Happy Holidays!

from the Hamby-Wimers

More cute puppy pics

His first night home was pretty uneventful; he slept all night. This morning, He and Harry got up before me and he had an accident downstairs, but that was the only one. Pretty great start.

New addition to our family

Welcome our 7 week old Beagle Boy: (name & details to follow)

My Pumpkin

Here is Harry at the Ferrari Farms pumpkin patch.

First Field Trip

Today Harry's class went to Reno Fire Station No.13. Very cool.

Gettin' into the swing

Harry is adapting to school pretty quick. While he does look forward to the weekend, he is still pretty enthusiastic about going to school every day. I'm sure the day will come when we have to drag him out of bed, but for now we are enjoying our new schedule.

As for me, I still haven't gotten used to the "free time" and I tend to fill it up with chores. I am not a big morning person, so it's not like I am really into doing something crafty in the morning.

My house hasn't been this clean in a long, long time.

I'm wearing Savanna's pants!

I cannot believe that I can easily get into them! Granted, she is not a skinny one, but I am just thrilled!

I think I have gotten so used to wearing baggy clothes, that the fact that I really did lose weight hasn't registered except for on the scale. It makes me want to go and try on new clothes that I can't afford.

I am easily entertained!

.9 miles each way

Our school district will not bus elementary kids unless they live more than 1 mile from the school and we live .9 miles from the school. I think that's a pretty fair trek for a 5 year old, so we drive him every day and it takes us 15 minutes! We end up sitting through two traffic lights multiple times because so few cars can get through going only 15 mph and constantly yielding to the walkers. We have tried taking different routes, but the only way it makes the trip faster is for us to go 2 miles in the opposite direction and GET ON THE HIGHWAY and go back that 2 miles so that we can get off at the exit nearest the school approaching from the west.

What's really hilarious is that if we did live that extra tenth of a mile further, we would be in a totally different school attendance area which is much further from the house and then he would be able to take the bus.

I see one poor mom getting off the public bus to drop off and pick up her kindergartener. Can you imagine how much time it eats up for her to make sure she's there on time and then to wait for the next bus? (this is not an urban area, I think the buses run 30 minutes apart) What a drag.

Where was I on 9/11?

Since it was a tuesday and in AZ it was two hours earlier, we were just getting up and getting the kids ready for school. I had the news on and saw everything as it unfolded. I remember being stunned and the whole thing was pretty unreal until my sister called from NY. She lived in the Bronx and had been on her way to work when it happened and she said that traffic locked down so quickly that she decided to turn around and go home.

I don't know how other people experienced it, but for us, it was the beginning of the end of the way we had been living. Up until that day, I felt like everything was going as planned and in order. After 9/11 and the stock market crashed, my husband's company used it as a way to lay off (fire) almost all of its upper management. After 13 years with that company, he was completely blindsided. I had a 9 month old baby and two years of college left. To put it mildly, everything about our lives has been pretty much downhill since then. We've had some brief (but false) glimmers of hope, but it has been a disaster.

We lost everything financially, but we have our lives and I am very grateful for that, probably too much so, because all the other bullshit doesn't seem to matter much. We drive a tiny little old car and that is the only thing we own of value (which ain't sayin' much!) but since we are all still here, breating in and out, I can deal with it.

Harry's First Day of School

It is so hard to believe this is it-no more babies or toddlers or pre-schoolers for me. My third and last kid is off to school. He was great. So happy and excited. I can't wait to hear how his morning went!

Labor Day

I just love holidays like Labor Day...a day off, nothing specific to be done, and best of all, no gifts to exchange or fancy meals to prepare!

Speaking of meals, I was oh so wrong about that one meal not ruining my diet. How can one meal make you gain THREE pounds? I am totally bummed and I guess I will be extra careful from now on. What a rip!

-20 pounds

I think it took about 6 weeks. I'm trying not to sweat the details in this diet thing, it just makes it harder. The food I miss most is pizza. I saw the pizzas at Costco today while I was getting my nonfat frozen yogurt and it looked SOOOOO good!

I am amazed at how little I am craving chocolate. I really thought that would be a biggie, but it hasn't even come on the radar.

For labor day I am going to have one no-diet meal; we want to barbeque and I think it's better to slip a little than to deprive yourself completely and then give up.

{MEAT!}

Doin' the Back to School Happy Dance!

Oh, I feel a little bit guilty, but I am THRILLED that school starts tomorrow. I've got two high schoolers and my little guy is starting kindergarten and I can imagine have a little slice of my own life again. Before Harry was born I was in school, but I usually had 2-3 days a week at home. Yeah, I had a lot of reading and homework to do, but what a joy it was to be in a quiet, empty house.

I know I'm going to miss my little guy, but to have those three sweet hours of peace.....ahhhhhh!

What would you do with a great domain name?

So, I've had the site www.scrapbookspot.com for a couple of years now and I still don't know what to do with it. I toyed with the idea of hosting a message board, selling kits, having a gallery and none of them have seemed right at the time. For some crazy reason, my site is getting 90-300 hits a day. With a web designer husband and me currently unemployed, it seems like I should do something with it, but it would have to cost like $0. (or less)

what would you do?

The children are home!

Steven and Savanna are home from Milwaukee, none the worse for wear. It's great to have them home, but Steven is bored out of his gourd. He is not allowed to see his friends since they all kept getting in trouble this past year and getting bad grades, so he just hangs around the house. I feel sorry for him, but I know I've got to hang tough on this one. He's at a scary age when so much can go wrong and I just can't let it. I can't wait for school to start. I'm hoping that he will make some new and better friends this year in high school.

Meanwhile, this week back to school shopping winds down-new shoes for all!

- 13 pounds

So as of today I have lost 13 pounds in two weeks. Not too bad at all. I am not "doing" anything; no weight watchers or whatever. Just reading every label and having NO red meat, butter, or cheese.

I'm doing this to relieve my arthritis symptoms and it was working well; I felt better than I had in over a month, but then yesterday we spent 5+ hours in the car and it hobbled me. Hopefully that will correct itself quickly.

While we were in Sacramento to pick up my kids, we went to Ikea. Man, I love that store! I got some suspension rails and hooks and baskets to try to free up counter space in my kitchen and closet organization stuff. We spent two hours in Ikea and for me, it wasn't enough. I can't wait to go back!

Little Frogs

When I went for my walk today (yes, three days in a row now!) There were literally hundreds of tiny little frogs hopping around near this brackish pond at the end of our street. There were so many hopping around that I had to watch where I was walking. I couldn't stop wondering where they were going or what was going to happen to them, so a few hours later, Harry and I walked back down there and most of them were gone; not squished or dead, just gone. (I'll bet the birds had a few for breakfast.) So Harry and I scooped up the orphans who were sitting in the sprinkler runoff in the gutter and brought them home. I have no illusions about them surviving; I kind of doubt they'll make it till tomorrow, but they are fun to watch!

Have I been that busy?

No, no I have not.

I have been tired and achy and in pain. I'm having a very bad arthritis flare-up. Getting out of bed is torture. Going down the stairs is quite frightening. My first instinct is to just curl up and die, but a few weeks later, I am taking medication consistently to control the pain and swelling and going for a walk everyday to loosen everything up. It seems to be working so far. Having to run the air conditioner all day really aggravates it, but with temps in the upper 90's, there's not much else to do. I'm glad we live at an elevation where it cools down every night so we can do 12 hours with fresh air and 12 hours with canned.

Hopefully, things will soon be swingin' again.

another groovy pic from the play

Savanna's friend Christina took this shot, low-res and such, but very fun if you ask me. Savanna wants to be a Broadway star now...

A Star is Born

Savanna's high school production of Guys and Dolls ran this week and it was GREAT! These kids were seriously funny. Savanna had a solo song and she was AMAZING. Here she is in her missionary costume.

Check out my new site!

Thanks to my oh so speedy web designer husband, I have a new website. It is a place to share your Reno Scrapbooking Experiences, whether its shopping for supplies, going to classes or just general ideas about how to enjoy this great hobby. My site is NOT affilitated with any local or online store, so users can feel free to discuss ANYTHING scrapbook-related (or Reno-related or Life-related)

If you live in Reno or love to visit, check it out: http://www.renoscrapbooking.com

*If you think it looks as great as I do, you can contact my husband to build you your own site: www.dotjinks.com (btw, he IS expensive!)

I'm in LOVE!

With my new cast iron pan.



Seriously, I have to thank REAL SIMPLE magazine for their article on these. It is just GREAT!

You can check them out at www.lodgemfg.com

They also have them at Wal-Mart. I got the 10.25" pre-seasoned for only $9.83.

Simple minds = Simple pleasures

I made my mom feel like a 12yo

I wanted to tell my mom some news, but I had already talked to her today, so I said "What the heck. I'll text her." So I text her a short message and about 20 minutes later, she sends me a reply. I barely had time to read it before my phone was ringing. She was so thrilled that she figured it out. She was concerned about her lack of punctuation and I had to explain that skipping the punctuation and not worrying about case and using lots of abbreviations was Uber-cool. Kind of like sending out a modern version of "code."

I'm not working tomorrow (bonus day off for me!) so I get to stay up late watching movies-wheeeee!

Coco-nuts

Have you noticed that people either really really love coconut or they really really hate it? I am definitely one of the latter group-just the slightest taste makes me gag. I always check the ingredients for cookies to make sure they didn't sneak in any coconut.

The same goes for mushrooms; I detest them immensely and I have to scour the labels of soups before I buy them, just in case they are in there. I love Lean Cuisine's Glazed chicken entree, but there are a few mushrooms in it, so I have to pick them out oh so carefully before I can eat it.

My list of food dislikes is VERY long...I think my German-Irish peasant background is to blame. I certainly love potatoes and onions!

For your entertainment

I need to figure out how to post movie clips on here, so in the meantime, enjoy this:

Busy doing the mom thing...

Savanna was in a vocal ensemble competition and they are now going to the state competition and she is also rehearsing for their school production of Guys and Dolls, so I have been spending untold hours in the car carting them around. Today I had to take Steven and Savanna for eye exams and to get new glasses...somehow that turned into a four hour odessey. Tonight Savanna has a choir concert and next week her friend is coming to visit from Vegas so the house needs to be nice and clean.

I don't know how supermoms do all this stuff-I only work part time and I can't get 10% of the stuff done that I need/want to!

I killed my iMac

Oh, the poor old thing. It is over 5 years old, but it was so reliable for so long. I don't know what I did to it, I deleted some fonts that were on a bad spot or something because it won't even boot up from a CD now. I could replace the hard drive and upgrade it, but since the thing is so old, I don't think it would be worth it anymore....it doesn't even have a CD burner in it.

So now I am wanting a new Mac; nothing fancy, but here it is:

Well, it wasn't MY idea!

Brian and I went down to the city to pay some bills and he needed to get ink for his printer (necessity since he works from home) and wanted to get the best deal, so we ended up going to Sam's Club, Office Depot, and Costco. I did not buy anything, but he bought me a necklace and two shirts just because I liked them. Does it count as me going shopping if it wasn't my idea?

I think it does......oops!

How can I be so cheap, but not frugal?

I was watching the show "Secret Lives of Women" last night and they had on shopaholics. It was disturbing to see some of the same traits in myself that I saw in them. Buying things we don't need is a biggie for me. I'm not talking about huge amounts of money and I don't even have a credit card, but I do notice that I have three dressers full of clothes plus the closet and far too many shoes. Every season I have to sort through everything and give things away just to make it manageable.

I have gotten a LOT better about some things....I used to subscribe or buy tons of magazines. I finally figured out that I was getting almost nothing out of them, so I dropped all of them except for my favorite two scrapping magazines. (I don't know why I was reading fashion mags anyway, I wear jeans and tshirts almost every day!) I also used to go to Starbucks on my way to work and I haven't done that in many many months. We used to order pizza about once a week and instead I have been cooking more.

I decided that I would challenge myself to not go shopping for an entire month (it is March 1, conveniently) unless it is for groceries or prescriptions and then I would skip any aisles or sections where I didn't need anything.

It's on!

Christmas, Part Two

We got a few days of snow last week followed by a few days of cold...well, cold for here anyway, highs in the 30's. The day before the front hit us, I started thawing out a Turkey (We always buy two when they go on sale at Thanksgiving) so on Saturday we watched the snow fall and ate Turkey with all the trimmings. It was kind of weird, but fun. I am always thrilled when inclement weather hits on a weekend so I don't have to deal with a nightmare drive to work, so I was EXTRA-happy. After dinner, all three kids played in the snow at dusk. It was so lovely, everything shades of blue.

So maybe it was a fond farewell to winter, I guess I can only wait and see.

ASC Girls

This is our current home page from Advanced Scrapbook Creations, a group I joined two years ago. We have had some awesomely talented ladies pass through our little group, and of course, there are plenty o' them in there right now. I feel lucky to have known them all.

retro days

I don't know what has gotten into me, but today I listened to UFO and April Wine, played Centipede, and watched "Amadeus"....dude, it totally felt like it was 1985!

I guess I should mention that the tunes were playing on an iPod, the game was on a GameBoy Advance and of course, the movie was on DVD.

I SOOOOOOOO love technology!