from a fishing trip in 2008

Here is  Tim, not catching any fish.

Oh look, things are perking up

love you kids, MOM

trying to make it through thursday

And as it has just passed midnight, yes we have.

When we got home I read her my old favorite, "Bedtime for Frances," and she loved it, even grabbed the story book to kiss Frances who was not going to sleep.

 p.j. introduced me to these children, "That's my grandmaw."  They laughed.

Julia gets so bored at home, so cooped up, so exhausted of it all, she wanted to go somewhere. Her ideas ranged from the library to my parents house to the Mall of damned America.

I told her it would be fine with me to just lie in bed for the whole day and play solitaire on the tablet and do nothing.

"We can do that every day!"

We can?

I want to get right on that.

Anyway, it was finally noon and we were all still in pajamas, kicking around in my bed eating Halloween candy and I thought we really do need to shape the hell up.

So we did. The pictures above are ones I took to send to Heidi of her child enjoying the fine library. She was much more civilized than the last time we were there. She looked at books nicely and didn't run off.  It was great.

These are a couple pictures from tonight.  Reluctant as I have been to enter any credit card information into that blessed tablet, I was comfortable buying a play store card for $25 bucks.  A stop loss on my losses, you know. We used to talk about calls and puts managing risk back in school.  I get the idea and this was helpful.  It's just scary what all they might inadvertently purchase on a credit card with those nice, high limits.

(Not even going there.)

Anyway, so this baseball cap was in the freezer.  It's from John's work. Why it's here, I have no idea and finding it the freezer was additionally baffling.

Well, he put it in there so it'd be nice and cold for those times when he is hot.  Then a guy can just get a freezing cold hat from the freezer and cool off.

And now, good night.  It's Friday and in the morning I'll drive out to Wisconsin and fetch Maria home. 

love, Val

a fine tuesday night in the beginning of november

It's snowing tonight, first snowfall of the winter.

Here are some pictures.  Snow is great, photographs well.  Too bad it's such a mess and the months of winter loom.

Okay, this little girl told me about her boots, "Spiderwebs are in them."  I told her to vacuum them tomorrow and then see if they still fit. She has the longest, skinniest feet I've seen on anyone except Little Jay.

My brother's wife sent these boots over last year. They may be too small, even with the spiders out.

Tomorrow's problem, eh?

Oh, and this.   My old fridgerator Pinky was rusting away.  There were may problems with that old 1958 fridge.   The shelves finally cracked away, so we had a bin in there, and that was a mess.

It was all a mess.

We were watching out for a second-hand fridge since I'm far too cheap to pay for a new one.

Well, Jay's doing a kitchen remodel at my cousin Michelle's house, and she gave this to us.  I think he deducted a couple hundred off her bill, but whatever.  It's a GIFT, a gloriously wonderful gift.  I took the fridge home and painted it red.

We went to Menard's on Sunday morning instead of church and bought the toughest paint we could find.

Farm equipment?  Shoot.

I touched up a little with a watercolor paintbrush around the handles tonight and I am thrilled.

As much as I loved Pinky, it reached the point it was over. The scrap guy took her away today, as his little handicapped rat terrier ran all around in a cute sweater and drove Sam and Sidney NUTS.

Okay, pets sleeping.  This is Sam next to our bed, stinking up my pretty rug.

This is Bernie in a sunbeam on his rock.  I guess red-eared sliders are now an invasive species in our state. So this innocent guy could go forth and wreak havoc upon the wetlands?  I'd almost kind of like to see that, as opposed to cleaning his damned tank all the time.

As I ventured upstairs, I encountered Lydia and Sidney keeping company in the night.  Lydia has her new electric blanket from JC Penney, which she and the small dog also love.

Onward. Wednesday awaits.  love you all so, Val

party at the parents, 2013

My parents hosted this party again this year.  Everyone came, and it was great.

Lydia was a crazy cat lady, and James came up with his costume shortly before we left, shoved a pillow under his shirt, and looked pretty ridiculous, his skinny self with a big belly.

He teased his girlfriend, "Someday this is what I'm going to look like. Think you'll like that?"

She laughed, later said she was getting used to it and patted the belly.

Here's the amazing shoe pile.

That's a bunch of cousins and my brother-in-law.  He's dressed as The Count here.  (He is as good a guy as he is handsome.)

Awww, here they are together, so darn cute.

Here's a wee little batman struggling with his mask.

Nevermind.

My niece:

Heading down to the basement for games:

Jay got that sweater (below)  at Value Village for $3.  Not a bad costume at all.  I bugged him and Maria  little about how they stay out at college all the time and never come home and I get lonely, damn it.

He nodded.  They're busy, I realize.

That's my nephew hiding in the corner near the treadmill.  We laughed a little about that treadmill. One Christmas not all that long ago, kids were running on it, and one had a cup of punch and the other one ran faster and the punch went flying.

Who gets on a treadmill with a glass of punch?

And another person and expects that not to end badly?

Yeah, exactly.

He and I were also together in church one Sunday a while ago when Tim buttoned the left cuff of his shirt to the right and then tried to pray and clap like that.  I was glad he was a witness to that nonsense.

The Mummy Wrap Game was challenged this year.  The babies are a tad too little and a bunch of enthusiastic wrappers are now too cool for that.

The guy in the orange shirt is b.g.'s little brother and I personally wrapped him and he didn't mind at all, stood there with his big blue eyes grinning at me, pretty face.  Then when the game was done, he burst into tears!   Maybe he didn't know he could break out of toilet paper?

We don't know!  He was fine in a few minutes, but dang.

Here they're throwing little balls at a velcro target.

Okay this little toy is an outhouse, where b.g. told me, "A skeleton is going potty."

Yes, indeed, and the skeleton says, in a menacing voice, "I put the DIE in diarrhea."

Oh that's charming.

And his little brother kept backing up further and further away from the potty skeleton.

There were crafts:

And birthday gifts:

Awww, Johann.   It felt very good to wrap my arms around you.

Cake time!

At the end of the night while my mom was bundling up leftovers, they took a second to pose for me.

Thank you for hosting this wonderful party year after year.  It's a highlight, not to be missed.

We love you, love you, so darn much.     Love, Val, and EVERYBODY