Current Journal - November 23, 2005
much much later - Here's another picture that I found. djb
Grandpa holding baby Andrew with Jason holding his golf trophy
later today - (11/30) - Yesterday, while I was going through many, many, many old Christmas cards, I came across a little book that Jarrett had given me one Christmas. It has a chore for every month. I imagine it was probably second grade because they had to write the name of each month in. I'm not sure because it isn't dated. If anyone wonders why I have to go through even single piece of paper before I throw out the excess, this is the reason why! see ya later, djb
Jarrett managed to draw a pretty good picture of our house (with snow). Notice the shed and the basketball hoop!!
Yeah, right!
Jarrett - always trying to earn some extra money
Wednesday - November 30, 2005 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HOWARD and JASON!!! Howard is my oldest brother (and boy! is he ever old now! haha), plus Andrew and Jarrett's uncle. Jason is Andrew and Jarrett's first cousin and my nephew. Happy Birthday to both of them. I hope they have great birthdays today. Here's a picture of Howard with Patrick and Chris quite a few years ago at a Halloween party at school. If my calculations are correct, this was 16 years ago. I told you that I had more Halloween pictures around here. Plus, I have another one somewhere of Howard carving a turkey - don't worry. I'll find it. I'm late. gotta go. bye for now, djb
Howard holding Patrick (who is looking curiously at his brother). Chris dressed as a vampire - he kind of looks like Eddie Munster
Jason with his dad, my brother, Alan
Tuesday - November 29, 2005 - Okay, so I never got back in here yesterday. Times flies, ya know. Does time seem to be moving faster or is it just me? When I wake up, it seems as though I have all the time in the world and then (snap fingers) the day is done. We had a dusting of snow last night or early this morning. It's 26 degrees right now with a wind chill of 13. Hobbes keeps wanting to go outside, and then he decides it's too cold so he meows to come back in. That's a lot of fun. ha!! I'm working on my organizing situation. No, seriously. It's true - stop laughing! This is the perfect day to toss things out since tomorrow is garbage day! Hopefully, the wind will stop blowing - it's only about 20 mph with higher gusts. Did you see that blizzard out west? Oh my goodness. They said that the winds were 80 mph. Excuse me, but isn't 75 mph considered hurricane force winds? Can you have hurricanes on landlocked land? I don't know. I'm sure someone knows. I guess I could "Ask Tommy Skilling." He knows everything about weather. For some reason, I have a lot of things to talk about but I'm too busy to write, so maybe I'll do that later or maybe not. We'll see how the day goes. Here's some pictures Gayla sent me from Thanksgiving in New Mexico. Love the walking sticks. bye for now, djb
Hope and Zoe (holding walking sticks) with their Grandma Veralee (climbing a big mountain) in New Mexico at Thanksgiving
Hope with black olives on her fingers at Thanksgiving - she and Andrew & Jarrett's other cousin, Karen, should get together for a "black olive fest"
Zoe in her pink angel outfit posing next to a circular and a heart-shaped pizza
Monday - November 28, 2005 - GO BEARS. Remember that other Chicago team, what was their name...hmmmm The Chicago WHITE SOX and no one thought they could win the World Series - go figure. All we can say is, GO BEARS. haha I just remembered that I took some pictures of Andrew when he was a baby with his Bears outfit on. Of course, we got him a football or maybe we already had it. Who knows? I have more pictures to put in here but right now, I'm in the middle of washing clothes, etc., so I'll be back. see ya later, djb
Andrew wearing his Chicago Bears outfit (getting ready to toss the football)
Go Bears!
Sunday - November 27, 2005 - Bob lit the burn pile yesterday and it burned quite nicely. I had picked up thousands of limbs and sticks when we had the big wind a while back. Plus, we had some more leaves that were in piles around here and there. It was such a good fire that it was still smoldering this morning even though it was raining on it. After December 1st, there's supposed to be no more burning. Thank you. Then, we get to burn again from April 1st to May 1st. I don't get it either. I found this picture of the tollway while it was being built. This is the same road that I drove on last week (they finally did finish it) to go to Rock Falls and Sterling. Actually, they were working on it near Dixon (birthplace of President Ronald Reagan). I had to drive 45 mph for about 5 miles. I know the people behind me probably weren't happy but if they give you a ticket, it costs $375. So, I think they should have thanked me. I'm sure some of them gave me a salute. haha Better go and see what's up with Hobbes. He insisted on going outside even though it is sprinkling a little bit. In a few days, we're getting snow flurries. One of these days, it'll REALLY snow, and then Hobbes won't go out into that. I think it scares him because he remembers when the boys would take him outside and it wasn't pretty. bye for now, djb
Interstate 88 - west of Malta - a work in progress
Saturday - November 26, 2005 - It's not as cold this morning - it's all the way up to 30 degrees. That's a heat wave. I noticed in the weather forecast in the paper that it's supposed to be 60 degrees tomorrow. What? Can that be right? Let me go check on that. Maybe I was hallucinating. (time out while I check with Tommy) Yes, I was right. That's just weird. Of course, you know what this means. Time to plant the rest of the bulbs. I've been reading about all of the insanity yesterday with people swarming the stores to get bargains. Yikes! It makes shopping online look pretty good. The only commotion I have is when Hobbes sees a "birdie outside" and tries to climb through the screen and the window. A while back, I found this Escher drawing. When the boys were in school, I always volunteered to be Picture Lady in their classrooms, and I can't remember if it was Andrew or Jarrett's classroom that I did the presentation on Escher. But I think he's a hoot! So, here's a little art to start your day or if you're here later, to finish your day. bye bye for now, djb
Escher drawing
later today - (11/25) - I was putting pictures away this afternoon and I came across little baby Hobbes. Here it is. see ya, djb
Little baby Hobbes in July 1998
Friday - November 25, 2005 - It's Black Friday, do have your Christmas shopping finished yet? (rhetorical question) This morning, I heard that we're supposed to get an inch of snow later this afternoon. Oh boy! Can't wait for that. Then, it's going to warm up to the 40's later this weekend. It does amaze me that people get up real early to go shopping for more STUFF. Truthfully, I don't need anything except maybe a new snow shovel. A few years ago, I got one of those ergonomically designed shovels - not so good. It hurts my back. Mostly, I use it for scooping up leaves in the fall. The boys liked it though. Andrew would always come out voluntarily to help me shovel the driveway. You know I LOVE to do that. It's so quiet and peaceful.... until the snow blowers get revved up. There's nothing quite as beautiful as freshly fallen snow - except for palm trees on the beach and the temperature in the low 80's. Here's one of my favorite snow pictures from many years ago when we lived on the farm. Probably 1967 - that's when we got the BIG snow. Better go and see what Hobbes is up to. see ya later, djb
Diane standing next to the snow mountain at the farm in Rochelle
later this morning - (11/24) - Hobbes was looking hungry, so I gave him the turkey! hahaha, djb
Thank you God for our food, meow-men
What in the world is this?
This smells vaguely familiar...
Tastes like chicken - or maybe catnip - can't be sure
That was really good. I'm SO excited!
All that tryptophan and catnip makes me sleepy....
THURSDAY - NOVEMBER 24, 2005 - HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU ALL. My turkey is thawing out as I write this. Yesterday, our water softener had to be replaced. It only took THREE HOURS. Our water is so hard that when I realized the old one wasn't working, I was afraid that all of our pipes would get clogged with hardness. Anyway, the sweet little guy who came to replace it could not have been nicer. I haven't seen anyone with such a happy disposition in a long time. I'll put his picture in and you can see for yourself. You knew I had to take a picture because that's what I do! This morning, in order to make sure it was working (because it didn't recharge until 2 am), I washed a load of dark clothes and it was soapy all right....that means it's working. It's 14 degrees here in Elburn. The WIND CHILL is ZERO. Brrrrr I haven't gone outside today and neither has Hobbes. Yesterday morning, he was outside under the deck having a "discussion" with a dark, striped cat. I yelled at him to come here right now, plus I was jumping up and down on the deck yelling at him to come here right now (there was still snow out there, too). Finally, I saw the interloper cat running like a bat out of hell toward the bushes and there was Hobbes in hot pursuit. I thought to myself, "Here we go again." But he eventually came back and sat outside the door, and I let him and he looked at me like, "Yeah, I kicked his butt." That's when I realized that Hobbes is feeling better. It's been a long week of him acting completely weird and not himself. I was afraid that he'd lose his rude and surly personality, but apparently he hasn't! Finally, I found the picture of us four oldest kids dressed for Halloween when we lived in Capron. I was 4 when we moved from there so this picture was taken sometime around the early 50's. Then, I found this picture of Grandpa O'Malley with me on the left and Dennis on the right in a double exposure situation. Regardless, I liked the picture, so I'm putting it in here. Hope you all have a very nice Thanksgiving Day. I'm so thankful that I don't have hard water any more. You have no idea what it does to your pipes unless you've been there. It isn't pretty. bye for now, djb
Back row: Howard and Alan; Front row: Dennis and Me
Me, Grandpa O'Malley and Dennis at their house in Harvard
Gabriel installing our water softener yesterday
Wednesday - November 23, 2005 - I decided to start a new page today. Probably should have done it a while back but it does take some time and I've been doing other things. We had SNOW last night or into the morning. I heard on the radio before I got up that it snowed and then I looked out and sure enough, there was snow on the ground. It's VERY exciting. It's not too cold yet - about 34. Thankfully, it didn't do this yesterday when I was out and about driving here and there and everywhere. One reason I wanted to start a new page was because I have to put snow pictures on here and some other pictures that I found. You can read about the yearbook that was given to me last night by Nancy Huggins on the link that I put on the home page, rather than trying to put it into the journal pages. It's quite amazing. I may go back and edit my story but for now that's what happened. The water softener is a complete goner so I hope to have a new one fairly soon. A person (that would be me) has to stay home all day and WAIT for them to call you. That's the part I always forget about. Can't even go outside and plant the rest of my bulbs (in the snow). It's going to warm up in a few days so I can finish that task. I thought I only had one bag - turns out, I have two bags of daffodils. Well, they'll look nice in the spring. Better go now. I have a lot of linking and so on to do. Note to Granny: Yes, I finally found the Halloween picture of the four of us in Capron. I'll put it on here later. It's pretty cute. (And I did thank St. Anthony!) bye for now, djb
Andrew and Jarrett's candles in the snow
SNOW - 11-23-2005