Pictures-I found the cable

Blogging Hiatus

I have a dilemma, I've lost the cable to upload pictures to my blog..dang, it's always something I really need that I lose. Anyways, that is one reason that I haven't been blogging very much. Another reason is it has been really cold and you know what they say "if you can't say something nice, don't...." so I've held back until today. It is 27 degrees and a bit sunny and we've been feeling a bit optimistic in my family until..........................we heard the weather report.


The snow has almost melted here, and so everyone is just holding their breath until tomorrow's blizzard.

Yesterday I was a chaperon for Isabel's 3rd grade snowshoeing adventure. I seriously think this is the most my body has moved all winter. (cellphone picture)



"Jack" our new puppy is very cute and full of himself, he has toys everywhere and he is still learning to go outside to potty, but I am very optimistic and with enough training (training us) that we could potentially be a good dog family. The place where I get messed up is listening to 10 different kind of dog training styles and then getting confused. So we are going to pick one and stick with it.

God is ever present with us, I think about Him night and day and what he has planned for me, our family, our church, THE CHURCH, etc. I spend too much time on blogs and read about the drama in the American church and am constantly asking Him "what's up?"

These are the things I have my hands in these days:

Mosaics - a few in the works right now.

I volunteer at the kids school in the classroom, and I work in the publishing center which is really cool. Kids write stories, they bring their edited stories to us and we type it out and then, they make a cover which we laminate and bind into a really great book.

I applied for a job at Bath and Body very part time. We will see.

I help with San Damiano, our church.

February

It's Cold.

"Jack" new addition to the family

He is a puggle 14 weeks old

The Value of Fun!

After having a wonderful conversation with our new neighborhood friends, the reason why I'm having a difficult time getting used to Northern Wisconsin is that FUN is not of value to the majority of people here. Serious, hardy, no-nonsense, etc. is of utmost value.

Fun made up most of my life in California, I worked with kids, thought up fun things to do all the time. I thought that fun was my job in life.

Appleton, Wisconsin is a very fine city, with very fine people, who work hard, volunteer, hunt, ice-fish (why? I don't know), and unless they are all liquored up you can barely get some of them to smile. Even the children are a little serious. I'm determined to not have the fun sucked out of me. It is challenging to find fun here in the winter 'cause you have to make your own fun, but I am determined to find it.

Maybe since we are new here we don't know how to have fun, it's a different kind of fun, we probably don't laugh at the same jokes, or socialize the same way. I'm beginning to get a clearer and clearer picture of the social clash in Iraq, two completely differnt tribes. You know what they say, if you are having a problem, you probably need to point that finger right at yourself. SO, I'm going to try harder!

If you want to see the great things about WISCONSIN go to:

www.cheeseheaduniversity.com



Please prove me wrong, Anyone want to have fun??

Strep

Does anyone (from California) remember whenever your child got sick you went for a strep test? Since I've been in WI I would wager to say 25 people have asked me when my children are sick "did you get a strep test?", it's like a regional disease. Well, today I went and had two children with strep. People have said that because it hasn't been cold enough to kill off all the molds and germs there is more than usual sickness.

All I can say is "Calgon, take me away", I definitely need a kid break. I have the kids all full of antibiotics, breathing treatments, etc. So maybe I'll have a day alone soon.

I'm starting to get a bit of the cabin fever, today was the first time in 4 days I left the house. The high today was 23 degrees and when we went out to the doctors people were out in T-shirts! What's up with that? We look like such wimps, hat, gloves, scarves and we were still freezing.

Mosaics

I have been enjoying making mosiacs; I've attached some pictures.

How were your holidays? I've slowed down on my blogging because I've got a myspace too and this takes a lot of computer time. My myspace name is waitingfororders.

Our little church is fun; I'm attempting to help a little with the communication at church. We'll see, they might not want to communicate too much. I've always wanted to be a cruise director/artist and a cruise director lets everyone know what is happening which I like to do, and then for my artist side I do mosaics or I saw this other cool idea on HGTV: making glass houses with a soldering iron and inlayed papers and pictures. They were really pretty - I might try that too.

Well I better go clean the house....again.

Big Day for Sam

Today was the Pinewood Derby for the Cub Scouts. Mike and Sam have been thinking and working on Sam's car for a month (there was a lot more thinking than actually working). This morning, Sam's car came in 3rd place out of all 30 cars in his age group! We are so proud! Even though Sam did say this was taking up way too much of his play time in life, he thinks it was worthwhile.

Other than the Derby, it's been pretty boring here in Wisconsin. We took down the Christmas tree yesterday and put away all the Christmas stuff, had a few dinner parties, and painted the master bedroom and the basement. We are waiting for some snow; it really must be different here with snow.

Wait...this house takes the cake!

Kooky Christmas Decorations

There is a street that I love in Appleton and it is Oneida St. It is the street that I need to take to get downtown, to church and to the library and there are some really creative people who live on this street and they enjoy the holidays. I've watched one house in particular transform from 4th of July, Labor Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving with mannequins dressed as Pilgrims and Indians...CHRISTMAS is here and I'm adding a picture of their holiday expression. We have a boring string of lights and a wreath. This is a lot more fun to look at.