they said thanks. didn't seem to concerned, but whatever. an hour later it was smoking again, and his 8 year-old and i put out the fire b/c his dad didn't seem to care, and their hose didn't reach the deck, so we used ours agian..

please be very careful with these.


my husband and i wet it pretty good the first time, but the heat from the firepit cover and the outside temp got it cooking again about an hour later! it was very freaky, but the 8 year-old and i soaked it for a good solid 5 minutes. he took the cover off so he could wet it really good and it remained off for the rest of the day. today it's back on, and i hope it doesn't fire up again. teh flammable crap is still inside and it makes me nervous now. i told the 8 year-old that the heat caused what ever was in there to catch fire, and that they should keep that stuff in there is this weather. he said but they have no where else to put it, and i told him, that they could put it in a pile on the ground until they're able to supervise the fire. he did comment that that it never happened before in all the couple years that they've had it. i said that's probably true, but it also hasn't been this hot out and that it still not safe to keep combustables in there.

when i told his dad what happened his reply was, "you should've just let it burn...." and was trying to be funny when he continued with "you ruined my plan to burn the place down"... let me add that was refering to the amount of work they have to put into the place versus the amount of insurance money they'd probably get. it bothered me that he wasn't more concerned. do i sound like a safety nazi?

weird cravings here i come...

so unlike last pregnancy i have started to have cravings for food i wouldn't normally eat so much, or even at all. the past few days have been "foods that taste good in vinegar"... such as cukes, and today i had some carrots with vinegar...mmm... don't knock it.. i remember when i was very young my cousin vicki did it for me once b/c i refeused to eat the carrots... mind you this was at my aunt and uncle's (D &J's) old house.. i think i must've been three or four or something.. they haven't lived there in forever. i've always loved vinegar tho. and i'm been enjoying the balsalmic on the cukes... it's sweeter and is great alone on salads.

after dinner (which was the carrots) i had me some ice cream. and everyone who knows me, knows that i lvoe my vanilla ice cream.. yumm.. well i put chocolate on it... and those who know me well, know that i don't ever put chocolate on ice cream, and barely eat it on a normal basis. i defiled it, and it was yummy.

lookie:



my business cards came in! it's got my picture on it! the picture came out well... a friend of high school said it looks very similar to my senior picture. sort of i guess, but only now i'm grown up...

okay so it has my phone number on it... um... no harassing calls please.. but if you want me to sell your house give me a ring for i'm hardly ever in the office, and too poor for a cell phone. such is life.

our vacation in a couple of weeks has been cancelled. we were gonna go camping out in savoy SP but jay was reading the rules, adn it said that if you leave your site for more than 12 hours they reserve the right to give to someone else. well that's shitty.. we were planning on coming back to the house for one night to do laundry and so evan can spend a night at home... he gets anxiety when he's out of his bed for too long. so we cancelled that b/c we're like wtf? that's crazy. so we thought we'd go to the 'ham and spend some time at the beach... well it turns out our friend with whom we stay with is going to michigan to visit his mom... so now we're not doing that. so we're bummed, but in the end it's okay b/c we honestly don't have the money for a trip anyway.

that is all.. have a great night!

i can't seem to keep a good blogging schedule

it's either often or over a week..lol.. oh well. there's not much to report other than the fac it's been bloody hot and humid around here lately. they're saying heat wave. great. i can really do without, honestly. the evening was nice we went for a walk around the block with evan and then came inside b/c it was getting dark. the worst part about this god damn heat is that it's just too hot to go swimming unless you can go swimming in the shade or swim early in the day or in the night. the middle of the day i'm stuck inside. my pregnant self just can't handle this god damn heat. the worst part is that the a/c in my car is broken. it died at the very end of summer in 2004. it'll cost like $90 to fix or something, so needless to say it hasn't been done. luckily we've been able to carpool to work this past week, and this week in jay's car which still has working a/c! we've been using his car most of the time when it's bloody hot out b/c my car gets so freakin' stifling. days like this i really do love the a/c. it makes me wonder how they did it back in the day. i can't imagine.

i'm just thankful that i'm not in the mid-west right now.. it's well over 100 degrees out it. it just out of this world b/c north dakota and minnesota are some of THE coldest states in the lower 48 states, and now it's beginning to feel like the desert up there. no thanks. i go crazy enouh here with our crazy weather patterns.

work at century 21 seems to be going well. i'm in the process of looking at properties and haven't actually started office work yet on the phones. i should be getting my business cards tomorrow or tuesday i imagine. they'll have my picture on them. i'm excited. my first business card...lol..

other than the weather there's not much to report. life here has been the same, and no work around the house has been done b/c of the weather and us working. jay's been doing some seminars this past week.

time to put evan to bed so i'll catch you later.

i took some pictures yesterday

here's a link to them: PHOTOS

i didn't feel like uploading them to blogger to i uploaded them to my kodak account... check them out

oh yeah this too!

let's see if you can figure out my good news! here's a hint.. there's 2 things.

it's been a busy couple of weeks. i just noticed it's been awhile since i last posted, but oh well, that's what happens when your busy outside and palying and such. we put in a new floor in our back room. it's a WHOLE new room. the rug that was in here that was put in by a previous homeowner was just disgusting. granted we ground in a bunch of dirt into the cheap ass rug they put in, but the fact that their dog peed all over the rug by the door was disgusting in itself. that dog peed there so much, that it was soaked into the subfloor.. yuck. it was nauseating when we pulled up the rug, it was so gross. so we oil soaped it, which helped a bit, and then sprinked baby powder all over it and let it sit over night which helped a bunch but still not a hundred percent. so before we put down the new floor we put some gold bond over the spot again hoping that it would help. it seems to have. we put down some laminate wood floor we bought from ikea we picked up on our way home from the cape. it's sort of on the way home. i heart ikea.... altho we've learned form a friend to never ever go on the weekend. you have to go midweek, when most people are at work.

so not only did we do the floor we replaced the floor on our front porch. it needed to go. it had dry rot so bad that in some places the floor bounced a little and it was just broken at the end of the boards in front of the door. it just wasn't safe. and it looked like crap. it looks soooo much better now, and is wicked sturdy now. jay hurt himself while tearing out the floor. put a big gash in his stomach. poor guy. it stung pretty bad. the porch has been on their so long long that the nails used were the old cut style nails... nails like i've never seen before... i'm sure tremont nail makes them, or atleast used to seeing as how they shut down shop there. i injured my toe while screwing in a floorboard. it hurt. the drill bit slid off the screw and got my big toe just under the nail where it's tender... and it was fine after a while and then i go and run it over with the shoppign cart while at teh checkout... that hurt wicked bad and i was hobbling for the rest of the day. today it's pain free! yay!

and while at walmart jays glasses broke.. and broke beyond repair. they were like 5 years old anyway, and really needed to be replaced anyhow so he's at the eyedoctor's now. speaking of which i've got to go get him.

i'll try and post some pictures later of our handy work.. the only thing left on the honey-do list for this year is painting the porch railing b/c now that looks like crap with the new floor!

here comes peter cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail...

we're up to our ears in lettuce! we joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm this year. this means we bought shares inthe farm and paid a few hundred dollars for a seasons load of fresh veggies every week, and right now it's pretty much all lettuce and field greens.. and some strawberries, but mostly lettuce. we still have lettuce left over from last week and after getting this weeks share of "take all you want we have plenty" we made a couple pit stops to jay's family to unload the lettuce, some ginormous scallions and radishes to grandpa. they said b/c of the rain the lettuce won't stop growing... lol.. great. but it's great b/c it means we don't really have to buy any veggies for the rest of the season (until october!) unless we want something that's out of season. we bought a "full share" this year, which they say is enough to feed 2-3 adults or 2 vegetarians for the week. they also have a 1/2 share options, and a farmstand option where you can get discounts at the stand. it's well worth it. and we're hippies i guess... it's an organic farm too. in all honesty we were indifferent about organicness, but the closer CSA farm to us, never got back to us, so whatever, we lucked out.





it's been super muggy out here the past week with the sole exception of wednesday. weds was beautiful. what a great way to start the summer! i've determined that western mass is full of poo-poo heads.. but only for this reason: there's no where where you can swim for free in a body of water around here. so for that all the people that decided that you have to pay to park at all the places to go swimming.. you are all poo-poo heads! so there. there is one exception (pictured, beach not shown) that i know of, and that's puffer's pond in n. amherst by our old apt, only there is pretty much no parking for the pnd except along one side of a narrow road. when we lived in the apartments by there i used to walk to the north beach all the time. that was the nicer beach to me b/c it was never crowded, but there's no sand to play in up there so if i wanted to bring evan i'd have to go to the main super crowed beach so he could play in the sand. the greenfield swimming pool... which is actually the green river, costs money, and so does laurel lake and lake wyola.. atleast the latter ones belong to the state park system so once you buy a season pass you can go to any of the state parks with the pass. hopefully we'll be able to buy one soon, but we get paid bi-weekly and this is not a pay week, so we have to wait... again... but there's always hope.



and b/c of this, i miss the beach. (pictured is my old stomping grounds) i miss being able to cross the street and taking a dip when i felt like it b/c it was hot and/or sticky. i miss swimming across the drop b/c i could or to see friends b/c it was quicker to do that than to walk around over the stone bridge. i miss the best beach in town only available to residents.. however i do not miss the horsefylies we always had to flee from b/c mom's allergic.. nothing like a trip to the ER on fourth of july b/c of a fly bite just to be told to take some benadryl.. oh and i definatly not miss those mutant spider crabs.. yuck..

we bit the bullet

jason broke down and put int he air conditioners yesterday. we held out as long as we could.. personally i don't prefer them, but they sure do come in handy when it gets super muggy like it's been for the past couple of days. i'm not sure how hot it got today, but the past 2 days was above 90 degrees! and just a little bit ago, we got a blast of thunderstorms even with some hail. i looked at the radar after the storm and great barrington is getting clobbered... they always do. they saw tornadoes a few years back i guess. i don't remember when. we're still yet to go swimming. jay's grandparents' pool just opened today b/c they needed sand for the filter. and you need money to go any where to swim around here. we really need to get the pass for the state parks... we just haven't gotten there yet.

we're heading down cape this weekend to go to edaville railroad on sunday for thomas the train day. i hope evan has fun. i'm afraid that he'll be scared of the train upclose.. he has this things about screaming when anything too big gets too close. when you buy tickets for this shindig you get to pick a time to ride the train. we made a point to get an early morning ride so if it turns out the event stinks we can get out of there. that and evan does better in the morning. we gonna head down saturday night and then come back here tuesday morning. i don't have to work either of those days and jay is done with school!

I've finished yet another michael connelly book.. i've almost all of them, and he's written alot. i need to read Blood Work and i've got them all so far to date. he's coming out with a new one in the fall... i'm very excited. jay says i should read another author but i said that i will when i finish all of connelly's books. i'm almost done.

one of these days i'll get to taking some pictures and posting them up. i just havent' been taking pictures with all the rain we've had.

i'm curious who my kansas reader is... do i even know anyone in KS?

no witty title available yet. suck it up

i need to keep my blogging up.. i've been getting lazy. but at teh same time i dont' know what to write about half the time. whatever.. so you get me when i hve somehting to talk about. or when i get the chance.

so we had our mayoral elections yesterday, and our incumbent mayor won! thank god, b/c she was away better of a candidate than the challenger. let me jsut add that our mayor is the pick of the crop,b ut does deserve another chance to wrap some stuff up. she had a lot of crap to clean out of the town administration when she took office 3 years ago as our first mayor. and the challenger Athey just happened to be part of the cause for all the shit that forgey got. so that's that.

the weather here has finally gotten better.. we're supposed to be getting rain later, but frankly i han handle one night of rain in a week. rain is good,, just not in extremem excess... people seem to be less bitter this week. people are just relieved that the sun didn't blow up on us.

evan has been sleeping alot better the past couple months.. only instead of waking up and crawling intoour bed to finish sleeping.. he wakes up, wakes me up and goes back to his bed to fall back asleep... he likes to cuddle with me. it could be worse i guess... this morning he idn't come get me until about 6 am.. which is way better than 4 am.. and then it takes about 30 seconds for him to fall back asleep and then i can go downstairs or back to bed depending on what time it is.. he's like a little alarm clock.

our next task with the kid is potty training. he'll go pee on the toilet some of the time.. but the trick will be to convince him to do it all the time and when he has to go number 2 as well.. we plan on doing this over the summer... wish us luck.

oh.. a friend of mine is working on designing me a new template for my blog! woot woot! janelle rocks like that! b/c i need one pretty badly. my current one was a freebie from bloggertemplates.com... it works, i'm just bored with it. she also found out recently that she's pregnat! and i'm wicked excited for her!

i'm getting sick.. it's *possible* that it could be allergies, but i'm starting out teh way i normally do when i get a cold... grr..

enjoy the sun before it runs away again.. no go.. that's an order!

new career here i come..

i passed my real estate liscense exam yesterday! woohoo! so i'm offically able to sell houses and help buyers in MA... only now i have to locate an agency to join... i'm hoping to be able to work for the realtor we used to buy our house.. she was fantabulous!

anyone want to buy a house? i could use some clients soon.. Razz

You are a Social Liberal (71% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (25% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

the pictures i've been promising

here's the swingset we built earler in the spring.

and here's the sandbox we made the other day


here's our honeysuckle that our neighbor got for us from th woods a couple years ago. it's growing like mad!

here's the rose bush that came with the house. when we bought it, i don't think they ever trimmed it. it was like 8 ft tall! we made the trellis the other day too. the bush was getting out of control and it grows like a weed


here's the front garden i put in the first summer we moved in the house 2 years ago. i need some bushier stuff on the right... b/c we have clay soil stuff tends to die over the winter and spring b/c the soil gets all soaked. i doctored it up before i planted everything, but root rot happens i guess.

here's the garden i put in last year on the other sid eof the house. it's still very young as you can see. surprisingly all my mums i planted int he fall cam eback tho!
my gorgeous columbine, with the gnomes playing cards in teh background

it's begun...

the start of tourist season around new england. this means of higher than normal prices for just about everything. the main problem is dealing with all the out of staters that don't know how to drive through rotaries.. about an hour ago. for example, we got behine someone to stopped in the middle of thr rotary for no reason other than reading a sign, i think. ack... who the hell stops in the middle of a rotary when there's no real reason to.. they even braked for the oncoming traffic that was STOPPED at the yield sign.. what's the worst that happens if you miss your turn off? you just keep on driving around the circle it'll still be there when you go around again, and no one will probably nitice tht you've missed your turn.. just don't stop... you could cause an accident.

the weather here has made it feel like summer alright. high 80's the past few days and tomorrow they're saying 90's! oh dear lord. i remember when i used to go swimming this time of year and not think anything of the cold water. what was i thinking... what was my mom thinking?! it was like a ritual to be able to go swimming on my birthday, or around my birthday and often i would go swimming after school... boy do i miss living across the street from the beach.

we're having our town elections in a couple of weeks, and both candidates for mayor are less than desirable choices. i think i'm gonna vote for the mayor. she was handed alot of crap in her first term as teh very first mayor. i'll give her another chance simply b/c i do not want that man to be our mayor. i don't like the things he wants to do with the school system here. he also seems to think he's got all the answers to what the mayor did wrong, but i haven't heard any things about how he's gonna fund all these ideas. the one thing i'd like to see happen no matter who the next mayor is, is the town paying less for health insurance to help ease the budget. the town currently pays 90% of the cost of insurance for town employees. there's no reason why we can't lower that and have the employess pay more. i know i sound mean, but jay and a former collegue figured out that in Hadley, the town only pays about 50% of the cost of health insurance, and i'm pretty damn sure there's no other town in the area that pays that much.
i also wouldn't be opposed to a price hike in the town trash bags as long as the extra income goes solely to the schools. i'm not talking a huge hike, but an extra 25 cents per small bag (19 gal) and 50 cents for the big bag (33 gal). our town has a reputation for a poor school system, and is facing some serious layoff this coming year. stupid. the schools need more money. we need to improve our schools to keep kids in the district b/c we're spending too much money letting them choice out. we need to have them want to go to greenfield schools. it's bad enough they're closing teh school that evan would go to school at to make it an early childhood education center.. aka preschool.. but the opponent candidate wants to close another elementary school.. not the answer. with the closing of these schools, is he planning on still making sure parents bring their kids to school? b/c i would think that the town would have to do some busing, b/c these would not be living close enough to be within walking distance to any of the other schools. and to make parents have to drive their kids to school if they would otherwise be able to walk if the school was still open is unfair. has he thought of this? if it comes to that the town needs to close this other school the town should start busing. atleast for the kids by the fairgrounds.... then all those kids will have to be squeezed into the newton school, which is where the kids from our neighborhood would have to go, i think.. i'm just not happy about the idea of closing another elementary school. sorry about the rant. besides the opponent isn't anything nice to look at... he looks funny. i know it superficial, but it's true.

we've also been very crafty lately. we built evan a sandbox today while he was taking a nap. we used wood that used to be our kitchen shelves when we moved into our house... (there were no cabinets, just open shelves in teh pantry) we painted it and pput it together... all we need now is sand. lol. earlier in teh season we built a swingset. spent about $80 on wood and braces at home depot and built that when evan was sleeping too. my mother in law and her bf also put up a deck this past week and we helped them put it together. they had decking already from a deck that used to be up and then got taken down 7 years ago.

ok.. got to run.. the kid wants to ride his bike..

enjoy your (hopefully) long weekend!

need to kill some time?

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kid scared the crap out of us today

ok... evan is just too smart (and too strong)for us. we have a back yard and it's fenced in. it's gated and we've been locking it with a make-shift lock with a twisted up coat hanger. well today evan figured it out and went out of the backyard without us knowing long enough it make it to the end of the street. about 30 seconds after he went outside (and mind you we were in the room with the back door, so we were not far from teh gate by any means) we didn't hear him. jay (the husband) got up and said shit, he got out! ack! so he goes out the back door.. i go out the front door and he's calling for the kid. i look down and he's at the end of the street! ack.. our street is pretty quite but not where it meets the next street. and just for reference we're the second house in on the street so it wasn't really that far, but it was definatly too far for him to go without one of us. the neighbor on the other side of the street came out just a second before i was screaming to him to come back now. and jay carried swooped him up, and we brought him in and gave him a time out. we told him it was time out time and after his 2 minutes we told him what he did was very scary and why. we didn't yell, but talked to him about why it was wrong and very scary. we grounded him to no more playing outside for the rest of the day, and no kiddie videos for the evening.

so after dinner we went to home depot and picked us up some padlocks for the gates. if he gets these undone anytime soon, i'm gonna make him take the mensa exam.

btw... evan just turnd 2 1/2 two weeks ago.

we've also bought a chain for the back door so when we're inside he can't open the door... he's a wiz with door knobs, and our doorknobs don't fit in those kid proof things, so forget those...

what a crazy evening

stupid rain

i commented this on my mom's page, but it was long so i thought i'd post it as a post:

the flooding on the north shore is wild.. i saw it. the exit i get off of on 495 is on teh line of lawrence and north andover. route 114 in middleton completly flooded. the pictures and videos you see don't do it justice. i almost got myself lost trying to get to boxford b/c the main road to boxford from the highway was closed b/c the road was flooded in several places, and all the other roads i turned down were those friggin' cul-de-sacs.. god i hate those. why don't people build streets that connect anymore. it drives me crazy.. but i did eventually find my way only 5 minutes late to my appoinment... thankfully i left umass 15 minutes early in case there was traffic.. i never hit any... it was a miracle. then to get home i couldn't get on 495 south from my usual place b/c the water flooded the road under the highway to get to the ramp, so i had to hop on northbound and pop a u-ey (sp? lol) i went over teh river which i didn't realize was right there..oh my god.. it was crazy flooded on lawrence....

damn kids spreading germs..

that's right.. i'm damning kids. evan got sick from daycare last week adn edid up having a fever of 102 over the weekend. now he's got a nasty cough. it was a dry hoarse cough on monday when he didn't have a voice. and now it's all junky and he has coughing fits at night. i've got a bug now too. could be allergies i guess, but no fever yet. thank god, but i am taking drugs to help out the sinuses... i'll probably end up being lazy today because of it. drugs always make me tired. damn sudafed with benadryl.

so it's supposed to rain for the next couple days. you heard me right... days... it's not supposed to stop. they've given us a warning for flooding. great. not what we need, but hey we needed the rain. mother nature is bitch slapping us again. can't we just continue with the light rain off and on? maybe mother nature has become a drama queen of the past couple decades.

if bush was watcing our call lists from this house, not only would he be finished at looking at the outgoing call list in 5 minutes, but he'd be immensly bored. we dont' make that many outgoing calls. unless you count call to family, but i doubt that it would count as "terrorist activity" to worry about... maybe it would..hmmm

a bit of a snafu

some of you i hear are having problems getting to leave comments... i don't know what happened. it works fine for me and i use firefox. wheni opened teh page in IE, it was giving me crap and not finishing loading for some reason. i checked the page code, and it all looked fine. weird. not sure what to do to fix it... anybody else having issues like this?

the only thing i can suggest is to use a different browser other than IE...

life

the weather the past couple of days has been fantastic, and today i have off only by chance. i normally work on mondays but jay's grandmother had a doctor's appt so evan couldn't go. he also came down with some bug over the weekend like he normally does when he gets sick. only this time it was a high fever and chest congestion and most likely sore throut. poor kid.. today is much better, and he's taking a nap right now too! much better than yesterday. he was just plain miserable yesterday. with him being sick, he woke me up one of the nights when he was boiling up and i gave him medicine. we went downstairs watched a bit of bob the builder and threw on the ceiling fan to help cool him down. he fell asleep after an hour or so, but me? i was up until 6pm or so (he woke us up around 2) and man is there absolutely nothing on tv at that hour of the night. comedy central had infomercials for girls gone wild or something, and sadly there wasn't much else on that was better. i guess that's what we get for getting the $12 basic cable. at one point i did come across this show called "fine living and hideaways" where they profiled really expensive homes and spa hotels. to my surprise they profiled the onset pointe inn! it was quite interesting. they also showed a 2 second image of the cup of the bay coffee shop for good measure. that was saturday night, so i only ended up about 3-4 hours of sleep. surpringly i was up later than usual with no naps, and i wasn't even bitchy all day. :)

evan's been riding is bike like crazy! he just loves it. he's really good at it too. which everyone finds surprising b/c he's not even 2 1/2 yet.. in 2 days he'll be 2.5 tho! i guess that's really early to be pedalinga 2 wheeler.. even with training wheels. here's a little video of him.


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he's also taken a huge liking to playing tee ball! our neighbors are big baseball players so they have all the stuff. man did he not want to come home the other day. he pretty much just enjoys hitting the tee over.


Get this video and more at MySpace.com

there is his with a couple of the neighbors. he's getting so huge. the nurse weighed him at the dr's office today. lol... he weighs a whopping 36 lbs! he's so big compared to other kids his age. i notice it most when i go to playgroup. otherwise i'm so used to it, i don't notice. he's been over 3 ft tall since december.

the trees inour yard are full of leaves. other trees in the enighborhood we'll still waiting for to finish. still to go is the cottonwood in teh next yard over. damnt hing makes it look like it's snowing in the middle of summer. it "snows" these little puffy things like dandelion seeds all over the place, only the puffy thigns are about th size of pennies maybe nickels i can't recall. but last year we had so little rain we were kicking around about 6 inches of this crap before it finally rained and then my garden got contaminated with all the itty bitty trees/weeds that grew, and that was teh beginning of the end of my garden last year thanks to the weeds. i can only hope that it doesnt' happen again so bad this year.

i know i don't usually talk about politcal issues, but this whole immigration thing is getting outta control.
it's not like all these illegal immigrants came out of no where, all of a sudden. they've been here for a long time. the country was even founded by immigration. something needs to be done about getting these illegals to become legal and become better americans. if they don't want to be permanant citizens of this country then they need to get the proper visa. it's only fair to all of those who made the effort to live in this country the legal way. the exact solution? i don't know, but it needs to be done. and something needs to be done about el presidente de méxico, Vicente Fox. he needs to stop encouraging his people over the border to the north. he needs to make his country a desireable place for his people to live. or atleast a place that's liveable without an over abundance of poverty, and i imagine some famine in the poorest regions. and americans who hire immigrants need to pay them a liveable wage.
and a liveable wage these days is way higher than what it was even a year ago, simply b/c of the cost of fuel driving up the cost of living.. and that isn't just one place. the cost of living has skyrocketed everywhere, and it's not easy for anyone who doesn't own stock in a major oil company. somethign needs to be done and soon. too many people are living in poverty in this country who a legal citizens and for the past ump-teen years we as taxpayers have been footing the bill to keep these illegals on federal aid, such as welfare and food stamps. i believe a bill was passed that is not going to allow them to get this aid. it's sad when this country has to take people off of federal aid when they need it, but it's not fair for the citizens of this country to be paying for these illegals to be on the system. many of us are having a hard enough time supporting our own families.

and another point to be made.. if you're illegal looking for support from americans to keep you here, that's fine, but why aren't you waving american flags in your rally's. wouldn't that show us you have pride in our country,... that you want support? by waving your own nations flags, it gives me the impression that you're trying to take over the country and turn it into another méxico or whereever, even though i know that's no necessarily the case. you're just proud of who you are and where you come from. and i understand you came here for a better life and all that, but atleast become legal in some form.

ok.. different subject...

why is it that all of a sudden the gov't idiots in beantown are paying to teh needs of western mass in the way of road work. all the state roads and bridges that have deteriorated way to long over the years are get fixed... all at once, and it's obnoxious. route 2 is a disaster. i can't avoid it. between dropping off evan at daycare and driving further east for work, i'm hitting it everywhere. don't get me wrong. it needs to be done and i'm glad it's getting done, but why is it happening all at once?? it started last fall with the paving of 202 from Pelham to Orange and the paving of rt 23 in Otis, and then the work on widening route 2 from Orange to Templeton started.. and will be going for a while yet, and then there's that bypass on route 2 in Erving that is completely done, but not open b/c they have to drill a stinking well for the paper mill which could've been done months ago. and then there's the area of route 2 by the bowling alley that is gonna be a lenghty job as well. i found out from my daycare this morning they'll be lowering the highway to get rid of the blind spot, and then on 63 in Erving they're doing some work on the bridge by the river there again. i can't seem to avoid it.

i'm dreading the day they start on the gill-montague bridge.. traffic is gonna suuuuck! seeing as how the bridge on the other end of town isn't allowing trailor trucks over it b/c it's ready to fall down too, all the trailor trucks are going to have to exit over the canal st. bridge, and if anyone knows anything about that bridge it was not designed for trailor trucks. it as a tight 90 degree turn onto the side of the mountain on one side, and often people fly around that corner when you really can't go much over 20 unless you want to cream the oncoming traffic. so trailor trucks all the time exiting TF over the bridge there. not looking forward to it.

and of course that's not all the stupid road work that's going on, but that's all that gets in my way on a day-to-day basis.

i've got to run.. i'm at work. suppose i should be doing work or something.

don't worry ... i'm still here

hi all-- it was a busy week for us. jason had the week off from work for school vacation and he did a bunch of stuff around the house while i was at work and evan was at daycare. i even had to work an extra day to go to a meeting on worcester. so it's felt like a long week to me. the weather was fantastic though, minus the weekend which wa a wash... well needed, but a wash out.. in fact it's stlil washing out and it's monday. they say it'll stop, that the rain will turn scattered, but i don't know.

we turned a section of the driveway into a patio by moving the fence. we really wanted to make a patio with paving stones or a wood deck in that spot. but we're just too poor to do that. so we've got the driveway patio, which is fine until someday we can build a deck. for some reason one of teh previous homeowners decided he needed a driveway that could hold a convoy of about 10 cars on his little plot of land. last year we knocked off 8 feet of the driveway and we trapped 10ft intothe back yard and that still leaves us enough room for about 5 cars... 6 if they park on the grass. i don't know what they were thinking... perhaps they had parties all the time.

so i went to the rabies clinic and it went fine and not terribly long... the cat was suprisingly good too. she didn't bite! she bit a vet tech once a couple years ago, so now i warn them. our cat is prissy an ddoesn't like anyone touching her she doesn't know. so evan missed teh aprty next door... i'm not heartbroken... i wasn't at the clinic that long, but evan fell asleep while i was in there and he was in the car with jay. he didn't wake up till almost four, so that worked out perfect. on friday while we were planting stuff int eh garden, linda was bitching about having about 20 4-year olds at the house.. and all i could think was "you're the one who invited them all lady"...lol i bet she was annoyed that the party had to be inside b/c of the weather... anyone who'se been in a house around here, knows that accomodating that many kids isn't easy. no open floor plan houses here that's for sure. i must say that ray did a great job cleaning up the yard in anticipation of the kids having to play in it... part of me felt bad though when i only saw 3 or 4 cars at the house. linda said that she was gonna ask the parents to stay with the kids and that means there were only a couple kids there. oh well

crap i've got to run and wake up the undead... i mean the 2 year-old

i'm back from the dead

i feel like i haven't blogged in forever! but it's really only been a couple of weeks. i do often hav e afew minutes to check up on other people, and this past wedsday i felt like i needed to blog, but didn't have anything useful to report.

that is... until now...

first off... our pc is back! thank god. i sure did miss it.. not that the laptop wasn't good.. it was perfectly fine. but i found it to be so much more distracting to have that around the house b/c everytime i would walk into the kitchen to do, say the dishes, i would think.. oooh... i'll just check my email... next thing i know it's been an hour. some of you are probabley thinking... "why didn't you just put it on your computer desk?" well, we don't have a flat panel monitor, so there's just no room for it.lol some day we'll have one! (i hope)

we ended up bringing our pc to the computer fix-it place on campus to see what they said was wrong with the stupid thing.. theysaid it was teh motherboard.. what?! it was brand new.. so we sent the motherboard back to the manufacturer, and they sent us a new one.. and now our pc is super happy! :) only we have to reinstall everything first.

also i'd like to report that the grass in the backyard has sprouted.... this is exciting news b/c we weren't sure if the frost this past week killed the grass seed.. apparantly not! we've had nothing but trouble trying to get grass to grow after the knocked down the ginormous shed that looked hideous the summer after we bought the house. so we seeded a couple weeks ago when i twas super nice thinking we were safe... we limed and put down fertilizer.. we tilled the soil to loosen it up see as how we have mostly clay soil here in gfield.

i've gotta clean up the house for this weekend.. but in all honesty i'm sick of cleaning. i've been doing allt he cleaning and laundry for the past couple weeks.. sure jason works full-time and i don't.. well who said taking care of a young child isn't work... i only work out of the house 3 days a week. so my guess is that he expects me to do most of the cleaning b/c i'm "home"... even though he knows that when i'm "home" with my son.. i'm often not home.. running errands, going to playgroup and playdates and what not.. then we come home and he wants to play outside, or we go inside for lunch and i put him down for a nap.. but that's often not until 1pm or later.. and then jays home at 3:00 usually.. so where is "all this time" i had while i was home.. whatever i'm just ranting now.. it's not like he gets angry over the mess i don't clean up... but it would be nice if he could clean up some... and he will.. and then i won't do any of the cleaning for a couple weeks b/c he's doing it, and then he gets annoyed..lol.. it's this unintentinal cycle that happens with us..

on a different note..

here's something i got from email.. and if you live in MASS you'll love it.. and if your from out-of-state, consider yourself warned:




1. A right lane construction closure is just a game to see how many people can cut in line by passing you on the right as you sit in the left lane waiting for the same drivers to squeeze their way back in before hitting the orange construction barrels.

2. Turn signals will give away your next move. A real Massachusetts driver never uses them. Use of them in Boston may be illegal.

3. Under no circumstances should you leave a safe distance between you and the car in front of you, or the space will be filled in by somebody else putting you in an even more dangerous situation.

4. Crossing two or more lanes in a single lane-change is considered "going with the flow."

5. The faster you drive through a red light, the smaller the chance you have of getting hit.

6. Never get in the way of an older car that needs extensive bodywork. Massachusetts is a no-fault insurance state and the other driver has nothing to lose.

7. Braking is to be done as hard and late as possible to ensure that your ABS kicks in, giving a nice, relaxing foot massage as the brake pedal pulsates. For those of you without ABS, it's a chance to stretch your legs.

8. Construction signs warn you about road closures immediately after you pass the last exit before the backup.

10. Never pass on the left when you can pass on the right.

11. Speed limits are arbitrary figures, given only as suggestions and are apparently not enforceable during rush hour.

12. Just because you're in the left lane and have no room to speed up or move over doesn't mean that a Mass driver flashing his high beams behind you doesn't think he can go faster in your spot.

18. It is traditional in Massachusetts to honk your horn at cars that don't move the instant the light changes.

19. Seeking eye contact with another driver revokes your right of way, except in Boston where it acts as an invitation to duel or play chicken.

21. Remember that the goal of every Massachusetts driver is to get there first, by whatever means necessary.

22. Real Massachusetts female drivers can put on pantyhose, apply eye makeup and balance the checkbook at seventy-five miles per hour during a snowstorm in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

23. Real Massachusetts male drivers can remove pantyhose and a bra at seventy-five miles per hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic during daylight hours (who would want to at night?).

24. Heavy snow, ice, fog, and rain are no reasons to change any of the previously listed rules. These weather conditions are God's way of ensuring a natural selection process for body shops, junkyards, and new vehicle sales.

By the way: Don't ask what happened to numbers 9, 13-17, or 20 (they have been consumed by the Big Dig)...

we just got bitch-slapped by mother nature

just when you think spring is here for good, and winter is down the shitter until november, we got snow... last week was absolutely gorgeous! sunny warm in the 70's it was pretty much perfect except for the lack of rain... march was the drieston record for almost a hundred years. we're getting rain this week, which is fine, great in fact- we're trying ot grow grass (again). and then it goes and snows yesterday. WTF! thankfully gfield isn't getting the snow this morning that the rest of the valley is.. they've got about an inch and upto 3 inches in the mountains... ha ha suckers...

why does mother nature have to do this to us? atleast it wasn't a blizzard like that one back in '97 on april fools day. mom and i built a snowman that was taller than us... (but we're not that tall.. i max out at 5'5.5") but it was alot of snow to say the least. but i digress. can't our new england weather make sense... just once during a season change over... i don't think that's asking too much.

so the time changed this past weekend, and for the first time that i can remember we forgot to change our clocks.. oops.. we slept through church. well not entirely, but church was already a 1/2 hour in, when we realized what happened. lol... it was bound to happen to someone. i just hope evan adjusts with the time this spring. last spring he didn't.. no matter how hard i tried to shift his sleeping an hour, it didn't work and he jsut did everything later. i just have to make sure he keep getting up when he needs to in the morning, and not let him sleep in too long. i wake him up at 7. we leave at 7:30 when i have to work. today i don't have to work. i'm spoiled and only go to work 3 days a week. but many of your are parents and know that when your home with the kids,that too, is work. and as T pointed out the hubbies don't often realize that they should pitch in with the chores without be asked. so there's all that stuff too that they expect to be done. although my husband realizes that i get done what i can and only expects a super clean house when we're having company... :) i've almost perfected teh whirlwind cleaning job... the only problem is the computer sitting on the table that gets my attention whenever i walk into the kitchen... someday our pc will be fixed and the puter station will no longer be the kitchen table.
the hard part is trying to clean the house when evan wants to go outside and play. he's not old enough to let him out to play on his own so i have to go out too.

aww man, i spoke too soon.. it's snowing... i see flurries! ugh... that's new england for you.

my 1 complaint

about blogger...

i have it set to email me when people post comments. but it never does... wait... it does but only for one specific person. so i often find myself having to look a tmy own page to see if people comment. it's always done this to me... very bizarre, but annoying. and if you comment on an older post there's a very good chance i'll never see it b/c of that stupid problem...

what's your beef with blogger?

too funny

evan's favorite food right now is the fluffernutter! he gets so excited he starts jumping up and down... he can't have enough! lol

Hometown characters

i've been meaning to post this for a little while now, but my brain failed me once again, and i forgot about it until yesterday, until i saw the "bag lady"....

around here we have the "bag lady". she's a woman probably in her 40's or 50's who does nothing other than ride her bike all over Gfield and neighboring TF. she carries on said bike grocery bags full of plastic grocery bags, her bike is wrapped up in grocery bags, and it even looks like she's wrapped up in them too... altho it coul dbe one of those tyvek (house wrap) style warm-up suits held together with duck tape. i've never had a conversation with this woman, and i've never actually seen her not riding her bike. but she makes me curious none the less. she's a smart biker and stays on the side of the road...

which reminds me of growing up in the 'Ham. there he was good ol' "crazy walter". i wonder if he's still around. he too would always be on his bike looking up into the sky. he wasn't all there, and from what i understand was a resident at the home for people with mental issues. i remember one particular incedent with walter. every saturday mom and i would go to the laundrymat over by the A&P (now cvs) and the mr.donut (now DD)and while the clothes were in the wash we woul dhead over and treat ourselves to donuts... christine never got any b/c she never came... she was mean back then.. but i digress... crazy walter had come in, and i ran to the bathroom quick and upon my return and sitting back down someone noticed, it could've been me for all i know, that the trashcan (behind mom and i) was smoking... i dont' remember much after that, but i do recall that walter was at blame for disposing his cigarette in the trash. i can't remember if he was nice or mean, but he was always hanging out outside the laundrymat staring inside... looking at the people. it was kinda freaky but we were used to it... it's all he did for years.

we also has "eddie mumbles". he walked... and in the winter had a purple coat... quite amusing. anyhow. he got his name b/c it was very hard to understand this man when he spoke... he mumbled.. it was bad. there were rumors that if you gave him some money he would talk normal for you, but i never gave him money. this guy was mean. he would often roam around uptown, and myself also powered by my feet and no car would often see him on the street. i was outside the post office once, and he said something mean to me.. that's is no more nice erica. i don't remember much of that altercation. but i do remember once on my way to school when i was about 12 or so, he spit on the bus. we were making the left onto minot ave, and he was standing on one of the island in the middle of the road, and he spit on us... and that was the excitment for the rest of the day, if not longer. it was one of those things that went into the memory hall of fame... like when our bus driver sally hit that car turning onto onset ave... it may have been her fault but in her defense, people are always wizzing by and it's hard to see if anyone's coming. (east blvd & onset ave). but then again she was known by everyone that she was very fond of her friend, the bottle.

what kind of characters do you have roaming the streets where you live? or if your familiar with any of mine you can talk about them. whatever. i'm not picky