Thursday, November 27, 2008

We Gather Together...

Happy Thanksgiving One and All!
Hopefully you ate wonderful food, surrounded by friends and family and those you love. You may be thankful for the opportunity to make plans to do "Black Friday." Please enjoy and spend some $$$.

I have to say I had a lovely day planned, full of great food, family and friends. But I was hit by the trifecta of hormones (you ladies know what that means) sickness (crabby 3 year old and me) and lack of sleep for a few days. Wow....that made me a crabby, ungrateful, overwhelmed biatch.

Here's what I am grateful for...
My Trophy Husband - he puts up with my crabby moods and still wants to be married to me
My Beautiful Daughter - she fell asleep @ 7pm tonight (too bad I caught a second wind @ 8 or I would be joining her.
My Family - for pitching in when I was completely stressed out, tired and overwhelmed by the idea of clearing that massive table...yikes!

I have a job, some money in the bank and am looking forward to a more stress free holiday season. This gal needs her sleep...nuff said!

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Swiped From Beverly's Blog!

SCATTERGORIES. ..it's harder than it looks! Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following. They have to be real places, names, things…nothing made up! You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.
WHAT IS YOUR NAME: JoAnn
BOY NAME: James
4 LETTER WORD: jack
GIRL NAME: Jennifer
OCCUPATION: journalist
A COLOR: Jade
SOMETHING YOU WEAR: jacket
BEVERAGE: jack daniels
FOOD: jelly
SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM: john
A PLACE : Jamaica
INREASON FOR BEING LATE: jalopy broke down
SOMETHING YOU SHOUT: JERK!

go ahead, try this!

fyi...I gave up on Nablopomo a while ago...oh well, I gave it a shot!

Monday, November 17, 2008

Random Shots of a Pretty "Big" Girl







Every day still feels like it's Christmas in our house thanks to Kelsey. I can't get over this little bundle of love and happiness we are raising. Yesterday Kelsey was watching TV and the characters were saying "I'm thankful for...." well, Kelsey turned to me, I am thankful for YOU Mommy, you're my Mom!" WOW....that's Mother's Day, my birthday and Christmas all rolled into one...I adore my lovely little girl.



Saturday, November 08, 2008

Kelsey got a Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

I must have been REALLY tired this morning. After ballet class, Kelsey and I went to TRU to get a few computer games (girl loves her some 'puter!)

I always have a side joke and say everytime I'm in an electronics store "got any Wii's?" and every single time the sales person shakes her/his head and says no sorry.

Not today! The TRU guy says "yes we just got 5 delivered today! Want one?" Before I know it I am handing over my credit card and one of those elusive little suckers is paid for and in my shopping cart! Then of course, we had to buy a few games. I let her choose a Disney Princess game and an Alvin and the Chipmunk game. She loved them!

Daddy of course, wasn't too happy with me, but I wasn't really proud either (bad economy + non profit job = not spending frivolously anymore) but Kelsey had played the game at my sister's and loved it...and I rationalized that we could have family gaming nights/friends over for Wii...

I'll have to take some photos of Kelsey playing Wii and post them. Oddly enough Kelsey and Kurt loved the boxing game that came with the game.

So Folks that have Wii's...love them? Can you make any suggestion on games?

Friday, November 07, 2008

Conference is DONE!

Hey Internets!
I missed you all, I didn't have my personal laptop with me so I had to rely on other's links.

The conference went really well. Maria was wonderful and we had fun getting to know each other (plus a lesson from me on composting!)

We have some great leads and on the way home I called into Whatever with Alexis and Jennifer and name dropped our org. It was fun :)

I got home a little after 7pm, traffic wasn't too bad. I called my Mom on the way home and she told me her friend and neighbor Pat had passed away. RIP Pat... you were lovely to me and my girl.

My family really missed me. Kelsey and Kurt were delighted to have me home!

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Post election thoughts

Congratulations President-Elect Obama!
You have a long hard road ahead.

I hope every American gives you the support and respect you deserve.

Please don't let us down, we need you.

p.s. Corzine...worst at the state level or federal level? Hard choice to make.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

I am in AC....

The Trump Plaza may be a 5 star hotel, but HOLY CRAP does the service suck!
It's raining like mad in NJ and the traffic was hideous! I am here for a teaching conference!

I miss Kurt and Kelsey like crazy! I got some noodles from a small bar, but there's a karoke bar next door, and LOL the singing was hideous! Now, I am not a great singer but I don't force my voice on strangers!

I hope this conference is successful!

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Short and Sweet

A historic night...
I am cautiously optimistic and hopeful...
God Bless America!

Monday, November 03, 2008

BRAVO, Bravo!

Well Bravo,
I have to hand it to you, showing a marathon of West Wing right before election gave me pause to think about a lot of things.

When I watched that show, I felt a deep sadness that our President wasn't Jebbidiah Bartlett...a smart, scholarly man who surrounded himself with smart scholarly people who passionately CARED about their jobs. (Does that sound like anyone you know running for president?)

And clever of you to showcase the ones where the President is being called names (socialist!).

It has me thinking and re-thinking my position...and makes me very happy to be in my present position where I am working for social change (in schools) and in the legislature.

When I told my father I didn't want to go to Law School, he asked me what I could do with a political science degree...I said Teach, work for a political institute, work in government or be a lobbyist.

Well I don't teach (but I do train) I work for a non profit and do political/community organizing, work WITH the elected officials and am in the process of creating legislation. Plus I do this with some of the adoption work I do as well.

So, political science degree, not too shabby! :)

Kelsey and I will be voting tomorrow (I make the selections - she pushes the big red button that officially captures my vote) and I have some thinking to do...

So thanks to Bravo for some soul searching on my part.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

On the 2nd day of NaBloPoMo, my true love gave to me....

Two sick family members!
The TH and the Angel Face both have colds.
I have to be in AC for a few days for a conference, so everyone has to feel better pronto!

We spent our last day in DST at ballet school and then we came home and did some garden clean up, raked leaves and cleaned up/used our pine needles in the garden beds...I love reusing something people would just throw out :) It was pretty warm (low 60's) and it felt great to be outside...the whole backyard looks great and ready for sleep now.

the bad news is that I re-injured my knee and it hurts more/differently than last time. I've tried to rest it since yesterday...(see aforementioned AC trip coming up) I really have to get to the Dr...I think I"ll do a PTO once the AC trip is done...I have a few things I can combine in one day.

2 days down, 28 to go :)

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Welcome to NoPoBloMo 2008

I'll make this brief...look at the Halloween photos below.
I am going to try to do 30 in 30 days...not sure if I can, but I'll try! :)