it's that time of year

This is what I did before school......and this is what I did last night while Doug was at Bishopric Training.

it's raining

It rained almost all day...













...and at our house it rained water and sawdust. We are getting ready for our backyard project.

chat club?

The book club met tonight...we talked about the book for about 30 minutes and then we just talked for the next hour and a half. It was great to relax with people so different than myself in life experiences and realize how very much alike we all are.

oops

We are getting close to the end of the science project. I was "tempering" the chocolate in two pans that I own that I put together for a selfmade double boiler. For some reason a vacuum was created and the two pans were inseparably connected. I confessed to Doug and with a lot of brainstorming on the part of both of us, he finally got the pans apart thanks to WD-40 and a hammer!

Doug suggested that I not do that again.

happy birthday B

Tonight we went to "Light Up Mt. Dora". Rolf from the Sound of Music was the MC and as it turns out he has quite an impressive singing voice. We spent a little over an hour watching and listening to the local talent before they flipped the switch.
When we got home, we ate dinner and then Brianna opened the rest of her birthday presents. She had an early birthday with some clothes before we went to California. Today she was thrilled with her karaoke machine and the Karaoke CD's from Mel and Chez. Tricia sent her a game for her gameboy which she was delighted to have as well.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

teacher's pet

Kerstyn told her mommy that I would be at the baptism because on Tuesday (the last day of school before the Thanksgiving break) I said to her as she was leaving the classroom, "See you on Saturday."

Kerstyn was absolutely thrilled to be baptized. I was thrilled to be there.

oven adventure #1

Since the right side of my oven--that would be the larger side--was not working on Thanksgiving, I decided to try and get someone out to have a look. We don't really live in Timbuktu, but unfortunately, there are no Dacor people who are willing to come out. The Dacor office is closed until Monday, so we'll see what they have to say.

But we went out with the Hewitt's tonight and they suggested that it was a heating element problem. Sure enough, when we got home, we opened the oven, lifted the panel and the heating element was in 4 pieces. How does that happen?

Stay tuned for more exciting oven adventures...

BAG

My Thanksgiving Bag:

Blessing - to celebrate 30 years of marriage

Accomplishment - to keep up with my blog for 9 ish months now

Goal - to finish uncompleted projects

We had Thanksgiving with the Ingalls clan. It was a wonderful day inspite of the fact that one of my ovens would not hold a temperature...dinner was delayed but in the end it all tasted great and afterwards we had fun playing dominoes, pool, pingpong, and dance dance revolution until nearly midnight.

Doug's blog:

Blessing - me and the grandkids (sorry girls)

Accomplishment - finishing the first year as a new stake

Goal - staying on track with the scripture study program

Brianna's blog:

Blessing - (I can't remember exactly...I will check with her in the morning)

Accomplishment - being more responsible at school

Goal - to be "terrific kid" at school

commercial

You can hardly move these days without seeing some kind of commercial, so I don't think my blog should be any different.

I just love my floormate. I know that they have newer models and when this one wears out, I will upgrade, but in the meantime...

My machine will vacuum and mop and nearly dry all my hardwood floors. It is awesome.

welcome to the birdhouse

Here is the beautiful antique (circa 1870) acid-etched glass that we purchased at Rennigers this weekend. It was four inches too tall for our opening. When I called the glass cutters this morning they told me that they would not cut the glass because it is illegal not to have "safety glass" in the doors. I told her that we would sandwich the glass inbetween the safety glass, so she made the appointment and the cutters showed up around noon. They told us that as long as we didn't ask them to install it, they would be glad to cut it...if they could. No guarantees of course. They didn't feel comfortable cutting it at the house so they loaded up the doors of which the glass was a part and attached them to the OUTSIDE of their truck. (I am talking like the doors looked like they were riding on the running board.) They called around 4:00 and we spent the next hour shuttling back and forth between the glass cutters and our house twice. It is now 6:30. Doug has just finished installing the glass. We are thrilled!

a picture of B for Grandma B

Grandma says that she doesn't have a current picture of Brianna. So...here she is on Sunday, November 19, 2006 at 8:06 pm.

rennigers

Today was the extravaganza at Rennigers. 117 acres of antiques and junk...mostly junk. I think I walked all 117 acres today and a large part of it I walked more than once while I waited over an hour for Doug to show up and give an opinion. He loved it! Hope you do too...but you'll have to wait to see what!

stranger than fiction

Well done Emma!
Go see it.

let's make a deal

Doug was supposed to help me clean the house today. But then I said, if you will hang the window treatments, I will clean while you work. He's a smart man. He knew he would have to hang them sooner or later and he might as well get out of the cleaning job for his efforts.

You may be wondering why we are putting up window treatments after six years. The answer to that is that we got a new carpet for under the table and we don't want it to fade...you know how one project leads to another...which is why he is now going to have to hang another matching set on the other side of the room. I bought four more tonight.

conversational dilemma

Rachel used this interesting little video clip for a Young Women's lesson on Sunday. Before you read the rest of this blog you should watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U

Okay...so on Sunday, I ran into a man that I worked with at my dad's office when I was newly married. I haven't seen him for 30 years. He said to me..."I could almost recognize you."

My question is this...what was my response supposed to be?

California is the state of beautiful people. And I am thankful for the ones still standing beside me who are beautiful on the inside--where it is real.

family pictures

what a wonderful celebration!

wedding day

the bride and groom

beautiful brittany

five brothers...

...and their wives
Rusty, Kelly, Doug, Debbie, Paul, Linda, Tim, Lori, Kyle and Jen

over the river and through the woods...

I said to my mom that Melanie wanted me to take some pictures of her pink house. She looked at me quite surprised and then responded with the question, "my pink house?" I wasn't sure why she was surprised, but I answered, "yes". Then she looked around and said, "well, I guess the floors are a very pale pink."

In addition to the floors...

It is worth noting that the front doors are blue!

visit to dr. moxley

Linda quit today. She will stay at school until a replacement is found...probably through November. I am very happy for her political success.

TAVARES -- Linda Stewart, who pulled a political shocker in September when she defeated longtime County Commissioner Catherine Hanson in the GOP primary with a promise to slow development, vanquished Democrat Egor Emery on Tuesday to win the seat.Stewart, who garnered 62 percent of the vote, will be joined on the commission by another newcomer and fellow slow-growth proponent, Republican Elaine Renick, whose certain victory was sealed with Tuesday's vote. Renick's name appeared alone on the ballot for that race, and only because she faced a write-in candidate. Renick had ousted incumbent Bob Pool in a three-way Republican primary.
In Stewart, a schoolteacher, and Renick, a three-term Clermont City Council member, voters chose candidates who could dramatically shift county government's pro-growth course. With their votes in September and in Tuesday's general election, Lake voters signaled they are fed up with overcrowded schools, congested roads and developers who have long influenced county commissioners."I can't believe it," Stewart said. "I'm not a politician. I've never had politics on my mind, but it's been too long since Lake County residents have been heard."I'm going to make a change."At the round courthouse, where votes were being tallied, Emery hugged Stewart and shook her hand.The outcome of Renick's victory, meanwhile, was never in doubt."I'm very happy," she said, adding, "I couldn't relax until it was official."All voters in the county were eligible to cast ballots in races that require candidates to live in a district. In the District 4 race, Stewart held off Emery, who was hoping to become only the second Democrat to win election to a commission seat since 1970. In the District 2 race, Renick's opponent was write-in candidate Hubert Martin III.Stewart, 55, emphasized the need to lure higher-paying jobs to Lake. She proposed to do so by setting aside land exclusively for light industry and commercial development. Like Renick, Stewart has said she would preserve what's left of the county's rural lands.Renick, a 54-year-old former school psychologist, also pledged never to meet with developers or their attorneys outside of public meetings."I think we have already felt the change, and there's going to be more changes with the decisions concerning growth ahead of us," Renick said.

"enough is enough"

COUNTY COMMISSIONER DISTRICT 4
(With 101 out of 102 Precincts Counted)

Linda Stewart
50813
62.06 %

E. K. Emery
31065
37.94 %

mo's wedding reception

Last night we went to Mo's wedding reception at the Ingall's house. Everything was very beautiful...especially Mo.



We also enjoyed meeting Chris's dad and mom, Elder and Sister Rasband. They didn't have a picture of Sister Rasband on the church website, which I think is a bit unfortunate.

mt. dora plant and garden show

I went.This is the time of year when most of the people in the United States are cleaning up their garden in preparation for winter. In Florida, we are checking the garden to see if anything lasted through the heat. Now we enjoy gardening for the next 7 months or so. I am excited to plant on Monday!

fall festival

Friday was the fall festival for our school. My teaching partner, Linda Stewart, brought her horses and we spent the entire time running the horsey rides. I took tickets, she and two other teachers led the horses. For me, I enjoyed watching the adults who had never ridden on a horse, pay their three tickets and be as thrilled as any child to ride.

locked out

Tonight all the youth came to our house for YM/YW. I had painted the side of the house, so I roped off that part of the porch and locked the back door from the inside so that no one could go walking on my paint job while it is drying.

When everyone showed up it started getting warm, but since it is a cool evening, (that would be 69) we decided just to open the front door and the windows at the back of the house. The screens were in the closet so I had to put them on first. It doesn't take very long, but as I was putting them on, I accidentally put one in backwards. It was annoying to turn around and since I was in a hurry, I just left it.

Later that night when nearly everyone was gone, I walked outside to say goodbye to the last group. As I did, I closed the front door and it locked behind me. Now I was locked out of my house with no keys! Someone asked if I had any windows open. And then I remembered...my back windows were still open and one of them had the screen in backwards so it would only require the slighest push since I hadn't been able to lock it into place. Not only that, I had been painting the back of the house today and the ladder was just a few feet from the window.

In just a few minutes, we had hoisted one of Brianna's friends through the window and she opened the front door to save the day, or rather, the night for us.

My family says I am the luckiest one. Sometimes I am lucky, but this time, I think it was a blessing.