January 29, 2009

It's still pretty cold here. We were lucky in the fact that we missed the brunt of the ice storm...it all went just a little north of us.

Left yesterday afternoon for the AC/DC concert. Stopped in Conway and ate at a neat little place called Mike's on Front Street. Had my favorite Fettuccine Alfredeaux. Anna was the first to point out, "That's not how you spell Alfredo!!" Then we had a geography/language lesson about the French living in New Orleans. The food was great. Anna had a fillet that would melt in your mouth. Joe had Tilapia and Jake had Fire Stoned Pizza.

After that we headed toward Little Rock for a little Rock N Roll with AC/DC. I had my camera taken away by a security guard, but not before I got a great video of Runaway Train. It was not a big incident, but I really wanted to get more pictures!!

Here is a picture of Anna and Jake before the concert.

Our tickets.

Jake's guitar-playing idol, Angus Young

It amazes me that these guys are still playing this music at their ages!! Doing what they do, day in and day out, is somewhat amazing. I saw them when I was in the 11th grade (some 27 years ago) and I don't remember my ears ringing the next day like they are at this very moment!!!

Nothing going on tonight, so it's going to be an early supper and early to bed kind of night!! We didn't get home until midnight last night and I am ready for a good nights sleep.

Hope you have a great Thursday....we're so close to the weekend I can taste it!! Gotta to get going to pick up the kiddos!

Bye for now.

January 27, 2009

Going to bed last night I felt 99% sure the kids and I could sleep in and wake up around 9:30. I figured we would stay in our PJ's until lunch or so, then cook a big pot of soup for supper! WRONG!!! I got up at 5 am, then again at 6:30 to scan the list of school closing on the television, only to NOT see Clarksville Public School on the huge list! So, as much as I hated it, I got my little ones up, coaxed them to get dressed and drove their sad little faces to school. Jake had a science test that I told him he didn't need to study for, because I felt sure they wouldn't be in school! We studied this morning before we left and he informed me on the way to school that the test was open book. This may not end well! Open book tests were always the hardest when I was in school some 25 years ago. It usually meant that the answers weren't in that "opened book"!!!

It rained all night and all day. The temperature has been hovering at the 35 degree mark almost all day, so things aren't freezing right now. The forecast predicts the temperature to drop to around 24 degrees in the next few hours and things are going to get worse. Maybe tomorrow we can sleep until 9:30, stay in our PJ's until....nevermind.



Hope your day is sunny and bright....

Bye for now!

Happy Monday

Got to play a little more with Photoshop Elements 5 this weekend and here is the scrapbook page I created. The journaling reads: "You made me play basketball with you for an hour before you would let me take this picture." It was a bribe I didn't mind at all!

We had a great weekend. Joe had to go to Alma to do physicals and attend boxing matches, so Jake and I went along for the ride. I helped with the physicals, so we got that done pretty quick...secretly, I think that is why he wanted me to go...anyway, he rewarded me by letting me go to Fort Smith while the matches were going on! Yeah!!! I went to Michael's and Hobby Lobby and still got back to Alma to see about 5 fights.


Anna has been under the weather for the last week. Here she is eating her Hamburger Helper on Sunday. She will be shining again soon, I'm sure.


We had lots of deer visit yesterday. I saw six making their way across our pasture late yesterday afternoon. (Looks like they saw me too!) Joe filled up their feeder Saturday, so they were on an eating freenzy!

This afternoon the weather is suppose to take a drastic turn for the worse. They are predicting freezing rain and ice with accumulations of up to an inch!! Yuck!! We have a tree in front of our house that isn't going to appreciated frozen rain on its leaves!

Hope you all have a wonderful Monday. Stay warm and safe!

Bye for now.

It's early here, but if I don't post now, it may not get posted!

Yesterday, after school, Jake wanted to play/practice basketball. I had some other things in mind, like taking pictures of him. We compromised and after about an hour of basketball he promised me a couple of pictures.




I think it was worth it, cause he let me get a couple of good shots without much trouble....and Jake did excellent at his game last night. No, I'm not saying we WON, but, against the #1 team, we held our own.

I'm looking forward to the weekend. It is suppose to get a little cooler tomorrow and there is a chance of snow Monday and Tuesday. Anna has been sick, but has not missed any school. I gave her a shot last night and hope that she is better by later today. She is our sunshine and right now, she's a little cloudy! Jake has basketball practice Sunday, so we'll be staying in town.

Next week will be super busy. Anna has a ballgame Monday, Jake has a game Tuesday (@ 8:30)!! We are going to see AC/DC on Wednesday, Joe is on call Thursday, and both Anna and Jake have ballgames on Friday!!Whew!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Bye for now!

January 22, 2009 (Part 2)

As I promised, here are my pictures from yesterday.....and a couple of digital scrap attempts.

Got a quick shot of myself in the rear-view mirror. No cars were coming as you can see!!

First, this is the road I travel at least twice a day, once going west and once going east! This is the route to take Anna and Jake to school each day...

Downtown Clarksville, Arkansas

Here are a some of the digital scrapbook pages I have done. I used a couple of old pictures, just playing with the program and learning as I go. This one is Joe and Anna at Joe's mom's house several years ago.

This picture is of Anna and Jake before Christmas in 2007.

And as I was going through some of my pictures I found this one...thought it was pretty appropriate for today.

We visited Washington, D.C. in 2006. It was a great trip for our family.

Bye for now!

January 22, 2009

Man, where does the time go? I feel like I am getting over a hangover of "Obama-itis". I know it is hard for the television networks to understand or believe, but not EVERYONE is just GAAGAA over Barack Obama. It would be nice to see something else occasionally, but "This too shall pass..." hopefully sooner than later.

I have been pretty good about taking my pictures for Project 365, so here we go...January 14 th




Joe's first shipment of Nutrisystem came today! I organized it into Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Dessert for him, so that all he has to do is grab what he wants for that specific meal. I can honestly say, eight days later, that I am very proud of him. I have tried to do better too. It takes a little longer now at the grocery store, but once we settle on what is good and works for us, it'll be just as quick as before. Joe says the food is really good, so that makes life a lot easier!

It snowed here on the 15th...of course it didn't stay longer than a couple of hours, but it was beautiful falling from the sky.

We had some old friends visit last weekend. I spent most of Thursday and Friday cleaning...


In total, we had 6 adults and 8 kids, so the house was filled with laughter and warmth. We don't see them very often; the Shrum's live about 3 1/2 hours away and Casey and Angie live about an hour away. Here is a picture of us at El Parian during lunch on Sunday. Joe, Kelly, Casey and I did our residency together in Pine Bluff, about 16 years ago.

From the left, Andrea, Kelly, Casey, and Angie.

The kids had Monday off from school, so Anna spent the night with a friend and Jake had friends over to play. It was a beautiful day, so there was a lot of football, basketball, eating and sweating!! I love taking pictures of them playing.

This is Jake's friend Tristan, being tackled by Jake, David and Daniel!

Tuesday, of course, was the inauguration of our new President. I took a picture of my television screen. I have many emotions about this historic day, but I will not use my blog for political purposes. I will continue to pray for the leaders of our country.


I've got several pictures from yesterday and haven't decided which one to post, so I'll get to that later today. I've been playing with Photoshop Elements and hopefully I can figure out how to post some things I've been working on.

Bye for now!

Project 365 Day 13

This probably isn't too exciting for a lot of people, but for ME, it is very exciting !!! Laundry room in order.....a couple of hours ago it looked like a clothing store had exploded! Now it is serene and orderly!! I love that! So, even though it is not too exciting...it is Life on the Hill.

Today is pretty easy. Anna texted me to let me know there is no cheerleading practice, tumbling coach is out of town, so no tumbling tonight!! No basketball practice until tomorrow night, so looks like we can do homework, eat an early supper and lay around the house until bedtime!

We have some old friends coming this weekend. I can't wait to see them and for Anna and Jake to get to play with their kids. I need to get the upstairs in order and hopefully, finally get the last of our Christmas decorations put up. Its good to have a deadline to make you get things done!! It should be a fun weekend, even though Joe is on call. No school on Monday, so get to stay up late and stay in bed in the am!!! Gotta love that! Well, with Jake around we won't get to sleep past 7 am, but at least we don't have to leave home early!!

Well, gotta get to that Christmas stuff. Have a great Tuesday! See you tomorrow!

Bye for now....

Bonfire Gone Bad

I have had better days...I decided to burn a few small boxes in our firepit today. This was no big deal, done it a million times right? WRONG!!! It started as just a small piece of grass that caught on fire outside of the firepit and I tried to put it out with my shoe, then the next thing I know...it is an inferno! I jumped in the truck, got a bucket of water and brought it back to douse it down, but by the time I could run back, the fire was twice the size it was before I left to get water! I ran back and forth with water about 4 times before calling backup (Anna was out of school-sick) She brought me two buckets and that is when I realized it was beyond my control. Told Anna to call 911, which she totally refused to do...thought they would think she was playing a prank! So she screamed for Gran to call. It seemed like 2 hours before the water truck showed up, but really only 20 minutes or so. I had pretty much gotten the fire under control before the fire department arrived, but I have never been so happy to hear a fire siren!!!

When Joe came home from work (sick also), I felt like a kid that was about to get a whipping!! I just knew the look he was going to give me, but I guess he was feeling too bad to fuss at me.

This is a picture of the final result.

I think I will call it a day!

Bye for now!

Checking in

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. I'm cooking a little, but wanted to stop and post my Project 365 pictures...

Saturday's picture is of Anna and my mom before we went out for dinner last night


Today's picture is of Anna and her Best Friend, Emily..


See you tomorrow...enjoy the rest of your weekend!!!

Project 365 Pages 1-3

Woohoo!! 2 posts in one day...is that a record? Maybe for me!! Just thought I'd post my results, so far of Project 365...


The first page is going to be an introduction, sorta, with just a few random pictures, then page 2 is the first week, beginning with January 1.


The third page is not complete, because I still have Saturday's and Sunday's picture to take, but you get the idea...right?


I still have journaling to do, but I'll do that later tonight...shouldn't take long, just cut and paste from my blog and I'm good to go!

Bye for now.

Yeah Mr. UPS Man!!!

Today was a good day!! Mr. UPS man did not disappoint!

I couldn't believe how much came with this kit for $35.95! Got started right away and am almost caught up for this week with pictures.


Anna has to cheer in the morning...we have to be there at 8:45 (uggghhh!!) I think that is all we have planned for this weekend. Jake lost his basketball game last night, but on an up note, he did score another 4 points....GO TEAM!!

Joe has been swamped at work. I think he has had 16 admissions to the hospital in the last two days!! Hopefully we can stay at home and relax a little tomorrow. I hope everyone has a great weekend. I'm going to at least try to post my pics this weekend, so see you tomorrow!!

Bye for now....

January 1-7 Update

I can't believe how the days seem to just fly by and before you know it, an entire week as become a memory. This year one of my goals is to take at least one picture daily (or nearly daily). Many people in the scrapbook community have taken on this incredible challenge. There is actually a kit by Becky Higgins that was sold online to help organize and display these pictures in sort of an album style. I was one of the lucky few to finally get through the mayhem of the internet on January 1st and order my Project 365 kit. Many people didn't get one, some got more than they wanted and many got huge headaches over the entire situation. I just know that I got one and it should arrive via UPS on Friday!! I will try to post my pictures and at least a small blurb each day on my blog, but no promises! So here goes...

01.01.09
I took several pictures on 01.01.09. Played around with my photo editing program a little, so I included a couple of pictures here. We had a couple of friends over and watched football on New Years. The weather was nice....Jake enjoyed playing outside...thinking he might become a punter instead of a wide receiver. These are a couple of CRAZY kids!!


01.02.09
We went to Fort Smith on the 2nd. Joe took a day off of work (Yeah!) to take his truck in to be serviced. After we got about a mile down the road, already late, I got a call that our alarm system was showing some Zone problems that I needed to attend to. Needless to say, we turned around and came home. Joe went alone and Anna and I met him later that morning (thanks to Gran and Papa) The problem with the alarm was easy...just needed a few batteries for our key fobs. We had a fun day shopping and playing. Ate a great supper in Alma, a neat place called The Catfish Hole.

01.03.09

No pic from the 3rd.

01.04.09
Jake is my "little riser", always waking up bright and early on Saturdays and Sundays. For some reason it's the Mondays thru Fridays that are a real struggle! I'm sure someone can relate! Anyway, this is Joe and Jake walking down the driveway to get the paper on Sunday morning.

01.05.09
It's started! Basketball season! Jake gets a few last minute pointers from Coach Kevin. There was good news and bad news about the game...we lost, bad, but on an up note, Jake scored 4 points....the only points our team scored! We'll get better!

01.06.09
Anna has turned into the typical teenager......texting one of her 6,835 texts for the month! This number, 6835, is NOT a number I just pulled out of my head. It is the exact number of texts she had last month!!!

01.07.09
It was a beautiful day on the 7th. I went outside for a couple of pictures and I ended up staying for half an hour. One thing about dogs, they don't hide their face, or make a goofy face when you photograph them (over and over again).

01.08.09
Today I got to cash in on my Christmas present from Joe. He gave me a housekeeping service twice a month and today was my lucky day. They did a great job and gave me time to catch up on a little blog time!! Thanks sweetheart, you're the BEST!

Well, I guess that just about catches up to today. Anna is cheering this afternoon at 2 basketball games, then at 8:30 tonight Jake plays basketball. I hope we get a chance to grab a bite to eat and do homework between games!! It's gonna be a long night. See you tomorrow.

Bye for now!