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.

happy halloween

trick or treat

a new driver

Attention grandkids!

Nanamoo has learned how to drive the tractor. Now it will be twice as much fun when you come to the Birdhouse...you can ride with me and you can ride with Papa.

Brianna laughed and laughed to see me on the tractor. In addition to giving grandkids rides, this is a skill that is useful for taking out the trash when Doug is not home...and possibly, even when he is.

exhortations

It is spring in Argentina. Doug left this afternoon. He will be busy helping to support BYU as they promote the launch of the BYU channel. As he was leaving, I was busy giving him some wifely words of advice...remember this and that. He said that this was, in all probability, his last trip to Argentina. For a place that has meant so much to the well-being of our family over the years and as people that he has come to love, it is a bittersweet thought. It seems unlikely that it could be true. When he retired, he most certainly thought that it was his last trip to Argentina, and he has actually been back eight times since then.

After he left this afternoon, I finished reading the Book of Mormon. I have read it more times that I can remember, yet it never fails to move me. The last chapter is especially compelling as Moroni gives seven exhortations. What is an exhortation anyway? Dictionary.com says that it is urgent advice, recommendations, or warnings. Yes, he gives seven, one of which is to remember the other six...love that!

So, I guess what I was really doing was giving my husband exhortations. One of which was to remember that it is spring in Argentina--look at the beautiful jacaranda trees that paint the city a lavendar pastel this time of year.
"And I would exhort you, my beloved...that ye remember that every good gift cometh of Christ." Moroni 10:18

a job well done

before














and after

thinking about melanie

Sometimes a picture captures more than a record of an event.
That's how I feel about this picture...

...this is how I feel about us.

what ever happened to howdy doody?

Howdy Doody was a children's television program (with a decidedly frontier/western theme, although other themes also colored the show) that aired on NBC from 1947 through 1960. It was a pioneer in children's programming and set the pattern for many similar shows. It was also a pioneer in early color production as NBC used the show in part to sell color television sets in the 1950's.
Howdy Doody himself was a freckle-faced boy marionette.

Bozo the Clown (also known as Bozo), is the name of a clown whose widespread franchising in early television made him the best-known clown character in the United States. Partly as a result, the word "bozo" has become synonymous with a foolish person. It also was a common name given to hobo or tramp clowns.

Doug has often refered to Howdy Doody over the years, but for me personally, I don't think that I spent any time watching a freckle-faced cowboy marionette.

However today, I met the guy who played Bozo for eight years and his friend who is the master puppeteer for Howdy Doody. They are living in Winter Park running a marionette theater.
We had a most enjoyable field trip!
Thanks to Wikipedia for the information about Howdy Doody and Bozo posted in this blog.

Lampu Japanese Steakhouse

Brianna has been working to get 5 behavior A's in a row. The reward: A trip to Lampu. Tonight we ate at the restaurant. Good job B!

thank heaven for aloe

My big aloe plant didn't make it through the heat and neglect this summer. But gratefully, one of her offspring did. Tonight we slit open the baby stalk and laid it on a nasty burn that Brianna got taking cookies out of the oven this afternoon. We covered the aloe with gauze and then bandaided the whole concoction to her finger. Gratefully, it gave her relief from pain and hopefully, it will help her finger to heal.

pumpkin jack

Brianna spends alot of time of her own. Thankfully, she is a very creative child and we can usually count on coming home to something that involved paper, scissors and markers. Today Doug and I spent most of our hours at youth conference. Tonight Pumpkin Jack (and Brianna) have new hats, although she didn't want to model hers.

field trip to the kennedy space center

Of course, she had a blast.







Tee hee hee.

fall soccer

Brianna was pleased that her trophy looked like a girl this time around. Maybe in the spring they will get her name right as well. Good job B on the nice season, including two goals.

webpage

I started a class webpage today. It is just a beginning, but I am pleased that I have at least started. You can visit by clicking on this link:
www.roundlakeelementary.org

to Elliot from Nanamoo

I finished your Christmas sock!

knitting

I decided that I needed to knit something this week. As I was knitting, I thought about the woman who taught me to knit. Her name was Doreen Wanlass. I was a Beehive, and she was our leader. We knitted slippers. Mine were blue.

It seemed to me that all the mothers could knit. But when I talked with my mom about my project, she looked at me as if I was speaking to her in a foreign language with what I will describe as a pity/panic expression. I suppose now that it was pity because she could see I was a bit desperate and panic because she couldn't do anything to help me. I had dropped a stitch several rows back. The loop was just hanging there looking precarious. The following week, Sister Wanlass told me not to worry about it. Just to finish the slippers and then give them to her to put together. When my friends asked me about the loop, I just acted like it wasn't that big of a deal, because indeed, at that time, I didn't think that it was...or at least, I hoped that it wasn't.

In our ward there was a beautiful girl who I can only remember as "the Merrill girl" because everyone was called by their last names when refered to in conversation. Her mother could knit anything. She knit her a big bulky sweater about every other week. They were very "in", and she wore them with her 5" long pencil skirts. How I envied her beautiful sweaters!

I finished my slippers and gave them to Sister Wanlass, who was very slow sewing the slippers up and returning them to me. I wore them for a couple of years and thought they were the greatest slippers in the world. I don't know what happened to that loop. It just disappeared.

Thank you, Sister Wanlass. I have become a better knitter over the years and have enjoyed all the the projects that I have made because you helped me to be successful.

And now...I am teaching Brianna how to knit

young women in excellence

Last Wednesday the girls looked so beautiful. We had a wonderful evening paying tribute to the girls and sharing their personal progress projects.


Tonight the Laurels made candy apples.

the beads

the butcher knife

I remember one Saturday, not too long after the kitchen was finished. I decided that I needed some real knives. Before that time, we used steak knives for almost every cutting task because basically they were the only knives that we owned that actually cut anything. I bought a knife block which included a predetermined set of knives. In the set was a hefty butcher knife. I wondered about it at the time. I certainly wasn't planning on doing any butchering. Anyone who has seen me wield a knife definately would not want to be in the kitchen if I decided to take the thing in hand. But it came with the set. I never use it, but it makes a regular appearance in the dishwasher because Doug cooks a couple of times a week. He uses the butcher knife...for things like cutting avacados and tomatoes.

rusty's woodbadge letter to doug

painting update

With the exception of Sunday, I painted for ten straight days. By then, my house needed some serious attention. I took a week off to regroup. Then I started in again. Today I was ready to begin the porch. I was having a hard time getting motivated. I thought to myself. "Just think how good it will feel when you have done it."

It felt even better than I imagined.

I should have realized I would like this job. The floors have always been my favorite housecleaning job. I had so much fun, I went on and repainted the front porch too. I wanted to finish the job, but Melanie told me that I had to prime the boards on the other side of the house before I painted them since they had very little paint left on them thanks to Shooter. I primed the boards and they are ready to go for next week.

it's fall

Fall comes to Central Florida slightly differently than to the rest of the United States. Instead of losing leaves, the trees break forth into bloom with their own answer to a fantastic show of color.
Mt. Dora hosts a Halloween walk and some of the local businesses decorate the sidewalk with a variety of scarecrows. Brianna and I enjoyed seeing these as we ran a couple of errands in town after school.

the chickens

One year I asked Doug to build me a chicken coup for my Christmas present. We researched how much space a healthy chicken needed in a coup and Doug designed a great coup. We have had three groups of chickens live there.

Our first group was Rhode Island Reds. We read that they were good layers. And they were/are. Melody is the sole survivor of the first tenants. Those chickens were very tame because they were raised in the downstairs bathroom before it got remodeled. We often let them out to play. Unfortunately, they sometimes got forgotten when we went on to other activities and the fox had a banquet on those nights.

The second group of chickens were three black ladies. We liked the black ladies because the tractor supply where we purchased them guaranteed that they were girls. It is difficult to have a rooster if you want any peace at all. Contrary to popular belief, they crow all day, not just in the mornings. The black chickens were named for black supermodels, but I was never very good at telling them apart and cannot tell you the name of the survivor from that group. The black chickens were meaner than the reds and I doubt we will buy more black ones, although they laid well for us, even producing through the winter when we had less hours of sunlight (that normally signals a chicen to stop laying.)

The third group of chickens were purchased this spring. Courtney, Carter and Jonah went to pick them out with me. Did I mention that the black chickens were mean? We have one survivor from that group. I had more or less given up hope that she was ever going to lay. She had quite a bit of trauma in her youth and we thought that might have affected her ability to produce. And then,

Ho and BelowDo you see that white egg at the back there? Did I mentioned that the black chicken is mean. She won't let her lay her eggs in the box that is purpose built for nesting. The rude! There are three boxes and Melody and the black chicken always have to lay in the same box. Sometimes they switch which box, but I normally find both eggs in the same box. The one to the far left seems to be the favorite, so I am wondering why they can't give their coupmate the one to the far right and make life a whole lot easier for the egg collector?






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soccer dad

This is our second tour of soccer duty. Brianna played in the spring right after we started on daylight saving, and the city of Mt. Dora ran another league this fall which will finish before the end of October. I take Brianna, sit in my chair, sometimes read, sometimes sleep, sometimes watch. Brianna goes to practice/games three times a week. No one ever talks to me. I don't mind because I am happy for the peace and time to relax.

Doug has been to soccer with me twice, both times on Monday nights. We chat and have a nice, uninterrupted by phone calls, conversation. Tonight Doug took Brianna to soccer because I needed to leave for Relief Society Enrichment meeting before soccer ended and uncharacteristically, he had no meetings.

Three women talked with my husband tonight. They let him know that they know all about us, ie I teach school at Round Lake and Brianna is our daughter. I think there are a few more things they should to know about us.