2013

This is my first post of 2013 and my first in over 6 months. I have not had the inkling to do any posts until now. For now I am going to try a different approach and think of this as a daily journal. I'm not exactly sure how I will go about this, or if I will even keep it up, but I am going to try. I am hoping to do a project life type of album this year, so this will help me to keep everything in order.
I hope everyone has a wonderful new year with lots of hope, love and adventure.

#1 January 1, 2013

This was my mom's 75th birthday. She looks so good for 75. We had a surprise birthday party for her on Boxing Day. She was thrilled with that.

Sadly it also the anniversary of the death of my cousins 21/2 year old son, Kiran. My cousin Brian and his wife Sejal asked his family and friends to wear Kiran's favourite colour yellow on this day in remembrance of him. And then he wanted us to send him a picture of us dressed in yellow. So all that were here that day did just that. We felt honoured that we could do this for these beautiful people. 
Mike and Penny came over for the afternoon. And Ethan and Gavin wanted to come over to play with Rain. Logan and Cathy were already here. We ordered pizza and had a nice meal together.
Cathy and mom took off the decorations on the Christmas tree.
Amberley & Perry went to Sarnia for Perry's birthday. They met up with Owen, I was buying his Samsung tablet and he gave it to them to bring home to me. My laptop broke during the holidays, so when he said he would sell it to me I jumped at the opportunity. I was thrilled to get it, but it takes time getting used to a tablet, I had to stop thinking of it as a computer and start thinking of it as a mobile device.
All in all it was a good day.

 TV Shows And Movies Watched:
The Big Bang Theory

Black Widow

My First Post Of 2012

Its been awhile since I last entered a post. Life for me has changed a great deal, but it is all good. First off starting in Sept. my grandson Rain moved in with me and my mom. It was decided between his mom and me that this was the best thing for him right now. He adjusted very well. His school grades are great, he is reading very well and he just seems happy. So you can imagine life with an 8 year old. Life is much busier and tiring but the rewards for me are wonderful. Secondly I quit my job of 34 years in Sept. I was not getting enough hours there and I had gotten a full time job at a call centre. I was there for about 3 weeks. My mom went into the hospital and we both realized that the amount of hours I was working was to much. You see when I was working my mom would watch Rain, though he is no trouble it is still an adjustment, and I also realized that this was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
In Oct. I started working as seasonal help for Future Shop (Best Buy). I really liked it there and the people are fantastic to work for, but I just didn't feel a 100% comfortable there. Since I knew that I would be done on Jan. 7, I sent out some resumes.
No Frills called me in Jan. for an interview later that week, I was hired on the spot and I absolutly love it there. It is what I know, I am getting lots of hours, the people are wonderful and I find it much less stressful than the Superstore. Also at this store I do overrides, price matches and returns. It works out well with Rain, because I can take him to the bus in the morning and I usually get home in time (when working evenings) to say goodnight to him. I love my life.

Ethan and Rain are now 8, Gavin turns 7 next month and Sydney is 2. Owen is 20 and is working full time in Strathroy. If he gets permanent full time he is planning on moving there next year. Brittany is 26 now and still living in London, she is looking for a new place to live. She has been diagnosed with neuropathy and is in constant pain. Amberley is 29 and she is having tests to see if she has neuropathy, it is hereditary (their dad has it), she has a daycare in her house, and I am her backup and helper. My mom is doing well, she is such a great help with Rain. So now I am caught up I can go on with other things.

Lovely

                  Me and my wonderful mother.

Easter Pictures

February's Only Post

It's February and I haven't posted at all this month.
I'll start out with the Feb. birthday's:

4th - Gavin's (my youngest grandson) 4th birthday

9th - Matthew (my nephew)
Earlier in the month I went to a lawyers so she could go over my separation papers, and to make sure I understood it all. I can't believe it's been a year since we separated.

Also earlier in the month on a Sat. I watched Ethan & Gavin while their parents went tubing with friends. We had a wonderful time the boys were well behaved and fun. My mom came to help out. We had lunch at McDonalds, then they played in the toy area for about 40 minutes. We then went to Blockbuster to rent "Space Buddies" which had just come out. This was going to be for the evening, we planned on making it a movie night, with pj's and popcorn. It was fun. But they wanted one to watch in the afternoon, so I said they could get an older one, well let me tell you that was an adventure. When one of them would finally decide on one the other one didn't want it, and so on. Finally they agreed on "Sleeping Beauty", I don't usually let them watch movies with witches or whatever the bad woman was (Amberley & Perry don't either) but it took so long to pick one, I relented. We did a craft and then while I was preparing supper they watched that movie. After supper and clean up, pj's were put on popcorn was made and we sat down to watch the movie and had a very pleasant evening.

Then the next day was Gavin's birthday party.

On the 10th I had breakfast with my friends from work. The Tuesday Girls. We ate at Smitty's today the food was good but there was no fruit, which we all like. We had a smaller group this month but we had a good visit.

Our friends from church came from New Mexico, I didn't get to spend a lot of time with them, but I enjoyed the time we did have together.

I found out some wonderful news last week, Amberley & Perry are going to have another baby. Gavin just turned 4, so they are out of the routine but are very happy about the little one. So am I.

I had a nice surprise on Wed. I was on my break when I heard "grandma" and there was Gavin, and the others were coming. They had planned on giving the boys a hotel experience, and found a hotel with an indoor pool in Port Huron, so they stopped in Sarnia on the way. I was getting off at 5 so they waited around so we could go out for supper together, we went to Boston Pizza. What a nice day.

I am now on vacation, apart from going to Chatham for church, Bible study and an afternoon at the Spa (Christmas present) I am not venturing far. I want to get my house cleaning caught up, and start to pack for my move to Chatham in July.

Yesterday I went to the post office in Port Huron to hand in my application for a passport. Everything went well, I was hoping picture was ok since it was taken here, so hopefully I will have it sometime in March. Now we have to go to London to get Owen's.

It is snowing again, I am so tired of snow and the winter.

When I talked to Brittany last time, she told me that she put a deposit down where her wedding is going to be next year. She is so excited about it. A wedding is exciting, I can't wait to see how beautiful she will look in her wedding dress, and Rain is wearing a tux with tails, so cute. It's going to be a wonderful day.

Well that is my month so far, busy and full, I am very blessed.

Rain & Obama and...

I'm finally in a blogging mood, but not to blog about.Since my last post Barak Obama became president of USA. What a day, I had to work but I tivo'd it, and enjoyed watching it. I admit that I was unsure of him, but I did appreciate the historic aspect of the day. And I really liked his inauguration speech, I just hope that he does what he says he will do and I also liked the fact that he is very much a cheerleader of sorts to get the people involved. I wish him well and am looking forward to seeing what the next 4 years brings.Last Sat. was Rain's birthday party in London. He turned 5 earlier in the month. We had a real nice day. Brittany and Ryan were good hosts, and Rain had a great time. The weather was nice for driving. After the party my mom, and sister, Owen and I went to Kelsey's for lunch. I had a great day. Unfortunately Gavin was sick and they couldn't go out to lunch with us.

I saw "Mall Cop" tonight, and I thought it was very funny. I enjoyed it a lot. I don't think there were any swear words in it, a bit of minor violence but overall a good enjoyable movie.

2009 - warning long post

This is my first post of 2009. I am glad to be bringing in a new year. I always think that when a new year starts, I can also start all over again. I don't usually make resolutions, because I am never able to keep them. But this year I feel like making a couple.
The first one and the most important is to get healthy and if I loose weight in the process that would be a bonus. So I plan on meal planning, limit my snacking and as you may or may not know I stopped drinking Pepsi at home and at work (I will order it at a restaurant). I bought a book "The Dinner Fix" by Sandi Richard of the "Fixing Dinner" Food Network program. She firmly believes in planning your meals, and cooking or chopping extra to use in another meal later in the week. I have enjoyed her program for awhile, now I plan on putting it into action. Also the book provides a complete grocery list for each meal for each week. The shopping lists are also on her website so you can print it out and take it to the store with you, just cross off the stuff you already have in your pantry.

The second one is to make my bank accounts healthy. I have always been an impulsive buyer, never saving for the items I wanted. So I am going to save before I buy. I also want to keep all my bills up to date. So this is my plan, I hope I can stick to both of them.
These are huge resolutions to keep, but can you imagine what my life will be like in Jan. 2010 if I stay on this path. I will be the little engine that could. I just have to stay positive in every situation.

I am thinking of joining For more information about it go here.
I don't take pictures everyday and I am not on my blog everyday, so this is going to be a challenge for me. It would be nice to have an entry everyday, to look over it in a years time and see what my life was like on a daily basis. I know the premise is to take a picture of your own everyday, but like I said I just don't take my camera out everyday so some days will have no picture.

Now for the January birthday's:

My momPerry - my son-in-lawRain - my grandsonSpeaking of grandson's Ethan's birthday was Dec. 28 and I didn't mention him in last month's birthday list. I know what a bad grandma. Sorry Ethan.I had a wonderful Christmas, it ended up being at Amberley's because of my cat's. My grandson Gavin has breathing difficulties after a few hours at my house. (I know I should get rid of them, but they need me) and also my brother is very allergic to them. So Amberley and Perry provided the house and I just brought all the food from my house to theirs. Everyone was there except for my niece Amy who is working in Spain right now. Missed you Amy. We played lots of games, a couple of new ones, one of the new ones was Seinfeld Scene It, it was fun but if you don't watch the show it's just a waste of time.I worked until 3:30 on New Years Eve, then I went to Chatham to A & P's place. Later my mom, and nephew Logan (my mom had him for a week) and later my sister came. We played a couple games of...you guessed it, Settlers. We were so into the game we almost forgot to watch for 12:00 and 2009. Needless to say I did not win.

Then on New Years Day which was my mom's birthday, we called the family that lives in Chatham and went to Kelsey's for lunch. It ended up being 10 of us and we had a nice meal and a great visit.























These 2 pictures are from Mike & Penny







Now back to everyday life and all that it can bring, just being positive.

Since I am trying to live a healthy life now, I put some words into tivo and one of the shows it recorded for me is called "You Are What You Eat" just watch this show a couple of times and you will forever eat healthy. It is a British show and doesn't pussyfoot around things, she tells you exactly what's on her mind. Don't watch it if you like to eat, it will turn you off of your favourites.
I watched Rachel Rays "30 Minute Meals" the other day, she made a Chicken Parm Pizza, it looked delicious. So I printed the recipe and bought all the ingredients and made it. Owen kept saying "that's a pizza". Anyway it turned out well except I didn't like the texture of the pizza crust with the topping. So I took all the topping off of the crust and put it in a pan added some tomato sauce and mixed it in with whole wheat pasta and it was much better.
Well I hope you have a wonderful New Year.

Family, Voting Day & Pictures

I have been missing in action, in other words life is keeping me busy. In other words I am plan and simple tired.

Let's see where to begin.

I have had my blog now for over a year. A lot has happened in that year, good & bad. But you know the saying you have to take the good with the bad.

Last week Rain had the chicken pox, he missed a whole week of school, but he is doing alright now.

Last month was our Thanksgiving. It was a very small group, my mom, me, my brother Mike and his wife Penny and Penny's brother Todd. Then after dinner Amberley & Perry came with the boys to play some games. It was a small group but we had a very nice time.

A couple of weeks ago I went to see this movie.

It was good it wouldn't normally be a movie I would of picked. But it was a fun movie with lots of laughs.

Today is voting day in the US. I don't know who is going to win but I am sure that today will be a day of records and firsts. I hope whoever wins the presidency will always do the right thing for the people. In case you don't know I am an American, with lots of relatives living there. So I care what happens.

Some random pictures from my last photo shoot.