Happy Thanksgiving

My children came home from school today with these hats. Do you not find them a little ironic? Just another odd piece of info all the kids in Sonny Boy's class were Native American, all the kids in Igor's class were Pilgrims (the girls had bonnets) so I did not switch them around nor did they choose what to make.

Hope your Thanksgiving is good!

The Holidays Already??!!

Wow, I can't believe next weekend it is Thanksgiving, it feels as though last week it was July 4th. Time flies I suppose.

I've been busy, but honestly I can't tell you just what I've been doing. Two mornings a week I work at the barn with Igor tagging along chattering behind me and generally being a menace to the barn cats. Igor is loosing his fear of horses and will touch them on the nose when he is held. I don't want him to loose too much fear however or I might look up and find him in the pasture under hooves. So far the horses are turned out when we are there, with the exception of two stallions, but they are kept in an area of the barn I do not work in, and they seem to be gentle souls regardless of their frisky reputations.

I had my first and second riding lessons this last week as well. The trainer put me on a Tennessee Walker. It was the first time I have ever ridden a gaited horse - if you don't know the difference google it, as it's hard to explain. Anyhow it was a different experience and not really what I thought I was getting, nothing like the training I had before, however it IS a totally different style of riding, the horse is trained differently, and adjusting to the rolling gait is a bit unusual. The barn is a MUCH bigger establishment than the one I worked at before and has some very nice facilities, but they also have practices that would send my old trainer through the roof like not cleaning tack after it is used which was a pet peeve of hers.

Igor's new glasses came in this week. Though they are a much stronger prescription the lenses are a lot thinner as the new vision insurance would pay at least a percentage for the thinner lens. He also got new frames with cable temples that actually keep the glasses up on his face correctly instead of sliding down his nose like a little old man. While researching the vision insurance I got myself and Sonny Boy in as well to see the eye doc. Sonny Boy has an eagle eye where it appears my peepers are going further downhill and need a small adjustment to my Rx. Since the insurance will pay for a new pair of glasses I will go ahead and get them. I am a bit concerned as it seems the new trend is larger frames again and I'm not so sure about that.

Sonny Boy is being his usual run and go self. He's been a little mad the last few weeks as he hasn't gotten to go out to the barn while I work, and feels left out of all the fun that shoveling poop is. He did get invited to a birthday party at McD's and had fun there as most of his classmates attended.

Hubby finished the last of the drywall mess this afternoon. All we need now is a shelf/rod and we can hang some clothes up! I'll worry about paint later as I don't intend to paint the interior of the closet anyway. Yay, no more boxes in my bedroom!

My mother will be coming up for the holiday. I don't know if we'll do anything. Hubby's employer gave him a turkey so we'll cook that but only because it's here. I wasn't planning on a big meal and one of us will end up eating at a TV tray anyway as our table only seats 4 people (our dining room set is still in the other house, there is not room for it here) If the weather holds we might go into town as Mom has always wanted to see the St. Louis Zoo and that's a cheap enough day - it's free believe it or not. Personally I'm anxious to see the black Friday ads and see if there are some good deals for X-mas gifts for the kids. Sonny Boy is begging for a DS, Igor just wants trucks! I just want Christmas over, do you think the kids would notice if we skipped it?

Wordless Wednesday

Turtle Playground, Forest Park, St. Louis, MO

St. Louis Science Center, Forest Park, St. Louis, MO

Wishing things would settle down...

Gosh I feel like I'm in a dead run lately and I get nothing accomplished. I'm hoping things will settle now as the weather cools.

Thursday was a running day and had my blood pressure skyrocketing. The day started with dropping Sonny Boy at school a little early to the community room so I could get a head start to Children's Hospital of St. Louis as the last trip there was a nightmare. This time I got a 10 minute head start which didn't matter anyway as traffic was fine and we were 20 minutes early. After exam and dilation Igor was written a Rx for even stronger glasses. Poor guy is wearing coke bottles as it is, the new ones are going to be worse. Anyhow to top the need for new glasses the doctor wants to put Igor under anesthesia for a closer look at his eyes as he's worried about retinal tears and he can't get a good look without manipulating the eye, can be done in adult but kids won't stand for it so we are scheduled for that after Christmas for that procedure. While at the appointment the eye doctor said to go to X for Igor's new glasses as they are the best at young children's glasses. Thinking I had plenty of time and I was most of the way there anyway I started for the optical shop. My wonderful GPS though wouldn't cooperate and kept trying to make me get on an interstate that was closed. Aggravated I stopped at a gas station and bought an old fashioned map and found my way there.

At the optical shop the guy starts adding things up and asks about my insurance, well I had never been given anything on it with the new job (evidently Hubby had) and I had no idea if the place was covered under our insurance, so the man took all of our info and figured out that the new glasses for Igor would cost somewhere near $400 without insurance. WOW, so we put things on hold and Igor and I head home. I start heading home a different direction because the guy at the shop told me to go that way, the GPS was even telling me to go that way so that direction I go and soon run into a traffic jam and was inching along, I maybe move 1/2 mile in 30 minutes or so, I'm starting to sweat getting back to Kornfield, IL by 3:00 to pick up Sonny Boy as we inch along, and inch along and could not reach Hubby who had been warned he might have to play back-up for me but he wasn't answering his phone, so I then called the school and warned them I would be late. The lady who I spoke to asked me "how late are you going to be?" well I don't know, I don't know where I'm at and I'm sitting dead still! Well things finally got moving, my GPS kept telling me to make a left into concrete divider walls and I somehow managed to get us back to Kornfield only 30 minutes late picking up Sonny Boy. I will say the ole min-van had never been driven quite like that before.

The next day I checked the vision insurance out and we discovered that the little optical shop here in town was in their network so I drove the 1/2 block down to the store and ordered the frames I want and discussed what it would cost, significantly less that the $400 at the other shop thanks to insurance. It will be a couple of weeks before the glasses are ready and all, but for the price difference Igor will have to make due with his current glasses and it's not like he knows there are better glasses in the world anyway.

Hubby has taken on building a closet in our bedroom, yes there is no closet in our bedroom and I have been living out of hanging wardrobe boxes since we moved in. Today he got all the framing in and hopefully the drywall and the rest will be in by the end of next weekend. It will be nice to get rid of all the boxes that are still stacked around that by rights should be in a closet. I dread the drywall mess as there is really no way to avoid all that dust, just clean it up when it's over I suppose.

Fri and Sat we have spent the evenings burning brush that has been trimmed around the yard so we all smell like smoke but the yard looks much better.

Well I suppose I should get off my rear and put away laundry and such and I'd like to curl up with my book - finally got my turn at the new Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol, looks like it might be interesting but I'm only about 4 chapters into it and the chapters are short.

Halloween Pic

Sonny Boy, Igor and Igor (or that was his former name too)

November is Adoption Awareness Month

In case you haven't heard November is National Adoption Month. While I'm not big on all these months and days dedicated to everything from Ingrown Toenails to Aviation Mechanics, I implore everyone who reads this blog (except that person in Sweden, who are you?) to contact your congressman about H.R. 213 Adoption Tax Relief Guarantee Act of 2009 and tell them to support this bill. This bill will make permanent the tax credit adopting families receive regardless to if they adopt domestically, internationally or through the foster care system. Bloggers I challenge you to call upon your readers to do the same.

If your not sure who to contact click on the above link and work your way around till you find your rep in the house. This is possibly the most important thing you can do for adoptive families and will not cost you a dime, just 10 minutes to send an e-mail.

When it Rains it Pours...

Well my knee is still cranky but I don't know if it's still cranky on it's own or if I re-injured it falling down the basement steps on Friday. I know the way I fell it's a miracle I didn't break an ankle and it feels as though I have shin splints on that leg along with the sore knee. If it's not one thing it's another.

Another - the buyers we had for our house in WI fell through. It appears that they had a bankruptcy within the last two years on their record. How they had a pre-approval letter is beyond me and essentially we learned the hard way that pre-approval means jack. If your selling a house and a buyers gives you pre-approval be sure to call the lender and ask if they've even ran a credit check. Now we are negotiating with the guy that gave us the second offer, he gave us the same offer essentially but we can't do with less than asking and I don't know if we'll have leverage with the guy. Honestly I'm ready to pull it from the market for a few months and re-list in spring when things traditionally pick up. If it's wise or not I don't know, wish I had the crystal ball it would make decisions so much easier as there are too many factors to put here when pondering the situation.

Halloween was good - sorry for the lack of pictures - I'll post them in a day or two, we went to a fellow Ukie adopter's house and the kids played and went trick-or-treating. We stayed the night as it's a little drive from our house to theirs and the adults had little treats of their own, however like the previous post says I'm not as young as I used to be -we were all in bed by 10:30 ha ha rowdy bunch we are.

Currently I think there must be close to 10lbs, maybe more of candy in the house. We have the kids trick-or-treat take, Father-in-law brought an entire plastic pumpkin of candy for them when I met him up at the WI house over the weekend, Mother-in-law sent a little treat sack, and they got candy from school at their Halloween party. No lack of sugar here.

To explain lack of pictures, Hubby's job sent him off early this am to Denver for a quick job. He landed at 8:30 or so this morning, drove to job site and left it by just after lunch. He took the camera with him, which of course also has the Halloween pictures on it. I talked to him a little while ago and he was driving to a state park where elk are supposed to herd up for the winter. I'm jealous. Happily it's just a short trip and he will be home tomorrow afternoon. Not an everyday occurence for him to travel in his job so I believe it a feather in his cap that he was chosen, though he thinks it just a staffing question of who was available etc.

Well that's the news that's fit for public consumption!