bring your scarf, and mittens too

IT'S that lovely time of the year again when the weather turns from warm to cold.  Following suit, my office cubicle gets COLD too, due to the lovely single paned window, air intake, and the probability there's no insulation in the walls.  (They are leftover trailers from Hanford after all.) 

AND my coworkers are all men.  Boo.  It's not that I don't mind working with all men, it's that I hate that they all have internal heating systems built into their bodies, and I do not.  So when the central heat turns to AC in the middle of the afternoon, (because it somehow in its warped computer mind, it thinks it's warm enough to do that), my cold cube goes from long sleeves required to blanket and heater required.  BumMER.  

BUT, to save the day, I have an archaic relic from about 1954 to to heat my space.  Work won't pay for a new, efficient heater, but it will pay the electricity bill on this contraption.  Looks like it could burn the whole place down, really. 

OH well, as long as I am warm, I really don't mind.

My coworker ripped this page out of his desk calendar for me and I love it.   I have it posted up behind my monitors on my desk.  Oh how I laugh at Dilbert cartoons.  I never really "got" them until I started working after college... but now,  dang, they sure do hit the nail on the head most of the time!  Hope you enjoy it too.  Happy Thursday.  Tomorrow is FRIDAY.  Yeehaw :)

saturday at home

Oly rolled out of bed in his Mickey Mouse pj's this morning and decided it was time to play with the doggies.  Chelan loves it!  Rosie was... less than thrilled as usual. 

mmm, don't mid the crazy bedhead and black eye...

 

 

I don't have any idea how, but Oly knows that the character all over his pj's is a mouse.  He kept stopping mid stride to point to his arm and say "mouse?"  Very cute.  New favorite word apparently because he keeps looking for mice in all our books.  Which reminds me that we really need some more books to read...  As a working mom, our toys hold interest a heck of a lot longer because Olaf has someone else's toys to play with all day.  And we usually spend weekends outside (at least partially) so his selection of toys in the house effectively fits into one small bin, plus a row of 15 books or so.  Crazy for a 16 mo. old, right?  I mean, that's really not a lot of toys.  I think I need to start hunting down deals on some good stuff for the kiddo.  I find that he is finally getting bored with what we have.  Blast.  I was hoping to make it until Christmas when the grandparents were in effect :)  Ah well, I admit I enjoy a trip to Target every now and then :)

Just got back from a lovely fall walk with Christie Dawn (aka my sister in law).  We walked the kids to the playground at Beaver Valley School, home of too many slides.  HOLY cow I think slides at playgrounds should be banned.  Okay I know that's ridiculous, but seriously everytime you turned around one of them was climbing some ladder or stairs!  It was exhausting but fun for the kids and for Christie and I to get outside.  Just got home to some soup and put Olaf down for a nap.  Now my options include: bake cookies, or take a nap.  Mmmm, both sound good and unproductive.  I think I will try to squeeze in both.

Happy harvest Saturday!

When I mentioned snow the other day, it was when I arrived home to this lovely bit of white flurry.  It managed to drop about 3 inches by the time I woke up... Not a bad thing, especially since Dave helped us get gravel on the driveway just in time!  Yay, no mudpit this winter!

Headed to Olympia last weekend for Oloan's 3rd birthday.  It had been too long since I had seen those cutie kiddos, let alone their mom and dad!  It was nice to have some down time Saturday evening with the Carters.  Tara and I even snuck away and left Randy with the sleeping kiddos while we went for a Margarita at the RAM.  Ahhh, fond memories of living in Lacey...  Tara tried to talk me into losing all my money playing poker at the casino, but I just was too chicken.  Plus I knew it would be super fun just to gab for a few hours.  So we did and it was wonderful.  The next day was good hang out time for kiddos, then a big partay.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLOAN!

 

 Here's what happens when you say "say cheese" to the Carter children - they GRIN and show their teeth and squint their eyes and ham it up.  When you say it to Olaf, he puts another cracker in his mouth like "what?"  Ah but I thought they were all so cute in their jammies watching cartoons and eating cheerios I just had to get this picture.

 

 Then OLaf fell off a kiddy chair into a kiddy table and whoops, black eye.  It proceeded to turn other colors throughout the week.  Currently it's green and purple.

 

It was great to have Steve home from Sunday through today because...  Sunday night we found out that two of the ladies at Olaf's daycare had H1N1 flu, so Monday Olaf stayed home with Papa.  Which is good because he ended up puking all afternoon... poor little buddy.  Apparently he unaffected aside from the throwing up, because his good spirits remained.  Tuesday afternoon I felt kind of blah, came home that evening and discovered that I too had whatever bug Olaf had.  Spent the last few days at home recovering... bleh.  Was it the flu?  H1N1?  We'll never know because I didn't want to drive an hour each way to the doctor.  But it's (finally, pretty much) over now which is GREAT!

When mommy is sick... Oly gets to watch a movie... which held his attention for all of 20 minutes.  Well, it was 20 minutes of peace!

Well there's the update for y'all.  
Sending love from Plain...

snow what?

Um, excuse me mister snowstorm -- October 13th, really?  Didn't you want to at least wait until Halloween like usual? Or later? 

Who am I kidding, I love you mister snow.  But please melt so I can get just a teensy bit more outside work done, like splitting wood and stacking it in the shed, picking up all the irrigation, sprinklers and hoses, and raking gravel.  Then you are welcome to come back with a vengeance!  Because this year I have a HOUSE with a MUDROOM and places to hang a ton of coats and scarves. YAY for changing seasons!

nothing much

Don't have much to report in these neck of the woods.  This last weekend Oly and I drove with Julee and Zoe to visit the boys in Kettle Falls.  It's quite a drive... like pretty close to Canada... about 4.5 hours in the car with little dude :)  He did pretty good for a boy who only wants to RUN RUN RUN.

Just a few pics to share --

1. Steve and Oly at the sampling station, right after Oly bounced his poor little face off the chip seal :(  Poor buddy.  Note the bloody nose, fat lip, and bruised forehead.   Wasn't his first digger, nor will it be his last I am sure.

2 and 3. Olaf is eating his grilled cheese and milk in the truck.  He REFUSED to wear hearing protection so there was no way I was letting him out :)  [well he was actually asleep for the first 2 hours] We were up at a gravel pit shooting all of Rene and Julee's sweet guns.  It was SO MUCH FUN!  I actually got the hang of the 22 handgun.  Hoping that someone posts some of the close up shots on FB so I can repost them here so you all can see just how redneck I am becoming.  Just kidding, you already know! 

Yay, Monday is OVER!!

Wondering if it will snow tonight??

fall days

Steve hasn't been home for more than 24 hours since Labor Day weekend (3 nights, mostly spent sleeping)... boo.  But I did just find these pics from that weekend when we had our lovely guests the Sorensens over for 3 days of rain rain go away... and good fellowship, talks, lattes, garage sales and wine.  Yum.

 

 

Stopped over at the folks place this last week when my car was sputtering/stalling/in bad shape so Dad could change the spark plugs... ended up going to the mechanic instead :)  Luckily, $350 later, I have new spark plugs, wires, and valve covers.  Apparently I am lucky my car didn't kaput at a stoplight 6 months ago with the condition of my spark plugs.  Who knew all the cylinders firing at the right time depended on 4 little pieces of metal?  Anyway, caught these pictures of Oly while Grandpa was looking under the hood of the Subaru.

Started my FIRST FIRE in the fireplace Thursday night... IT.WAS.AWESOME.  Felt like fall, winter, cozyness... I loved it.  Only wishing Steven was here to share it with me... just a few more weeks and he will be!

I have thought multiple times since Steve started his business and traveling so much... WAIT A MINUTE - I GOT MARRIED SO I DIDN"T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS!  Aka car breakdowns, cutting and putting up my own Christmas tree, plumbing backups and the creepy roto rooter man, shoveling mountains of snow, frozen pipes, chopping kindling to start a fire, attending weddings solo... but you know, I think it is just making me stronger and tougher.  You just learn to deal with it, and find people to help you out.  And BOY do I have more respect for single moms/dads, and those who have spouses deployed in the military...  it's not easy doing it all on your own.  YOU GUYS ROCK.   I don't know how you do it.

Happy Fall weekend folks, hope it is FANTASTIC and you are enjoying watching and feeling the season changing!