Happy Saturday!!

It's Saturday which means we survived another school/work week and made it through the evil Friday the 13th. I'm not particularly superstitious so I wasn't really worried about that. The week was really long for DH and feel bad for him about that. All the changes at work have made him really busy and he was at work early every day, and home late 4 out of the 5. He is even back there this morning making a delivery, but at least he will get mileage for that. On a bright note G had his very first spelling test ever and got 100% on it. Both of my boys seem to be good spellers!!!

I'm very happy that I was able to order G's birthday gift this morning on Ebay. He really wanted both Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Lego Star Wars 2 for our PS 2. Both are relatively newer games so they have a hefty price tag, or at least from what I've seen. I browsed Ebay this morning hoping to maybe catch a deal and I did. I found a seller who was selling both games, supposedly unused, for cheap. The catch is no cases for the games but do include the manuals. My first thought was bootleg copies but they are a HUGE company selling all kinds of things. They had a high approval rating and I figured if they were that big, sold that much product, and were boot legging they would have been caught so I bought both games. G will never miss the cases I'm sure and he will be thrilled to have them both. WE just need to but a new controller for the system and he will be all set for his birthday. I know I have a month to go but I feel greatly relieved that this is taken care of so I don't have to worry about it. Of course this means we have to move buying Halloween costumes back one week but that's Ok, this is taken care of.

I'm a little annoyed this morning at my BIL. This will probably make no sense to other people but it's lodge stuff. He has been master *all* year long and hasn't done a darn thing, nothing, nada, zippo, nothing. You can barely get him on the phone when people call and it's not just other lodge members, but DH too!! He finally did a monthly newsletter(only his second for his year) and DH was waiting to hear on corrections from him, for 4 DAYS, before he could finally get them printed. Now we have to fold and address and mail them all(but this is part of my part time job so that's fine).

It seems that he has finally now realized "Hey, I haven't done a thing and my year is almost over, how much can I jam into my last month and half" and he has planned a lot. First there is a fund raising dinner on the 4th. I'm all for fundraising, it's a good cause for a local returning vet who now has a rare form of cancer. Great!! But you only gave us 3 weeks to plan it, you put it on the Saturday *before* the monthly Lodge breakfast which means we get to give up both a Saturday and a Sunday that week. Not to mention that the breakfast would have been an awesome way to market the fundraising dinner. We get a lot of non-mason seniors at our breakfast who would probably come to a type of dinner like this.

Then there is Sunday Nov 12 which is G's birthday. G was very excited that his birthday fell on a weekend this year because now he can have his party on the *actual* day. Instead DH will be at the lodge for another function for a fellow lodge member...Not even one we like that much and who isn't around that much but he is a big deal in the Shrine so we get to throw a cocktail/dinner for him as well. I told DH straight up I'm not going to that and I will move G's party to the day before but it's still frustrating.

Of course there is a whole host of other problems with DH's brother and his wife who have all of a sudden decided not to talk to the rest of the family. I"m not sure what the deal is but the no longer show up for any family functions, don't call, and instead Dh gets handed a gift, usually at hockey, for DH to then give out. I was really upset when they did the same the ing for DH's mom's birthday in September. I'm sick of being their "message" person because then I get the third degree about where are they etc. I was also disappointed, as well as was D, that they didn't show up for his birthday(I didn't expect them too) or even CALL to make an excuse. They sent a gift, which I then didn't' send a thank you card for like I had in years past. If they can't be a little polite then neither can I.

It's just a mess when the family and lodge stuff and feelings merge. I'm glad his year is almost up!!

Wow!! Has it really been that long?

I can't believe how long it's been since I've written here. In some ways it seems like just yesterday and at other times it seems like it's been much longer. I'd like to say I've been off doing fun things but sadly that has not been the case. Things aren't horrible but they haven't been great. So let's see if I can do a relatively quick update.

Me- I've been sick. First I had some problems with my heart. It sounds scary but it turned out to be a very minor irregular heartbeat. It's something I've had on/off most of my life but it reached a point where it was happening a lot and troublesome in ways. I got a clean bill of health but am on a daily a beta blocker. I have stopped all caffeine and alcohol. I'm also working on lowering my stress and walking every day. They have helped, as well as just knowing it's not something serious.

After that D brought home a very interesting virus from school. He had it, was sick a few days and then I got it, and was flat on my back for 5 days. 3 of those days I had a pretty steady fever often over 102 even with Motrin. After the fever broke I had a stuffy nose, sore throat, ear ache, and cough, only I had them one at a time. It took a good 8-9 days to really feel better and what seemed like 2 weeks to get the house back in order. Then of course G had it, then DH, then Steph. All of us are better now but it made for a not so fun couple of weeks with someone under the weather.

D- He turned 9 in early September. He *loved* his bike as well as the bike lock we bought to go with it. Steph bought him a computer for the bike that logs his miles and speed etc. He loves it. He is off to a so-so start to school. I really like his teacher and have only heard good things about her from other parents and other teachers so that is good. His reading and spelling are excellent. They've had 5 spelling tests, and he has had 5 100%. He is learning cursive and is doing really well with it, even with being a lefty. I'm so glad that DH is here to help him with that. He can teach him a few tricks that me as a righty don't know. His math is a little slow. He can do it, just not as fast as they would like. He freezes up and thinks he can't do it, but the can. They are now learning multiplication tables and we are trying to convince him it's not much different than learning spelling words and I hope that it helps. We still struggle in the morning to get him out the door since he doesn't want to go most mornings and that makes it hard for me. I'm hoping it will smooth out but we are into month two of school and so far it hasn't. I don't think he will ever love school, but I wish he was a tad more excited about it.

G- he is off to an excellent start to school. I thought he would have a problem with staying all day but he loves lunch and lunch recess so it's been pretty easy for him. Unlike his brother he loves math and says it's his favorite part of the day. I have no problem getting him up and out the door in the morning which is nice!!

Isis- she is just *nuts*. I can't believe I ever worried about her not being much of a playing cat because she is all over the place all the time. Anything is a toy, anyone is a toy, and the only time she doesn't want to play is when she when she falls in an exhausted heap some where. Its made me appreciate how well behaved my other cats had been since Isis has zero manners. We are slowly trying to teach them to her but she seems a bit resistant to learning. She has stolen a pair of Steph's earrings and stolen several bobby pins and hair bands from me. She doesn't just like to knock things on the floor, but likes to carry them away to play with them so finding the missing things has been tricky. Her and the dog are so funny together and I think the dog is enjoing her as much as we are. WE have to be really careful because Isis is always going for the door. NOne of our other cats had much interest in the outside world so it's hard to train ourselves to watch for her darting out the door. I'm assuming as it gets colder and the snow starts to fly, that will stop, but with Isis, who knows!!

DH-Dh is doing good. He has been incredibly busy at work. Most mornings he is out the door by 6am which is frustrating, leaving me with D on my own, not to mention that as a salaried employee he isn't getting paid for it. They are making a lot of changes at his office, updating equipment, they have hired an General Manager and are getting ready to get a new bigger press. All a good signs of things to come but for now he is working too hard for what he is making but he is optimistic and he likes it so I'm trying to be supportive. Fall hockey season has started and he was so excited to have scored his first goal and the team is doing well.

In the last month I have taken up knitting. I'm not very good at it and can't do much more than a garter stitch but I have made 2 hats and 3 scarves. I found it really relaxing and it was nice to start and finish something in a weekend.

I've been doing very little, if any stitching. I've been trying too but I seem to find a million things to do instead of stitching. I did drag out a project and got some progress made but it seems every time I think about stitching I then think about all the stash I have and all the projects I *should* be stitching on and I just feel overwhelmed and don't stitch at all. I'm just waiting it out and I'm sure the urge will come back soon.

So I think that is most of what I've been up to. There was a camping trip in there too that I should mention. We got caught in a horrible wind storm and poor DH and the G got trapped in their tent. It was so windy it knocked the tent over and moved it about 20 feet. It was pretty scary. I'm incredibly grateful for the couple in the camper next to us who took us in after the tent blew away. I thought we were going to have to spend the night sitting in the car, worried about a branch falling on us, instead we were warm cozy and safe in a very nice camper. I think it will a LONG time before we go camping again!!

I'm way behind on everything. This is the longest I've been at the computer in weeks!!