Random Kitty Picture

Here's the weekly kitty photo. I'll try and do one every so often. She's just so photogenic!

I can't believe I haven't posted in two months!

What a LAME blogger! Usually I don't get any traffic, but it appears that 9 people checked out my sad little blog. So sorry to you wonderful 9 folks.

Yesterday I started baking for Christmas. It's later than usual and I told my kids that I was NOT making fudge this year. They weren't too upset. It just takes so long, is expensive to make, and makes too much that it sits in the fridge until March (well, some of it sits).

So far I've made 2 loaves of banana bread, one to keep, one to give away and I made the MOST wonderful gingersnaps. Who knew that ground cloves would cost $7.99 for a little tiny container? My family better appreciate these cookies. However, they are D-VINE! These are probably the best cookies I've ever made. They're crispy, yet soft, sweet and spicy. I'll post the recipe tomorrow.

Anywhooo, I'm posting a picture of my daughter's cheer competition from this past weekend in Richmond where they took FIRST PLACE in their division (senior small level 4). Rock on. However, one of the girls, during warm-ups, got whacked in the nose and had to go to the hospital. The girls said there was soooo much blood all over the place and, yup, it's broken. Poor little thing has to have surgery this week. She's so cute, too.

Check it out! (On close-up photo, my daughter is the one on the very far left with her head tilted sideways - dark brown hair).

More Baseball!

Two baseball games this weekend and four more this week, including two middle school softball games. Whew!! When will it end? We need a break, big time. Today the freshman coach from an elite private school that we're looking at for DS was scouting our game. I don't really know who he was there to see, but at least DS didn't strike out. He did play well in the field, too.

Quick Trip to U of D!

We had a quick trip up to Newark, DE to check out the University of Delaware. Really nice campus. The only down side was the dorms are NOT air-conditioned and I saw a lot of people smoking on campus. I can't believe it's not a non-smoking campus. Hello!! It's 2008!! No smoking please.

Wednesday

Today DH decided to take my van in since I'm driving to Delaware tomorrow. So he's home, under foot, and eating everything in sight. I'm trying to get laundry finished, things cleaned up. On Thursday I'm taking DD and two of her friends up to Newark, DE to check out the University of Delaware. It's only a two-hour drive, so it's just a day trip. Hopefully the weather will be good. Nothing worse that walking around campus in the drizzle. (It's supposed to rain overnight tonight).

Go Blue Hens!

This is My "Present"

I accepted the challenge from Stacy Julian to make a super-mini scrapbook of my "present," meaning my here and now. I took 11 photos (mostly from the same week, not actually from one single day) and created a tiny mini-scrapbook to keep in my purse, to encourage me to think about the things in my daily life. It was a fun challenge.

Check it out! It's kinda hard to read the writing on the little pages, so here's the journaling for each page.

People to love
Things that pile up
Sweet smiles to cheer for
Games we play
Furry things to love
Work to do.

Tuesday

Tuesday is always hard. I'm an at-home transcriber and Tuesday is when work is due. It seems that I'm always trying to play catch-up and get as much work finished to be able to turn it in on Tuesday for the next week's paycheck. Half the time I never seem to make it. Oh well. I might pit-stop at ACMoore when I drive down to the office later today. I've got a coupon! Later today DS has a baseball game and DD has to work. Guess it's leftovers for dinner, if we ever get to eat it. I hate eating at 8:30 p.m.

Sports Weekend

It was a true sports weekend. Friday night football, Saturday and Sunday baseball games. At the football game, NW beat Wootton 33-28. It was quite a thriller, too. Wootton kept nipping at our heels the whole second half.

New kitty photo

Here's the latest photo of our new cat (well, new to us in April), Charlie. She's a girl and we named her Charlie because she's kind of a tomboy. DD wanted to name her Madonna and I said NO!! Enjoy!

Challenge: Give Yourself a Present!

This is from Stacy Julian's blog www.stacysbigpicture.typepad.com/altogether_too_happy:


So, it's October 1st. I think if I had to pin myself down, October is my favorite. Summer, with all of its fun is behind us and the craziness of the holidays is still just out of reach. The weather is generally good and the leaves are turning brilliant colors. What's not to love? In honor of October and the inevitable flow and change that is life, I'm issuing a challenge today (with the help of LOTS of blogging friends) to as many people as possible, and here it is:

I want you to give yourself a PRESENT.

You have everything you need right now to be vibrant, happy and fully engaged in the creative process of life. Sometimes you just have to slow down, look around and realize it!

Here’s what I want you to do …

• Snap ten or twelve photos of your life right now. Or find recent photos that you've already taken.
• Compile these photos in one of these super-cute Bazzill Mono-Mini albums (keep reading)
• Keep or carry this album with you, tucked in your purse or desk drawer for one full year.
• Promise to glance through the album every time you stumble upon it or pull it out.
• On October 1st, 2009, create a scrapbook page about your experience.

So I did this. I've taken 12 snapshots of my life right now. I'm going to put them in a little Bazzill monomini album. I'll try and post the results later.

susan.

Free Handbags!

I just entered a contest for a free handbag. Check it out at:

www.handbagplanet.com

It looks like they have a lot of great stuff. Can't wait to see the whole website.

Susan.

Camp News!

This past week DS went to a local prep school's "prospect" baseball camp. To me, it's just a way for them to check out who might be applying to their school. But anyway, DS went and there were quite a few of his peers attending, also. His team won the camp championship! AND -- DS won the batting competition! DH was on cloud 9 for that.

Sunflowers

So last week I dragged DS (13) along with me to take pictures of sunflowers. Now just imagine here were are in suburban Maryland, and we're going to a place where there are 25 acres of sunflowers! I can't believe it. I read in our local paper about this wildlife preserve in Montgomery County and there were all these sunflowers that had been planted to attact doves for dove hunting season (later in the fall). I HAD to check it out. Here's proof!

I just realized that's not a great picture of Cal. He really was good-looking (for a 49-year-old, or so). I'm attaching another photo.

Long time, no post

Soooo sorry for not posting. I really didn't think anyone read this thing. Who knew?
It's been a busy, busy summer so far. We've been mostly doing the baseball thing. Many, many baseball games! Our trip to Myrtle Beach was fab-u-lous! DS's team made it to the semi-finals of the consolation bracket. AND we got to meet Cal Ripken. He's just as good looking in person as he is on TV. Ooooh, those blue eyes!

Here's a photo!

I promise more later.
Susan.

Action Shots!

OMG!!!!!!!!! We spent the afternoon in the freezer yesterday! DS was the Bat Boy/Ball Boy at the Univ. of Maryland baseball game yesterday. The temps were hovering around 40, maybe! And there was a decent breeze, at least for a while. I don't think I've ever been so cold. He said he couldn't feel his feet. It was a great game. Terps won 16-5 against Hofstra. Got some GREAT photos.

Monday, Monday

Today was donation day. I almost forgot to have my donations outside for pick-up. I had to scramble to get them together. Got rid of quite a few things, including an old rocking chair from DD's college apartment. We weren't using it and it was just taking up space. Got rid of some clothes, books, games, boring stuff.

The weather is warmer today!!! But tomorrow it's supposed to rain, boo! I'm just praying for a warm-ish sunny day on Friday when we're in College Park for the Univ. of MD baseball game. DS is going to be bat boy and I'm hoping to get some good pictures. It certainly won't be fun if the weather is bad.

Here's another shot from the team meeting day. Oh, and that's Testudo, the Terrapin!

Susan.

The Old College Try

So last night we spent HOURS looking at and discussing colleges for DD and her BFF to attend. We (the BFF's mom and myself) are trying to map out a few local-ish schools to tour during spring break. We've narrowed it down to some Virginia schools (VA Tech-long shot, Radford-more reasonable, JMU-semi-long shot), and in NC (Western Carolina-shoe-in, and East Carolina-reasonable shoe-in). The MD schools (Towson, Frostburg, Salisbury, UMD-long shot) we can tour any time. DD would like to check out WVU, too. I think that's reasonable and it's not too expensive, considering it's out-of-state tuition. Of course the girls want to be together and they want to be on the cheer team for whatever school they go to. So that means not going to a "sucky" school that has "lame" teams, 'cause who wants to cheer for lame-sucky teams? And then there's Dad who wants her to attend an in-state school so he can make better use of our pre-paid tuition plan. You can use the money anywhere, but he wants to stay in-state. I'm not sure about that.

Today is SAT prep class for DD and maybe a haircut, and DS has a church retreat AND a 3 hour baseball practice that he'll fuss about. He does like to play baseball, but he HATES practice. It's a constant battle. I don't want him quitting BB because he hates practice. I want to try to make it up to the LSS today, but I don't have much hope for that. Maybe tomorrow.

On to dishes and laundry (how come I do the SAME things over and over and over again EVERY SINGLE DAY?).

Snow Day?!?!

So it snowed last night. More like it iced last night. We really don't have much snow, it's just a thin coating of ice. But now, 11:30 a.m., it's melted. However, they (you know, "they") say that we're going to get another hit later today. I guess that's why there's no school today. At least the kids have found something to do. DS went with his friend to the indoor pool until 2:30. Yeah!! DD went with DS's friend's sister (a/k/a her best friend) to the movies. Peace and quiet for three hours.

Jane Austin

Apparently I'm Elinor Dashwood! Who'da thunk it? Actually, not being as familiar as I should be with Jane Austin's works, I'm not really sure who Elinor is.

Try it out!

Take the Quiz here!

Eclipse!

Here's my take on the lunar eclipse last night. We could see it quite well through the whole process. Very nice. DS was very interested. We got out the binoculars and tried to use the telescope, but it didn't want to cooperate. We could see the little star on the left (I forget what it's called), but not Saturn.

Bad Blogger!!!!

Weeeeelllllllllllllllll, so the blogging didn't go so well in December. Maybe now that it's 2008 and well into February, I'll do a better job. I can't believe it's almost March! My baby turned 13 last week!!! I can't believe all my kids are over the age of 13. He didn't want a party. So we just did the family thing. He wouldn't even let me bring cupcakes to the basketball team. I didn't want to force the issue.

Just doing the ordinary things lately. I'm trying to find more interesting recipes for dinner. I HATE the same old thing. Pioneer Woman always makes her dishes look so great, but I have very picky kids, and sometimes am short on time. I want to have dishes that I could prepare ahead and freeze. Anybody have any ideas? Let me know.

Okay. Today is laundry, vacuuming, typing, maybe I'll get to scrapbook today. Who knows? I did go to Borders yesterday and get the new Making Memories, Creating Keepsakes and that new Computer Techniques 2 book. Can't wait to play with that one.

On Sunday we went to the University of Maryland for the "bat boy" meeting. My boy will be a bat boy for the team on Feb. 29th. He's not very excited, but I sure am. I think this is such a great opportunity to be exposed to this level of baseball. I practiced taking some photos with my new lens while the team was scrimmaging. Turned out pretty decent. Gotta play around with the camera some more. I included a sample above. It was a great day for photos, not too sunny, not too dark. I'm having the hardest time with those darn basketball pictures. The lighting is just horrible in those gyms. Although the other parents thing they're great! (Another sample above).

Seacrest out!