3 days and counting...

until janelle goes off to college!! this summer has flown by somehow. it just seems like yesterday that she was my sweet little girl going into 1st grade.

we bought her a new alarm clock for her dorm. she's going to test it out and see how it does. lately janelle has been having an issue with being really tired. dr v had bloodwork done and didn't find anything abnormal, which is good. however, janelle was still feeling tired. she went this past tuesday for another visit and he drew more blood. based on what she told him, he thinks she may have contracted mono. she said there were several kids who had it in school. one girl could barely get out of bed when she had it. we'll find out the results on tuesday. he told her to rest as much as she could. she's been hanging close to the house this past week.

tomorrow should prove to be interesting. we're going to go over how to do laundry again. i want to make sure she understands about separating whites, colors, etc. i know she knows it, but i don't want to get a call that all her underwear is pink from that one red sock...lol. i've been there done that before. i want to wash all her bedclothes and towels she's taking with her too. they are a little stiff with the sizing, etc.

oh, my dad is doing pretty good after his knee replacement surgery. he is having a lot of stiffness which is part of it. he was kind of down the first few days after getting home b/c he was running a low grade temp. i think he's just about over that now. he can only sleep on one side or on his back and i think it's causing his sinuses to be congested. he's like me in that he tosses from one side to the other when he sleeps. it's throwing him off that he is limited with how he sleeps. his physical therapist said he is progressing better than most people do. it's been just a little over a week since the surgery and he's getting around pretty decently.

well i'm going to go now. i'm not sure if i will be blogging on a more consistent basis once janelle gets to school. i've still got a couple of projects i want to finish up here soon before i start on my christmas knitting.

oh my...i forgot to tell one of the more exciting things that has happened. janelle has a new car....a 2008 honda civic sedan in nighthawk black pearl with gray interior. it is a sweet little ride. the guy who cuts mom's hair has wanted to buy janelle's cougar since suzy gave it to her. we were able to work it out and got her car last weekend and his granddaughter bought the cougar this week. now i feel a little better because she has a more dependable car to drive back and forth to school. there was nothing really wrong with the cougar. it just had a lot of highway miles on it and some repairs were looming in the future. plus janelle has really worked hard to have all of her school expenses covered so that leaves me some financial breathing room to be able to give her the car. i'm in good graces for a while....lol.

weekend update

oh my...it's been a while since i've blogged! the main reason i haven't been blogging is i don't get on the computer much these days. i have ideas during the day to blog about, but never actually sit down and write them. they monitor our online usage at work so i try to keep it to a minimum with the surfing. hope everyone is doing well! i've got a lot of blog catching up to do!!

so here's the events of today:

today is my sister suzy's birthday. happy birthday, suzy-q!!! she's 42 today. i think all of us have called and sang her happy birthday. i wish i could be there with her celebrating. she and some friends are going out tonight if she is up to it. she told mom she wasn't feeling that well earlier. she's still working through the detoxing thing with the fibromyaligia (sp). she's supposed to be going to the specialist this month so that will probably help.

dad is having knee replacement at the end of this month. actually he's having it the day before his birthday. he has had problems with it locking down on him. the surgery is overdue for him. he probably should have gotten this done 5 or so years ago.
he has this old ford f-150 truck that he has hung onto for years. it's all rusted up and needs some minor work. he has kept it when he has stuff to haul off or he doesn't want to mess up his car. various people have stopped at the house from time to time offering to buy it. well, back to earlier, he was out trying to get it cranked up to move it back beside the house. it was sputtering and carrying on and finally cranked.

all of a sudden my mom said he was moving fast across the yard. he flung open the door and asked "where's the fire exstinguisher? my truck's on fire!" we jumped up and mom got the fire extinguisher and handed it to him. he headed back out with me following. i saw him toss the fire extinguisher and he yelled "get the hose!". before i could get there, he was dragging the hose across the yard. he hollered at me to call 911. as i was talking to the 911 operator, a policeman happened by. he asked dad if he wanted the fire department. thankfully at that point, he had gotten the fire out. he told me to cancel the 911 call. whew! the excitement!! what happened was the truck backfired and spewed gas back up in and caught fire. thankfully it didn't really do much damage. he said he thinks he ready to sell it now...lol. he said at least there are some salavageable parts and he can get a little bit of money from it. whew!! the excitement!!

janelle has 1 month and 1 day until she reports to college. she has to be there on august 13th to start cheerleading practice. we'll be moving most of her stuff in at that point. i'm excited and sad all at the same time. she's going to have such a good time at college and grow and learn and meet all kinds of neat folks. but i'm sad that she's going to be away. i know i'll cry when i leave there on friday evening. they have this thing called "the big hug". it's when the parents say good bye to their kids. fortunately i'll be going up for the football games from time to time to watch her cheer. she won't be able to come home very often, but i know she'll do well. she will be so busy that she won't have time to miss being home.

well, i'm going to go now. i'm not even going to say i'll try to write more soon...lol. who knows when i'll be here again.

hey...to all my peoples

all 3 - 5 of you anyway who might have dropped by to read my blog. i haven't really been in a bloggin mood for a while. mainly because i have been in a little bit of a funk and didn't want to come off so whiny online. i'm bad enough in person. i'm even sick of hearing myself...lol.

really tho, it hasn't been that bad. i've just been struggling with 5 pounds i keep gaining/losing in various increments. weight watchers isn't clicking right now for me and neither is water aerobics. i think it's boredom with both. i've got to spice things up. i'm planning on joining a gym that's right down the street from work. i pass it every day on the way home. plus i was figuring with the price of gas going up this summer, it's more economical for me to go to that gym than to drive across town for water aerobics. i can still take water aerobics at this gym, plus i can swim laps or do some other type of work out in the process.

i switched meetings i attend at weight watchers from mondays to sundays. it seems to be working out much better this way. that group on monday had kind of a strange dynamic. i like the feedback from the folks who are attending the sunday one. frances switched over to the sunday meeting too.

my janelle is exactly 2 weeks away from graduating!! my goodness where does the time go? we've got to get the graduation announcements out this weekend. mom was kind of freaking out on me, but she'll just have to get over it. i promise...it will get done. janelle had senior awards day. happily she received several more scholarships which will help with her school expenses. i was very proud of her. she received a citizenship award that she didn't expect. she was surprised that she was one of the recipients and one of her friends who usually gets citizenship awards was not given it. janelle has done a huge amount of volunteer work this past year. again, i'm a proud mama because my little baby girl has grown into a beautiful young woman.

i have this spring-cleaning feeling that keeps rearing up and i feel i need to take advantage of it while i'm in the mood. plus i've been reading a new feng shui book that has really opened my eyes to getting rid of stuff i've hung onto for years. wish me luck.....

relaxing

this has been a great birthday weekend so far. i'm here at my sister's house in myrtle beach. i drove in yesterday evening. for my birthday dinner, we had low country boil that was very, very yummy. it had shrimp, crawfish, sausage, corn, and potatoes. nothing else....just that. and we topped it off later with a little tiny bit of ben and jerry's low fat ice cream and a wee little birthday cake.

the weather is beautiful although the pool isn't quite warm enough to get in and splash around yet. i wish the water was warm enough to swim and do some water aerobics. we're thinking about the hot tub later on. that will probably work too...lol.

earlier today suzy treated me to a manicure and pedicure. my toes are cute again...lol. i was in desparate need of a pedicure. sitting in the massage chair with my feet soaking in the hot bubbly water was pure bliss. i just felt any stress melt away.

i took pics of some of my knitting projects that i had finished. i just realized i haven't taken a pic of one that i need to get out of my car. i'm working on the squiggle shawl by shelley mackie from magknits (which sadly is no longer online). i cast-on a second one because the first one was huge. i had tried bigger needles than the ones recommended. i'm an ample-sized gal and it wraps around me several times. so instead of ripping it out (again), i'm casting on a second one and then i'll frog the other one later on. i'm still debating whether to use it as a window treatment in my room. i like the gauzy effect of it and want to do something different in my room anyway.

well i'm going to go now. i'm going to try and catch the end of the nationwide race....

vacation and spring cleaning

can someone explain to me how one person can hang on to so much junk? i'm on vacation this week and decided to do some spring cleaning. i must have had old files/letters/pay stubs from 1762. the bank i belong to has one of those super-duper shred trucks come by every quarter. i took a recycle bag full of stuff to shred. but, i'm not done. that's just a couple of boxes worth of stuff i've hung on to.

i went through my closet too and got donated some of my clothes that i haven't worn in quite a while. i had a footbath that someone had given me for christmas a few years back. donated that too...like i'm going to give myself pedicures....lol. i'm all about the pampering pedicure from a professional.

i feel much better getting rid of some of my stuff so far. i was reading in a feng shui book that i had bought goodness knows when. i found it when i was going through some of my stuff in my desk...oh, there it is...oops. but any way, it talked about getting rid of stuff that is holding you back. those couple of boxes of old files, etc., have been on my thoughts. i need the space for my increasing yarn stashage....lol. it was just a matter of time before that happened.

update on janelle: it's just a little over a month before janelle graduates!!! time flies...it's hard to believe my baby is going to college in the fall. she went for another scholarship interview this past tuesday. we drove up after she got out of school. she's got most of her costs covered so far. this one will just help even more. i'm proud of her and what she's accomplished this year. she has worked really hard and it's paying off. she has a good chance of getting a couple of local scholarships as well.

oh and guess what? she's going to cheer at north greenville. we found out last week. i'm so excited for her!!! she is going to cheer football, basketball, and be on the competitive cheer squad. she's been working on her tumbling skills and has almost picked back up where she was when she stopped competition cheerleading a few years ago. i have already looked into season tickets and reserved parking for the home games. i can probably make most of the in-state away games.

on the weight watchers front, i have lost 36 pounds. i was kind of gaining/losing 1-2 pounds back and forth and finally broke through. i haven't gone to water aerobics but one time in the last 3 weeks. there were some issues that came up so i didn't go. but i've still managed to lose weight. i told my ww leader i was puzzled by the fact that i've lost. i'm not unhappy about it...don't get me wrong. i just don't understand how i can lose when i haven't been exercising and truthfully, i haven't been eating quite right either. she said sometimes your body gets in a rut, even with doing the right thing. the slight detour i took has probably kick-started something so i could lose again. i told her i have been floundering wanting to get past the 35 pound mark. now i am, so i'm getting back on track. i'm not sure if i can lose the 50 by janelle's graduation, but i'm going to try.

well, i'm going to go now. i've got to pack b/c i'm going to my sister's house this weekend. she lives in myrtle beach and wanted me to come down for my birthday. i'll be 43 on april 25 at 8:30am officially. we're planning on hanging out by her pool and relaxing and visiting old times. i'm really looking forward to it. :)

something funny that happened at work

a couple of weeks ago, we had a mandatory meeting we all had to attend. basically, our managers were updating us with the ongoing projects, new hires, folks who left the company, etc. during this one exceptionally exciting segment of the presentation, i hear this sound:

pheeeewwww....pheeeeewwwww....pheeeeewwwww

i couldn't figure out if i was wheezing or not. i had been congested earlier in the day and had taken some otc sinus/allergy med. i held my breath and closed off the end of my nose. i still heard

pheeeewwww....pheeeeewwwww....pheeeeewwwww

my co-worker sitting next to me asked me if everything was ok. i started to laugh but had to bite my tongue. i wrote her a quick note that i would let her know after the meeting.

when we got back to our desks, she said i had to tell her why i was holding my nose. i almost couldn't tell her from laughing so hard. i told her i was hearing this sound during the meeting

pheeeewwww....pheeeeewwwww....pheeeeewwwww

she said she heard it too and it was a lady she used to work with who has breathing issues. i told her i was holding my nose to determine whether or not it was me. if it was then i would stop by the bathroom on the way back to my desk. she looked at me funny. she rolled on the floor laughing when i told her i thought i had a booger whistle.

have a good one!! :)

i've been busy, that's why...

i haven't blogged in a while. lots has been going on:

• janelle is getting ready to graduate in june. so there is lots going on with her. she has been to fbla state and placed 1st in her category. she is going to nationals for the 3rd year in a row. hopefully 3rd time is the charm! janelle has also gotten a couple of scholarships that will help towards costs. she is applying for more by the day. i think she has a good chance of having most, if not all, of her first year of college taken care of. that is a huge relief for the both of us. she was worried about not having enough money for school. i told her if all else fails, we can always apply for student loans. that's what they are there for.
• janelle is going to try out for a competitive cheerleading squad again. she found one up near where she is going to college. they have try outs this thursday. we're driving up so she can strut her stuff. she's been taking tumbling classes again and has basically gotten back to where she was a couple of years ago. she thought she'd give it a shot and see. she is trying out for the open squad which is 18+. i would love to see her compete again. she's so good at it. too bad the politics and money got in the way before!
• i have met my 10% weight loss goal for weight watchers! i met it on st. patty's day. it definitely gave me a renewed sense of self. i've worked hard and i'm very proud of what i've accomplished so far. i've set my next 10% goal and have been thinking about what my final goal will be. my weight watchers leader said i can set my final goal at any time. right now i'm taking it 10% at a time. those are not as overwhelming to me so i think it will work.
• i started going to water aerobics again, which i think i mentioned last time i blogged. if i didn't, i'm going...lol. i'm really enjoying the class. my goal is to attend 3 classes per week unless something prevents me from going. i've added little extras in when we are doing the routine. for example, when the rest of the class is doing stationary karate kicks, i'm doing the kickboxing kicks like we did when i took at the ymca. i'm trying to pick up my cardio and do more fat burning moves. i found a water aerobics book on clearance at barnes and noble this weekend. it has some good info to help me add to my workout. i'm going to buy lionel a copy too so he can have additional reference materials. he said tonight he's ready to change the routine again. the one we're doing is getting a little stale.
• work is crazy, but i'm learning stuff. i don't want to get bogged down in the negative aspect of part of my job. let's just say i'm persevering. what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, right?

i'm going now. i hope everyone is doing well!! i'm going to try to catch up on blog-reading here soon.