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Wednesday, December 07, 2005

And Here I Am Once Again

The last couple of days have been uneventful and a little crazy at the same time. By the time I sat down to write, my brain had already called it a night.

We've been working on a local environmental project lately and I spent a good part of the last couple days between emails and the phone with that. I had boring errands to run, homework to supervise, and blogger was down more often than not.

Today was somewhat calmer. I took Tim to work early this morning.. His out-of-town friend was going to meet him there after work and has too small a car for the bike. I went from there to do a little more with Christmas. Picked up three identical watches for the girls; all purple of course. Bought gift boxes, tape, and some wrapping paper and tags. Wrapping is not one of my strong points. My mom used to make beautiful packages out of the oddest shapes. I can handle a present in the shape of a rectangle; anything else goes into a box and becomes a rectangle. The girls are much too busy ripping off the wrapping to notice. Their Christmas stockings are still hung by the chimney with care but they are for decoration. We fill a Christmas bag with stocking stuffers and goodies for all three. I make up for my decorating ineptness with cooking and good will.

While I was at it, I picked up a couple pair of sweat pants for myself. It's been chilly and clammy here even though the temperature hasn't dropped too much. I needed something a little warmer than jeans.

Elcie's choir practice was moved to Wednesday and an hour earlier. Much better time for us. She's almost recovered from her sore throat and Rochelle's head is fine. Rebecca fell and scraped her ankle. She's always in a hurry and she doesn't always watch what's in front of her.

Rochelle and I met Tim, his friend, and Jim & wife at Barnes & Noble for coffee. Rochelle is at the car door every time the keys jingle. I told her she reminded me of a Labrador. She doesn't even ask where I'm going. I don't always take her along but she's my most frequent passenger.

She spent much of the time at B&N windowshopping through the books. My "learning disabled" child can't get enough of reading. She feasted on a strawberry drink and a piece of chocolate raspberry cheescake.

Do you remember the famous restaurant scene in "When Harry Met Sally"? Sometimes Rochelle eating something new puts me in mind of that. Pure rapture only hers is not an act. "I'll have what she's having".

Rebecca and I wasted a couple of hours on math and left 4 questions unanswered. She didn't understand much of it but if they stay with this same chapter she'll get it eventually. Decimals now instead of fractions. I was trying to explain that they are different ways of saying the same thing but she was too tired to take it in. I'll try again tomorrow with examples.

I have the latest Sue Grafton, "S is for Silent" (borrowed). If I like it, I'll pick it up eventually. Or course I'll like it. I have everything from "A is for Alibi" straight through "R is for Ricochet". I wonder what she'll do when she gets to Z (Zed to many of you).

I'm fond of many of the women mystery writers. I'm so serious so much of the time. It's fun to escape for a while with something that doesn't require a lot of thought.

Picked up "Madagascar" for the girls and am about to start on "Am I Blue", also borrowed.

We received our first Christmas gift today; goodies from the United Kingdom. Teas, biscuits, chocolate, and other tasty morsels. I was trying hard to unwrap it carefully. Rebecca finally lost patience and said "I can do it". She did - with one big rip. A good time was had by all.

It was the first package the girls have received from outside the USA. They saved the return address to show off to their friends.

Elcie was up briefly; just returned to bed.

Carol's chemo is on hold for a week. Her white cell count was down, they gave her shots to bring it up, and for the last couple of days she was in pain from the shots. They gave her a shot for the pain. She's having some side effects from the chemo that no one expected as well. Today was better for her.

It's after 11:00 p.m. which is not late for me but I'm a little tired. I think I'll put a load of clothes in the dryer and call it a night.

10 comments:

lindsaylobe said...

Hi Ann,

Sounds like you had a busy day. For someone who's retired it seems to me you're working a 14 hour day! Thanks for the photo of your uncle and his instruments. Do you stil play guitar? My daughter is a singer/songwriter and plays the popular "Maton" Australian hand made guitar. See her website www.rachaelbyrnes.blogspot.com you can download 2 of her songs if you're interested. I decided to send you a booklet with a number of Australian Christmas carols (including those on my blog) as a Christmas present. You're first from Australia I guess? Best wishes.

lindsaylobe said...

PS: I noticed you don't have any links on your blog. Is that intentional? It took me a while to work out how to put links up on my template. Here are the instructions my daughter gave me if that helps. Maybe you know already but here it is in case:

Go to template and scroll down through the html code until you find a heading that says "links" you will see a google website and then something like "google news" or "edit me" next to it. This is the area where you can change your links.

To create a link you need to replace the website between the " " and put the site of your choice there. Then in between the > < put the title of the site or what you want to appear on your blog as the link.

Hope this makes sense. Feel free to email me with any questions.

By the way I have put a link from my site to yours.

Madcap said...

You like female mystery writers? I'm not a true-blue mystery fan, but I LOVE Ellis Peters and her Brother Cadfael mysteries.

You're a busy lady, Ann! I've never managed pretty presents either, but I'm a dab hand at snazzy birthday cakes! We all have our specialties, I guess.

Gawdessness said...

This is a quick comment and hopefully more from me later but it is errands and nose to the grindstone for me today!

Money, cold hard cash was the best manipulative for me when it came to understanding decimals and fractions as being two different ways of looking at the same thing.

grannyfiddler said...

my accounting program at work is frozen up, and i'm now a disabled person. it's like i've lost a limb. and the problem is at the corporate server, 500 miles away... helpless, helpless, he - elpless... so i went to your blog for solace. family stuff is so much more pleasant than corporate stuff.

but i see it's up and running again,so must hit the fast lane again.

thanks for the stress relief... it was like a cuppa tea between grannies.

Rachael Byrnes said...

Hi Granny,

Thanks for your comment on my blog. No probs to link your blog to mine. I'll do the same!

Andrea said...

Hi there granny,
Ill add Rachael for you.

Writers- I LOVE Ian Rankin, he is ascottish mystery writter and he is great. I think I have the whole collection now. I even got my dad hooked on him. Brilliant.

Santa - I have a huge family and end up doing three days of christmas. We usually end up openingo our presents on Christmas eve due to other family obligations. Well santa has not arrived yet so we always get little From santa type presents but they are from our dogs, cats ,and horses.

The Rainbow Zebra said...

Rochelle and I would get along well, I enjoy food like that too LOL (And ooh chocolate raspberry, one of my favorite combinations)

Anonymous said...

If you really want to go warm on your legs, Granny Ann, how about felt/fleece trousers? You know, like they use for fleeces.
...Is that how you spell fleeces?? I'm terrible at spelling. Rely on my spell check. Even did a course to try and improve it. I did. I now know how to spell 'leisure' all by myself without looking it up. Yay me. :-)
Anyhow; I've got a pair, and they are brilliantly warm. I got them for £1 at an Autumn Fair (washed them a few times before I wore them though!) so I don't know how much they'd be but they are wonderful if they're affordable. Comfortable too.
Only one problem. Do NOT wear them when you want to look your best. They are the single most unflattering thing to wear around your tummy/arse region on the face of the earth. When I put them on I look really good; for someone who is pregnant and showing!
Seriously! I look about five/six months gone. Which would be fabulous if I actually WAS pregnant.
As I'm not, and just have a big flabby (sigh) tummy I tend to wear a baggy jumper as well. That way nobody thinks I'm pregnant: just fat. Better that way.

Writers... Well, recently I haven't been reading much, but usually my nose can more often than not be found stuck in a book. Right now I'm re-reading a few of my favourites when I get a few minutes peace to cheer myself up. Those include Bless Me Father and A Father Before Christmas by Neil Boyd (I THINK that's how it's spelt. Anyway, the books are great. Try them), the James Herriot collection (I just randomely choose a page. Every chapter is different and good) and the Narnia stories by C.S Lewis. My favourite of them is a cross between The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe and The Silver Chair.

I can't wait to see the new film adaptation of it. Can't stand the cinema though, so I'll have to wait till it comes out on tape/DVD.

Glad you all had a good time. I'm especially happy that Rocelle likes reading so much. So many kids now don't, preferring video games. I'm glad the other two are ok as well. Hope Elcie is completely better soon and that Rebecca didn't hurt her knee too badly. I sympathise with both her and you over the Mathematics (or Math as you call it) - I hated it while I was at school. Anything past addition, subtraction, addition and multiplication just left me angry and confused.

Alice

PS: Never tried raspberry and chocolate before. Might though this christmas. And did you know that raspberry can't actually classed as a 'berry'?
I love Q.I.
PPS: God this is huge. Sorry everyone.

granny p said...

Gee - I'd love to be such a hands on Granny. A bit difficult 4000 miles away.

If you like female detectives etc: Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone is the TOP.
Cheers...