I Put Color In My Life!

I went out and took pictures a couple days ago of our community. The Soo Line pic is one that I took at our local train museum in Colfax. I took a lot more pictures and will use them for my new library website. I thought it would be nice to highlight the community for web browsers who have never been to Colfax, or will never come for that matter!

Speaking of this photo, the color of this train car is almost a carbon copy of the color carpet Ted and I picked out today. Because we are redoing the bedroom walls too and putting in cedar planking Ted really , really wanted color in our room so I did a bold thing and said "yes, we can put color in our room honey." I think I'll have fun decorating the room with that dark cherry red and maybe green, brown, beige. We went with a real plush high quality carpet with thick padding so the floor will be warm in the winter. Can you believe it will cost $1,000 just for the carpet & installation....geez! That's a small bedroom too. Then figure another $400 we put into supplies for the floor...oh yeah, and this summer we had to have the south facing wall completely rebuilt because the former builder totally screwed up the former wall and it leaked for many years. I think that carpenter job in June was a total cost around $3,000! So, if anyone is wondering why we are moving so slow on our remodeling projects....just look at the costs involved! It almost makes me sick to think of how much money it costs to remodel any room in your house. Guess I'll just have to keep working full time.....sorry Kris and Kellie. I know you two are still PLOTTING!

Dream Crusher!

Getting Physical

I'm trying to get physical! Remember that song Olivia Newton John sang..."let's get physical, physical, I wanna get physicalllllllllll? That song kept going through my head as I drove to the new fitness club. Geez, I'm so 70's! I took a picture so you all could see the strip mall. There's only three business in the mall, but that's better than nothing. So I stopped by tonight after work and no one was in the fitness club. I had the whole place to myself....kinda nice. Since I'm a newbie, it's nice that no one was there to see me fumbling around trying to figure out how to adjust the weight training equipment. There are moments when I do feel really, really blond. I realized today that it's probably better if I remember to hop off the treadmill when it's STOPS moving. Yeah...that was a close one today.

Website Creation
I got my first lesson today on website design. Ted came in to the library as well today so we could both get our training from Gus. I am so excited to totally redesign our library website after three long years of waiting. The software is actually OpenSource and the management is through "dotnetnuke." The website managment looks almost like blogspot so I will be very comfortable adding text boxes, links, photos, a calendar etc. Once we get our website up and running I will post the link on my blog. I like the challenge of creating and designing a website.....it's always good to learn something new in life!

I ate the best Raspberry Almond bars today. Thanks Krissy. So Kris was bummed out today because she found out her blog is rated as "juvenile" in nature, while her sister Patty and my blog are rated as "college" level....sorry Krissy. Maybe you should post a picture of yourself under your profile. The name Krissy can be deceiving ya know?

Hey Look...it's Dewey!

What do you think of this little fluffy guy? The juggler family (Steve & Kobi are professional jugglers) brought this little guy to the library tonight. They told me this little kitten just showed up at their house this week and they don't know what to do with it, so I asked my friend Joan if she would like one more cat to add to her barn cat collection. She said "sure."!!! I kinda feel in love with this little guy tonight since he just wanted to snuggled up to me....he wouldn't leave my side even though I let him run around at the library. I took the kitty over to Joan's house tonight on my way home. One look and Joan fell in love with him too, however, Elmo was afraid of the kitten. Go figure that!

Guess who came over today? Ian (right) and Quentin (left). Grandpa Ted had to babysit the boys for part of the day while their mommy went to a training session at the Wal-Mart Distribution Center. So as I was leaving for work later this morning, I told the boys I wanted a good-bye kiss. Ian is the most affectionate one so he gave me a big wet kiss on the lips. Quentin just gives quickie kisses. As I turned to walk away from the boys, Ian yelled out (really loud), "I have a cold."!!!!! Gee thanks Ian, glad you told me that after I kissed you. That's a little kid for ya. The boys kept busy helping Grandpa Ted outside in the garden. Ian was excited to collect acorns, and Quentin was more interested in the little rotten tomatoes. Oh yeah, last year when Ted and I had to babysit the boys, I found Quentin outside sitting on the sidewalk hammering on the concrete with one of my gnomes. He distroyed my gnome.....not sure why Quentin did that, but he broke him several different pieces. That was a sad day for me.

Ok, This Is the Real Pea Soup!

My husband thought I should post a picture of the PEA SOUP! So here it is. Kinda makes you want to go for a swim right?

The Pea Soup is Gone

When I got home from work tonight, I took a walk down to our dock to see the sunset and basically to get some fresh air. I was so surprised to see the blue-green algae is almost gone. For anyone that doesn't know our lake well, you would never know by these pics that I just took tonight, that our lake has a bad problem with blue-green algae bloom during the summer months. It's bad, really bad. Never use to be this bad, but over the last twentysome years the phospherus level has grown to it's maxium and the algae just keeps on blooming to make our lake look like "pea soup." I purposely haven't taken many pictures of the lake water until now because I didn't want to gross anyone out. Too bad I don't have a scratch & sniff on my blog because the smell by August is very over-powering. Other than that, the lake is really nice. From where we live on the lake, it's only about 1/2 from where the Hay River runs into our lake. In your boat, as you near the mouth of the Hay River, the water quality vastly improves. On 90 degree summer days, Ted and I head up the river so he can go fishing and I can sit in the river...the clean water!!!!

Can you believe that in about six weeks, our lake could be frozen. It happens fast once the temperatures drop into the teens at night. I'll be sure to catch that moment with my handy dandy camera.

Update on Grandma Winnie

She is still in the hospital and still has the catheter in to drain her liver infection. Grandma is sleeping quiet a bit and her blood pressure continues to be very low. As of this morning, they still did not know the source of her bleeding, however, she did have the colonoscopy so they were waiting for the doctor to come this afternoon for a report. If we hear anything soon, I'll update my post.

Thanks for reading my post!

After One Year I.......

After one year, I finally joined the new (well almost new) fitness club in the village where I work. After riding my bike back and forth to work this past summer, I knew I needed to keep exercising, so I finally joined the fitness club. I used to belong to a fitness club two years ago, but it was a 15 miles drive each way so that got old really, really fast. One year ago, a small strip mall was built in village of Colfax....can you believe that, little Colfax (pop. 1,150)? Anyway, my dentist and his wife opened up an Anytime Fitness club in the strip mall, so I finally joined.

Ok, so this is how out of shape I am. The fitness trainer was showing me all the equipment last night and how to use it. We came to the incline bench and I asked him to show me how to adjust it and move it up and down. Then he told me to try it....sure no problem. I pulled the knobby thing and tried to lift and move the bench up. NO GO! The darn thing wouldn't budge...like dead weight. The trainer just looking at me with a funny look on his face. I tried it again...NO GO!!! Yup, now the trainer has a smirk on his face and starts laughing!!!!! Need I say more? That's how out of shape I am.

Hi Di Ho!

"A Room With A View"

I love my bedroom, even though it's a small room. The north wall of of our bedroom faces Tainter Lake. That's the view in the pic I posted. Years ago when we first remodeled the bedroom, we put in a large sliding glass door that faces the lake. We can actually lay in bed and look out and see the view of the lake through the door. Do you remember when Haley's comet was visible in our night skies? Well, I laid in bed one night and could see Haley comet! That was cool. Between the bay window and the sliding glass door, you feel like you are outdoors, especially when we have the window and door wide open in the summer. Yup, it's not unusual to have wild animals come up to our sliding door....chipmunks, raccoons and even the neighborhood cats!

Teen Read Week

I took a picture of Jenny today because she did a lot of work to get ready for "Teen" week in the library. She set up a nice display of YA books to read, set out treats and freebie stuff and also has a special drawing this week that involves winning books....really good books that kids want!

I'm Telling the Truth!

I have another story to tell you about the night we were predicted to have a meteor shower. I got up at like 3 am in the morning all by myself. Now it was winter and really cold outside, but I got dressed and went outside and stood there and looked towards the night sky. As I was standing there, I didn't see a meteor but I sure heard one. It scared me as I heard this swooshing sound from behind me and then continue to go over my head, or over our house. I got so scared that I flinched and ducked like something was about to hit me. It was the weirdest experience of my life....the sound was like something from a science fiction movie. Now here's the really sad part, when I told my husband and kids the next day....they all just laughed and laughed and laughed at me. They said, "yeah, right mom" more laugh, laugh, laugh. No one ever believed me! I even imitated the swooshing sound that it made, but my family laughed even louder. I don't know, you just had to be there to experience it. I stand by my meteor experience 100%.

Update 6:25 pm

Please read my first post earlier this afternoon.

We received a call saying Grandma Winnie is going back in for the same procedure within the next 30 minutes. This time the doctor will use a CT scan to guide the placement of the catheter to drain the abscess (lesion) on her liver. Antibiotics will also work with the infection, but the abscess still needs to be drained, so lets hope this does the trick. As for the punctured lung, the doctor inserted a ventilator into the lung and they will just monitor her. What a long day for Grandma Winnie and Ted's sister Winnie Lou.

The Floor is Coming Slowly

I know that's not the best picture, but I tried doing a slideshow on my blog last night and it wouldn't work. I signed up with Flickr (online photo space user) but my blog site just wouldn't except all the photos. I'll try again.

UPDATE ON GRANDMA WINNIE
We received an email this morning from Ted's sister saying that Grandma Winnie discovered some bleeding last night before going to bed. They took her to the hospital late last night and the doctor found another lesion (infected) on her liver. We then got a call this morning from Ted's sister again and the doctor was planning on draining the lesion today. Around 2pm this afternoon, we got another call from his sister saying that while draining the lesion, the doctor punctured her lung!!! As I type this, the doctor is working on the lung problem. We hope to get another call later this afternoon for an update. Through all this, Winnie was awake and talking so let's hope she isn't in too much discomfort. Isn't that the "pits"??? I guess Winnie's blood pressure and potassuim levels were really low last night so that would explain why she's been feeling weak. Winnie was only home from the hospital for a couple days and then this happened. Keep Winnie in your prayers.

Ted and Chris were working on the bedroom floor today, but ran into problems with their drill. They are at the point where they needed to screw down the wood slats through the insulation but the drill wasn't powerful enough to go through the concrete. So, they drove to Fleet Farm to buy a new drill. I could hear the excitment in Ted's voice when he called someone at Fleet Farm..."hummm yes, I need to buy a new drill....do you have......." Men and their power tools, hee, hee.

We had a good message at church today. We are studying Corthinans ch. 9 and I found verses 24-27 so useful for everyday life. Apostle Paul talks about when you run a race, you usually run it to win, so why not try to run as hard as you can to win your eternal life with Jesus Christ. Don't just run to finish the race, run to win your way into heaven. Think about your race as being against Satan, the world and yourself. Just run.....I couldn't help but think about Forest Gump at that moment while the Pastor Tim was talking. Run Forest runnnnnnnnnnn! It was hard to keep a straight face, if you know what I mean.

I'm going to try a new recipe today, Chicken Tortilla Soup . If it turns out good I will put the recipe on my blog. If time allows I will make pumpkin bread today as well.