Happy Birthday LAD

Lot's of Oooohs and Coools and Wow, I love this and I love that. He was very excited, can you tell! Thanks to everyone for sending packages!

And what 4 year old's birthday is not complete without a Whoopie Cushion? Guess who that's from? Yes, G'ma Airplane, who else!

Post Post Blizzard

We chose to stay home another day, roads are passable, but not great, temps are c c c cold.
Time for major maintenance.































For the birds! I hope they're still out there somewhere!












Oooops, threw a boot. Daaaaaad, help!

Post Blizzard

According to the weather map, looks like we ended up with 12-14
inches. And some pretty hefty drifts around, but our trusty snow
blower did it's job, then the snow plow comes along on the main
highway and well, you get the drift! :) The rural mail carrier didn't
run, this might be the first time since we've lived here (11 years) that that
hasn't happened.

A little maintenance...I think he has some Newhouse blood in him.

First dig-out, about 11:00 am.

2nd dig-out, about 6:00 pm, the sun finally made it out just in time to give some color!

Blizzard day

You know it's bad when ISU closes, which they have. Interstates are closing in some areas here in central IA as well. I am very glad to be home, comfy-cozy. Here's some pics from this morning about 7:30. Still snowing a little, but mostly just blowing! Here's yesterday's. LAD saw all the snow out front and said "I think it would be a good day to go sledding!" Hmmmm me-thinks maybe not, not sure I could even walk in those drifts.

Winter Storm, Pre-Blizzard

This was Monday evening, just a couple inches from Sunday night. LAD wanted to ride his bicycle and make "mysterious" tracks. Ok then.

He either needs a 4-wheel drive bike, or a snow tire, he wasn't getting much traction.

This was Tuesday afternoon, driving home from work, after it had snowed all day, before the winds picked up...

Downtown, our traditional tree on Main Street!

Busy, busy, busy...

By 5:00 pm we probably have 6-8 inches on the ground.

So we broke out the sled, big scoop and the dump truck and made the most of it!

Tomorrow won't be so pleasant with winds 45-50 mph, 12-14 inch snow totals possible with 8-15 feet drifts. Welcome winter, we've been waiting for you!

Let's build something

Uncle Grant gave us this box of goodies some time back and we just
broke it out since Grandpa Allen is here (Actually I re-found it in my
basement cleaning last week!)
Lots of nuts, bolts, wheels and drills! I think they are trying to
make a train engine!

Premier DeLuxe Model 1953

This post is mostly for my own sanity. I purchased this Premier DeLuxe Model 1953 sewing machine many years ago for 5$ at a yard sale. I only
bought it because it was portable (but I wouldn't want to port it
around too much!) and it can sew thru many layers of denim, something I've found newer machines not always able to do. Every time I go to use it and decide to change thread color, I rip the spool off before I remember that this is a b@#$%tch to re-thread. It threads NOTHING like the Singer cabinet machine I have of this same era (or earlier). I've sewn with this machine quite a bit, mostly papercraft stuff, and am not sure I've ever had it threaded correctly. I've searched the web but haven't found much on this machine, until one day I found an Ebay auction for this very machine. And I struck gold as it had pictures of the machine THREADED! I finally got mine threaded, in a way I have never done before, and I think it sews better than ever now. Imagine that! The machine on Ebay was going for 100$, so I think I got a bargain, so to speak.
Since I have finally successfully threaded this antique, I took some
pictures of it and am posting them here so I can 1) easily find them
in the future and 2) maybe help someone else thread their vintage gem.

Thankful

I didn't have to drive in this today! Took 2 days off work to work on house organizing, photo projects, etc while the boys are away. At least the temps are warm and it wasn't freezing precip!

Daily December 2009

Daily December. A project where you record memories and photos each day during the month of December. Inspired by Ali Edward's Daily December project and Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas, this is the third year I've done this project. I really liked how last year's book turned out, I finally finished it this past weekend! Well almost, I need to print a few pictures from the last few days of the month. Turns out I had quite a bit to say each day, and, as always, took lots of pictures. So as I put this year's book together I decided to add a journal page and another page for photos. This is pretty much done, aside from the words and photos. I will probably add a few small embelishments here and there as I go, but feel like it's pretty complete as is. I still need to add something to the cover. This was a post bound Bazzill album (9x9) that I took apart and re-bound with 2 inch rings. See all the photos here.
I'm putting this thing away, been working it all weekend. It'll be fun to get it back out on the First and start filling it up!

I forgot what it sounded like...

Silence. Quiet. Besides a daily cat-fight, it's pretty quiet around here. LAD and Randy have gone to ARK. LAD is hanging with Oma and Aunt Suzie. Randy is deer hunting. I had forgotten what the quiet sounded like. I like it, but I miss my noisy boys!

spotted

Ahhhh, furloughs are finally coming down the pike for us. Even though DRMS is privately funded (self funded you could say) we still technically are employed by ISU, so a furloughing we will go! It's not so bad, 4 days unpaid leave is basically what it works out to for most of us. This was the alternative to 4xx people losing their jobs, so it's not all bad. Besides, life is good.

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