It's been a month!!

Wow! A whole month without a blog entry. My life is really that boring that there hasn't been anything that exciting to report. Let's see if I can think of a few things recently:

D is still doing excellent in school. He got another 24 out of 24 right on a spelling test this week. He also got the highest score in his class on a story he had to write. It was graded not only on content but grammar and all that. It was graded on a scale of 1-4, he got a 4, only one of two she gave. The teacher said this would normally have been a 4th grade assignment a few years ago. He was struggling with math but I think he has finally started to "get" it more. It's not as easy to him as spelling so he doesn't think he can do it. We have started to seem some fractions and multiplication tables I hate math!!

G is doing well too. I spoke with the speech therapist and while he has made a lot of progress, there are still a few area's that he will need to work on again next year so he will see her 2-X a week all of next year too. She said that he is very sweet, very moral, and very competitive. All things I knew! I also ran across the reading teacher(she has a big fancy title but I can't remember it). She reads with all the kids to see how they are doing and seeing who may need help. G she said is doing really well, in fact is reading above the Kindergarten level and she feels with a bit of coaching he could easily be at the 1st grade level in no time. She also said that if he can't do it perfect, or has to struggle at all, he gets upset. She said he is quite the charmer as well.

Dh is still having a blast with hockey. The won over the weekend 5-0 and he was so thrilled when he came home. He said that while it really shouldn't matter whether you win or lose, winning is a *lot* better. His team is now in second place and he printed out the standings and put them on the fridge with all the boys papers from school! I got to go see a game last weekend that ended in a tie but it was a really well played game. His skills have come a really long way. I still get somewhat annoyed with the amount of time he is gone but he is having such a great time doing it that it's hard to stay mad for long. They will have a bit of a break this week with the Memorial Day Holiday so he will be home almost every night this week(they might try to squeeze in a practice over the weekend but aren't sure). The end of the season is drawing near and I know he is looking for a way to fund the summer season

The coming Saturday is my birthday(yuck) and I got my birthday present on Thursday the 18th. Dh got me tickets to see Jason Mraz when he was here in the Detroit area(about 3 miles from my house). Yes, I know I said that I was mad at him BUT he broke up with his girlfriend, is back to posting quirky journal entries and finally came to *my* town. I had to see him!! The tickets were General Admission which I was concerned about but I have to say for a younger audience they were well behaved. DH and I found a railing where we could sit, and then stand during the concert. It was a lot closer seating wise than the other two times I saw him so maybe GA wasn't so bad! I felt a little funny at first, standing in line, because he draws such a young audience. The only people our age were some kids parents. Still once we got inside being the oldest person had it's advantages....no line at the bar, ever!!! We had a few beers, DH surprised me with a concert t-shirt, and the concert was AMAZING!!! I'm not just saying it because I'm a total fan but because he kicked butt at the show. It was the best show out of the 3 I've seen. I was worried that it was going to be all his crappy songs from his new CD but he opened the show with two acoustical numbers, and oldies at that. He did play a few from the CD but the songs I liked, thankfully no Wordplay(may we never hear that again). He did sing "You and I both" which is fine because it's "our" song, the song he was singing when I discovered his greatness, and yes, "The Remedy", but he mixed it up. The first verse he sang straight, the second in French, then he did a really funny bit about being a rock star and how we should all "rock" in our daily lives, being the best people we can be. I could go on forever on how awesome the show was but I won't. It was fun to let go, feel the music, dance a little, sing a little, cheer really loud and just soak up his positive vibes/energy. It was also great it was so close to the house because it meant we were home by 11pm. Frankly it took longer to get out of the parking garage then it took to get home.

I was thrilled last night to discover that someone taped this particular concert(Jason allows taping of all his live shows). The quality is not the greatest since it was just some guy in the audience but it was fun to kind of relive the moments on my own computer. I'm bummed that I didn't take my camera and don't have any pictures. The last two venues were really strict about not allowing them, even though Jason states he allows that too, so I left mine at home. I haven't seen any pop up on the fan board as of yet, but maybe soon. He looked good!! Kind of scruffy but he's been on the road a long time so it was to be expected.

I may drop out of sight again for awhile. We are going through a bit of an upheaval here at home and I suspect it will be a busy couple of weeks. It's a long story, and frankly, I talked about it somewhere else and got a huge amount of crap for it, and I don't want to again. It has caused us to have to shuffle our computers around and at the moment we are down to one computer instead of our usual 3. My computer time is pretty spotty since it seems like every time I sit down someone else needs to use it, so a lot of the time lately I just don't bother. I'm hoping in a couple of weeks we will have decided on the spots for them so we will at least have two back online. Of course I'm getting a lot of cleaning and stitching done so maybe it's not so bad only having one system going at the moment.

Speaking of cleaning I have to talk about an amazing achievement in our house. We bought our house from people we knew(never do that by the way, it sucks) and the people left behind an ASTOUNDING amount of stuff in the house and in the 3 car garage . We slowly but surely over the 9 years we have lived here got their stuff gone from the inside of the house, but the garage, well, it was never a priority. We added to their stuff, a few other people stored some things in it as well since it was so huge and before you knew it, it was packed. In 9 years we've never parked one of our cars in there(a friend did once for a weekend), and we've had several dead cars in there as well, but not any of our cars. Part of the upheaval in our house requires storage space in the garage and someone came to help us accomplish that. We rented a 10 yard roll off dumpster that was delivered to our house on a Monday morning. Monday at 5pm we started cleaning, and by 8pm the dumpster was FULL and the garage was clean. I'm not just talking a little clean, I mean, swept free of dust and so amazingly clean. We cleared out the rafters and except for a china cabinet and a desk, everything was pitched. The dumpster was not our idea, but a a friends, and they paid for it, and what an idea it was. If we ever move from here, I'd order another one in a heartbeat. The drop it off, in one week pick it up, and except for a few rules like no toxic waste or concrete, you can pitch whatever you want in it. The garage is now more clean than we've ever seen it!!! Here is the dumpster before the picked it up:



and one of the 3 bays of our garage:


I've been stitching a fair amount. I'm down to maybe 3 colors on the dress of "Forest Goddess" and her head, face, and arms to go and I'll be done. It's now time to start thinking about beads. Someone is kind enough to send me what they have left from their project. On Saturday, as a birthday treat, I think I'm going to head to the bead store and see about making some substitutions. I'm not sure if I'm going to use all Delica's because there is a pony/pebble bead in the piece and it's a very different shape from a Delica. Delica does make larger sizes but not a lot of color choices, so I'm not sure if a what the two different shaped beads on the same piece. I'm willing to use any kind of seed bead that is not a Mill Hill so I should be able to come up with something.

I did finish an ornament early in May so I'm doing good with that:


I can't remember it's name(Christmas Tree Sampler, I think). It's a freebie for Rainbow Gallery, designed by Erica Michaels, and I bought it as a kit so it had all the specialty threads for it. I started and completed it in a day.

and just because, here are picture of the boys in their hockey jerseys that are just like Dad's. Their Aunt and Uncle bought them for the boys:



And this past Saturday(the 20th) Dh and I celebrated the 18th anniversary of our first date. We didn't do anything special really but it's quite a milestone. I can honestly say that after all this time he still makes my heart flutter and my toes curl, just like he did on that first night. This coming August will be 17 years of marriage so we must be doing something right.

See when I wait a month to post, I sound like I actually have a life.