Visitors to the house

This little guy has been coming up to the deck recently. I apologize for the poor picture, it was taken through a very nosed up glass sliding door. Dan and I really enjoy all the wildlife we see in our area. A couple of months ago I took Molly outside in the wee hours of the morning and we saw a large stag standing in the middle of the road a few hundred feet up the hill. It was SO impressive.

Anyway, we have started to put out some bird feed on the railing of the deck, wondering what kinds of birds we'd draw to the house. It has been AMAZING. I can't wait until the ground thaws in the spring so that we can put up some bird feeders. We have had about 15 birds at a time munching on bird seed on the deck. We also noticed that since we've started to put out the seed, that when we go outside, instead of hearing the call of crows, we also hear the sweet chirping of cute little birds. It's a very nice thing!

So, anyway, when we saw this little guy on the deck, the next time we went to WalMart, Dan picked up a bag of "Critter food". We don't mind that squirrels eat the bird food, so we're deliberately feeding the squirrels too.

The organized and Inspired Scrapbooker

I was visiting Of Cats and Cardstock and had an amazing overwhelming sense of guilt. You've all seen my scrapping space. It's not what I would call beautiful.

The thing is, is that she read the book "The Organized and Inspired Scrapbooker".
It's a book beautiful enough to drool over, isn't it? I HAVE this book. The cover has not even been opened. Why? you ask. It's not been opened because I've been too busy trying to ORGANIZE my room before looking at it.

I'll bet you are glad that you don't live in *my* brain.

I am a math loser

I have wanted to go back to school for ages. I really knew that I needed to brush up on my math skills. I have always considered myself a victim of new math. I have issues with all parts of math, and don't remember a lick of it from high school. So the other day I was in Staples I saw this software called Math Advantage 2008.

I have only done two lessons of the very basic lesson on the cd. I have learned a lot though.

I love doing factor trees! Why? Because I learned these cool tricks that I had never learned before.

The tricks of divisibility...
If divisible by 2 ,the last digit of the number will end in 0,2,4,6 or 8
If divisible by 3 ,you add the digits together and see if the sum will be divisible by 3.
If divisible by 4, the last two digits need to be divisible by 4.
If divisible by 5 , the last digit needs to end in 0 or 5.
If divisible by 6 , the number needs to be divisible by both 2 and 3.
If divisible by 9, you add the digits together and find out if the sum is divisible by 9.
If divisible by 10, the number needs to end in 0.

Too bad there isn't a trick for 7 or 8 that I've learned but what I know certainly makes for a lot faster problem solving.

So, I'm going to work through this cd, and hopefully I'll be refreshed with my high school level math skills and perhaps get myself ramped up for some college classes! The next thing I'd like to tackle is grammar!

Another cooking post

So, last night for dinner we had Coq au vin. I used the recipe from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook. It was Good. It was REALLY good. Note to self. When he says "while the chicken is cooking, he means do it now, it won't be good if you wait until just before you want to serve this. So, my only issue with the recipe is my issue with the cook. I waited a bit too long into the cooking process to braise the pearl onions, and that was not a good thing, but I fudged it by making sure the onions cooked through, and then instead of cooking down all the liquid, I poured it out, and then carmelized the onions. It was REALLY good. I would have liked to have eaten this an hour earlier than we actually did, and it was my fault. I count it a learned lesson. Did I mention that I made creme brulee for dessert? Oh yeah. It was good. VERY good.

My goals for today are to scrap! It's bitter cold outside here, so I'm going to fire up a couple space heaters for the basement, and then scrap away. I was going to crop at the local scrap store, because I need to get things together for my class, but since the alternator on the Expedition went belly up I'm without wheels until that gets fixed. That also slows down my job prospecting. Meh.

Anyway, I hope you have a good day, and you stay warm!

One of THOSE days

It's almost 11:30pm tonight, and I just realized that I have been wearing my sweater backwards.

All day long.

Since 7 am.

Yeah. It was one of THOSE days.

Mr. Romance, and a little life lesson

I just wanted to post my most recent layout. This is Mike, our 11 year old black lab. He has taken to snuggling close with me when I sit on the sofa, and I just love it. He is very particular and wants my hand on him at all times. Which means that I am becoming adept at typing with my left hand! If I stop petting, scratching, or touching him, he whacks me with his paw.

I have always admired people who scrap with all these fun things to draw the eye through the page, and there are times that I love to do that too, but this layout is one of my favorites, because it really shows off Mike.

I love these dogs so much. They are really amazing bringers of love in this household.

Two peas challenge today: The biggest lesson in life came from my daughter. She is so much like me, she puts things off until they are a crisis. SO I've started to pay attention to her quite closely. I'm really bad about mailing things, and really bad about putting money in the bank.

She has (For two semesters in a row) hosed up her school payments. Yesterday I refused to help her out. My parents bailed me out more than I should openly admit, and I'm not going to do it for her. So we had a conversation that went like this: " I am SO going to be on top of this stuff next semester." I think that she gets it.

So, I'm going to be on top of housework. I put things off until when I walk through a room I get little fuzzy ankles from the dog hair. I avoid vacuuming as much as possible, and it embarrasses me. I love to dust, vacuum, not so much. No more putting things off. I'm gathering things up and mailing off my deposits today. I'm also going to stay on top of the dog hair. I just hate living on the edge of crisis like that.

Oh yeah. I'm paying off ALL my debts by the end of next month. I'm SO stinkin' geeked about this. I'm also going to be able to double my savings within 6 months. Life is moving forward in VERY good ways. I'm feeling quite a bit better about everything. I would really like a job though...

Wednesday checking in

This is going to be a quick post, just updating everyone on my week.

Sunday was the definition of unpleasant with the man. I decided that I'd had enough. Now I'm marking time until I get in a position where I can take things into my own hands. It will happen. It will happen soon. I am strong and can do this.

Monday I decided to become an "Independent Avon Representative". I like the way that sounds! The opportunity is there, especially for this community. I have a friend in VA who did this, and supports her whole family on her sales, and she isn't a pain in the butt to deal with so I'm really excited about all this!

Tuesday was a good day. Naomi arrived from her trip to the everglades. Tales of alligators brushing against her legs when she was in the Cypress Dome have managed to begin to turn the hair that isn't grey yet, a slightly lighter shade of brown. She absolutely glows from the suntan she got while down there, and also received a whole new appreciation for this world that we're in, so it was a very good thing.

That's it so far! It's Wednesday. Could he be worse? Could he better? Am I past the point of caring? (Prolly). We shall see, but until then, I'm keeping my chin up, my attitude in check, and my eyes on my goals. I'm actually reaching for them, and it feels dang good!