A Little Catching Up and Happy Halloween

Doc and I had a great couple of days away. We didn't do much to take pictures of, so I'll spare us all by not posting any pictures of our trip. We saw some snow, but not near as much as the weather reports had led us to believe there would be.

I came home to Halloween parties, soccer games, a birthday party and some babysitting. Blog reading has taken a back seat for a few days and I will try to catch up next week, or if not catch up, start from scratch.

My Halloween party pics won't win any prizes either, but these are the best I got.

Ellis, as a very cute Dora, mostly just wanted to show me her backpack.

Jared was a very elusive Whoopee Cushion.

Hope, as a Hippie, is always ready to pose for a picture.

She wasn't quite sure whether to believe me or not when I

told her I remember when people really dressed that way.

Beck wasn't quite sure what to make of all the festivities.

  Dodger had a little Halloween fun of his

own at the place he stayed while we were gone.

He seems to be asking where the treats are.

Tonight some of my grandkids will be here for Jack-o-lantern pizza and some trick or treating here before they go home for more trick or treating in their own neighborhoods.

Happy Halloween to everyone

Mountain Time

We are heading off to the mountains this afternoon for a couple of days. No big plans, just a little get-away. We are going a little too late in the year to see the fall colors, but the mountains are beautiful at any time of the year.

Our mountains have had a lot of snow this week, the first big snowfalls of the season. I'm not a big fan of snow when it is piled up in my driveway, but fresh mountain snow is a beautiful sight to see.

A few ski areas have opened already, but since I don't yet have my legs in shape for the slopes (hahahaha, like that'll happen) I expect we will pass on that. I skied only once last year and I think I am still sore.

Since I'll be with Doc, who, shall we say, is not averse to a little gambling from time to time, I am sure we will spend time in one of our mountain casino towns. I will have to remember to pack my leopard capris.

Whatever we do, I'm looking forward to a few days away.

I hope I come back ready for work next week, if  not tanned, at least rested and ready.

Images from Bing Images

My Grandmomiversary

Yesterday was my oldest grandson's 10th birthday and it marked a special day for me also....my 10 year anniversary of being a Grandmom. Ten years and six more grandchildren later, I want to thank Jared for being the first of seven kids who couldn't be more special to me.

It looks like I was pretty happy about being a grandmom

Jared was very cool as a baby

Still  cool as a 5 year old

He is good big brother, and it looks like I was still pretty happy about being a grandmom

As the oldest of seven cousins on our side of the family he is sometimes too cool for the shenanigans of the older kids, but he is very good with the little ones.

Of course being the center of attention at his birthday dinner

is a little hard to take for a very cool 10 year old.

Happy 10th birthday to Jared

And thank you for making me a grandmom for the first time.

Where Do You Keep Your Donkeys?

Image from Bing Images

An ad in our local weekly newspaper under "wanted to rent" reads:

Responsible older male needs small farmhouse to rent

w/facilities for 2 mini donkeys.

Am I being too fanciful to think that this might be a pretty interesing guy and that there might be a good story behind this ad?

A Thankless Time of Year

Fall is in so many ways a wonderful time of year. The leaves on the trees changing from green to orange and red and gold brings joy and wonder to our hearts.....and then they fall off and we are left with the thankless task of removing the bounty of of all that beauty.

I have mentioned before that Doc is a bit obsessive about home maintenace (I think I may have called him a maintenace freak) and his obsession extends to yard maintenance. Even though leaves have just begun falling here, this afternoon Doc gathered his leaf removal tools and went out and cleaned up all the leaves that had fallen in our front yard. Before putting his tools away, he stopped for a moment to proudly admire the results of his efforts. As he stood admiring, a big gust of wind came up, seemingly out of nowhere, and rattled the trees. When the wind stopped all that was left for him to admire was a yard once again covered with a  thick blanket of leaves. To add insult to injury, the next door neighbors were out and stopped laughing only long enough to tell him that it looked really nice.....for a minute.

I had been gone and Doc told me this story when I got home. I must not have offered a sympathetic enough response to the first telling because he told me the story two more times. It's not that I wasn't sympathetic, it was more that I was biting my tongue to try to keep from advising him to wait until most of the leaves had fallen before he started his clean up  (and a little that I was trying to keep from laughing). Any laughing or advice would have been thanklessly received by a maintenance freak.

I Wasted A Lot Of Time Trying to Remember and Now I Forget Why

A long time ago I started working a crossword puzzle every day because I read that it was supposed to be a good thing to do for our brains to help prevent dementia and memory loss. Now, many years and many crossword puzzles later I am hearing that the only thing working crossword puzzles does for you is make you good at working crossword puzzles. I'm afraid to tell my brain that it did all that work for nothing.

Image from Bing Images

Another study I heard about recently, or maybe it was the same one that burst my bubble about crossword puzzles-I can't remember, says that walking at least six miles a week is one of the best things we can do for our brain function. I walk a lot, but I have no idea how many miles I walk a week. What if I buy into this and pound the pavement for years and then they find out they were wrong about this too. I don't want to get into the same trouble with my feet that I'm in now with my brain after making it work so hard on all those crossword puzzles.

If it all fails and I forget everything else, I hope I can still remember to laugh.

Did you  Hear about the absent minded professor who fell down the stairs? When he hit the bottom, he picked himself up and said, "I wonder what all that noise was about."

Anonymous

I sometimes worry about my sort attention span, but not for long.

Herb Caen

I'm always fascinated by the way memory diffuses fact.

Diane Sawyer

The man with a clear conscience probably has a poor memory.

Unknown

The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Nothing fixes things so intensly in the memory as the wish to forget it.

Michel de Montaigne

By the time your're eighty years old you've learned everything. You only have to remember it.

Unknown

Frosty Paws

Dodger hasn't found a new girlfriend since his old girlfriend, Sammie, broke up with him, and like many of us when we have a broken heart he is finding comfort in food. His new favorite is Frosty Paws, a frozen, ice cream like dog treat.

It comes in little paper cups  like the ones we got when we were in school that came with a flat wooden spoon. I found it at the grocery store stuck in the middle of the ice cream treats for humans. When I was checking out the clerk looked at me and asked if I knew that it was for dogs. I just got all wide-eyed and said ok, resisting the urge to say I was lactose intolerant.

Despite the maker's claim that it is a very healthy treat, we have limited Dodger to about one a week.  At least I have finally talked Doc out of buying donut holes for him, or at least I have talked him out of telling me about it.

Anytime we open the freezer in the garage Dodger jumps up, runs over by the freezer and sits with his best "aren't I a good dog"  look on his face. Once we give it too him his tongue starts licking and doesn't stop until the cup is empty.

Maybe Dodger will find a new girlfriend soon and lose his interest in Frosty Paws, but in the meantime, I am happy for him to find comfort wherever he can. I've been there myself. Sigh!

Dodger has received no compensation from Frosty Paws for his endorsement of their product and has no connection with the maker of Frosty Paws, except that he looks a little like the dog on their box.

Friday Fragments

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Trying to learn to use my new phone and starting a new, very long book, Fall of Giants by Ken Follett, has caused me to neglect my blog this week. Well, that and not having much to say, so I'm gathering my few random thoughts and scattering them around this week's Friday Fragments.

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Do you wear Crocs? You know, the colorful foam/resin clogs that look like this.

I live in Boulder County, Colorado where Crocs originated and I have never owned a pair. I have bought a number of pairs for my grandkids who wear them all the time, but I have never worn them. Now that the Crocs brand has expanded to about 120 styles I may have to change that. These are a couple of the new styles that may change my mind about Crocs.

What do you think?

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Sometimes when I read an interesting comment on a blog I want to go to the commenter"s blog and see what else they have to say. That usually works out fine, but when I get to a profile and see that the person has three or four different blogs I get a little confused. Well, first I wonder how they are able to keep up with so many blogs and then I get confused. How do I know which one is their "main" blog or is there a "main"blog? Sometimes I just read the one with the most recent post, but more often I just back out and move on because I don't like to be confused. Any Advice? 

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A physical education teacher at the elementary school near our house allowed her students to duct tape her to the gym wall when they exceeded their fundraising goal for Jump Rope for Heart. She is an award winning teacher and I have to admire her creativity in encouraging her students, but I get claustrophopic just looking at this picture.

Picture from Colorado Hometown Weekly

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Our new baby, Beck, will be a month old soon. He is growing fast....he is already too big for most of his newborn clothes.

He has already been to lots of soccer games.

Keeping up with 2 big sisters sometimes just wears a little guy out.

Pictures stolen from my daughter's blog

I might Be Smarter Than A 5th Grader, But I Don't Think I Am As Smart As A Smartphone

I had some time this afternoon between lunch with my son and his 2 kids and my oldest grandson's basketball game. I've needed a new cell phone for a while so I decided to go have a look. I walked out an hour and a half later (late for the basketball game) with a brand new smartphone that I am fast beginning to fear is much, much smarter than I am.

So far, I have figured out how to do exactly what my old phone could do....make a call, answer a call, send a text, answer a text and check messages. Even answering a call took me a while to figure out. It seems you have to slide the green button instead of just touching it. Who knew? I know I am a little late to the party for this whole smartphone thing and I'm feeling a little like I showed up for it without getting the right message about the dress code.

Fortunately, I have some tech-savvy kids who will help me learn to use it and I am signed up for a class at the phone store in a couple of weeks. Yes, a class to teach me how to use my phone, how crazy is that? Even crazier is the fact that the class is at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning.

I tend to be an impulse buyer and things usually work out, and I'm sure they will with this phone. In the meantime, do any of you who have these too-smart-for-their-own-good (or at least mine) phones have any suggestions for me? What do you like about them and what do you use the most? I don't want to use up too much of my limited smarts spending  a lot of time learning things that I don't really want to know.

Six Word Saturday

Image from Google Images

Happy 60th Birthday to Charlie Brown

Today marks the 60th anniversary  of the debut of Charlie Brown and all his Peanuts pals. The beloved cartoon strip first appeared in 4 newspapers on October 1, 1960. In those 60 years the  nervous, insecure little boy has become one of the most recognized cartoon characters in the world.

Way to go, Charlie and Pals!

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