Rewind a couple of weeks...

So Tony and I went out on Saturday... The sky was very pissy... Thunder and lightning everywhere... before we had went out, there were tornado sirens and a huge nasty storm cell coming our way.. We put the kids and animals in the basement and tuned to the local channel. I think we had the kids in the basement for over an hour due to the bad weather, tornado warnings, thunderstorm warnings, and so on.....

Fast forward to Saturday night... Drive home, awesome because you could see all of the lightning ... Little did we know.............

Sunday morning, I wake up ... got ready to go to the store...I realized our quiet little dead end road was busy with traffic... I decided to head towards the local park... I hope to never see what I saw that morning again! The river had rose so much it was going (and fast) over the bridge and the entire N. Carolina was flooded....

A wagon, one of the green ones... floated down the river...

No one in our city was injured physically. The emotional part will effect several for a very long time..

I drove home to find out the river was at an all time high of 18.67 feet... previous record was 15 something in like 1933...

Water everywhere. Except our little house on the hill! Countless number of peoples houses and basements were flooded... we were lucky.. the carpet was just damp.

Late Sunday afternoon, they shut the water off in our city... The water treatment plant had flooded.

Wednesday, we had water to flush the toilets and to shower... Friday we had clean drinking water.

It was a mess, the city is still a mess and peoples homes are now condemned.

Of course the water went south. Cedar Falls, Des Moines, and many other cities flooded. All but 8 counties were listed as a "disaster" by the governor

Heres pics of the river, well normally there is a trail there and not the river... and other areas of the City.

Moles? Dwarfs? Gnomes?

Something is digging up our yard at night. Strange part, there is no hole under the piles of dirt... there are no ants or other bugs in the dirt... they are just piles of dirt on top of the ground that keep appearing over night. Is it the garden gnomes?? Are they playing a trick on me? I know they can be mischievous, but WHY THE YARD? Is it aliens? Are they dumping the dirt in the back yard as some kind of out of this world experiment?? WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE BACK YARD AT NIGHT?!

Below are pictures of the mysteryous dirt piles... Number 1 was the first one to happen about three nights ago... Number 2 was the next night, and number 3 & 4 appeared this morning... The last picture is all of them...

Sorry for the low quality, it was taken with my 1.3 MP camera phone since my actual camera batteries are D E A D.

New things

Ok... the last few months I have come across several websites claiming to have the best product and if you send them 10 dollars you can give a hippo water roller to poor people in Africa so they can haul clean water to their homes. Then I come across another website about sending the people in Africa croc shoes so they no longer have to walk barefoot. Now today, I came across the next new lifesaving product called a LifeStraw. As much as I would love to help out the African people, I must say my family must come first. Whether it be shoes, clothes, books, toys, they just come first. Usually, I then come second lol. I hope if you read this, and if you have an extra $10 you could help send these people the shoes, straws, and rollers that they need.

In my next life I hope to be a rich humanitarian so I can travel the world and lend a hand where needed. It wont happen in this lifetime, and I apologize for that...

And.. I just want to add, that if I did have an extra $10, I would put it towards one of several things on my current "want & need" list: getting the fence put up, cutting down the Mulberry tree so we can have back that part of our yard, an outdoor patio set so the inlaws and us have a nice place to sit outside while we have BBQ's (and so I have a table outside to do homework on), insulation for our attic and sidewalls, a hammock chair and stand, and well an emergency savings fund.

So again, I feel bad for those who are starving and can not have safe drinking water in Africa, I do think that we should focus a bit on the American society too. There are starving people here also, even though you can not tell by looking at the number of morbidly obese. There are also homeless people who have families... For the richest country, we sure treat our own pretty shitty when it comes to them being homeless, disabled, or even an armed forces vet. Lets get AMERICA put back together first.

Card

My husband asked me at the last minute to make a card for a co-worker for his 15th wedding anniversary. Heres what I came up with

Well fine.

I will update my blog. I don't remember how long it has been, but here I am...

I am currently trying to keep up with my homework, housework, kids, laundry, and this thing called spring cleaning. I actually love to do spring cleaning, but because of my backlog of laundry and housework, the spring cleaning does not get done.

My children have managed to keep their room clean since I cleaned it. They do go a couple of days without picking up, but it is still considered manageable.

I am so bogged down with homework, it seems to take me the entire week to complete my readings and assignments. Its ok, I wont be in school forever, right??

UGH The housework... We had Caitlin's birthday party on Wednesday night and the house still has trash here and there from the presents, tags, and toy packaging. Why must stuff come with so much packaging?? Ill work on this sometime today.

As for the yard, I did get all of the MONTHS of dog poop in the front yard cleaned up yesterday. That was a nice accomplishment. Now for the side yard!!

We have one less dog (long story) so you would think the poop would be cut in half. Unfortunately, it was the little dog that was banished, so the large pooper is still adding large dog logs to the yard! LOL

As for the laundry... ugh. If I could remember to start it at a decent time, and remember to put it away when its out of the dryer, I would be a million miles closer to being caught up then I currently am! Fly lady says a load away keeps the mountain away. I wish I could grasp that concept!

Ok back to writing my paper that will determine what the subject of my final paper will be about. I am having problems starting it, knowing what order to put it in, and just plain getting it organized. We are supposed to pick a social problem and why we want to write and research this problem and which perspective we feel it has.

Frosting...

UGh.

I read on someones blog about how they took the premade frosting and whipped it in with their mixer and it almost doubled in size. DO NOT TRY THIS!!! All it did was make the frosting sticky. It did not double in size, nor was it light and fluffy... it was a sticky gooey mess.

Pictures and stuff to come later...

APRIL FOOLS!

Unfortunately, this is no April Fools joke. If it is, its a pretty elaborate one that affects the entire city...

Every morning...

All I can think of is "STARBUCKS?! WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST OUR CITY?"

*sigh*


I just want a Frappichino, Caramel, Extra sweet :/

No one around town seems to sell the bottles of caramel frap anymore :(

Yes I am fully aware of the Latte' Factor, and don't really see this as a problem since I usually buy a bottle of frap from the gas station anyways.

I guess I could drive 35 minutes to the Casino for a frap...hmm naw...

Srsly...

The Box

I came home from grocery shopping yesterday to find a box on the porch. I did not have time to open the box until 9pm. When I opened the box, there was another box inside. When I opened the second box, there were two boxes inside. I ordered one teekwood bathmat from JC Penny's on Sunday. After opening the boxes, I realized they sent me two teekwood bathmats! I paid with a gift card, so its not like they can charge me for two, and according to all the paper work, they only sent me one!

Mmm

OK so according to the calendar today is the first day of spring. According to my weather plug in, it is 32 and foggy with a chance of snow.

GET IT TOGETHER WEATHER!

Back to Class

Well, my break is over! The only real accomplishment this week was the fridge got cleaned...I did do some laundry and other things, but not what I had planned.

I am so happy February is over. It seemed to last forever!!

I planted impatiens seeds from the store, and some salvia seeds that I harvested. I guess we will see if I am a good seed harvester or not!! I have pictures, but I have not downloaded them yet.

Ok well off to class!

Hotpocket!

I had a hotpocket for lunch and could not stop thinking about the comedian who did a skit about them...

watch the hotpocket video

Sundays

This is what I do on Sundays...

Scrapbook
Watch tv
Think of design ideas for my craft room
Organize things
Make weird projects such as these below.. rope coasters! I want coasters, I really want thirsty stone ones, but I never find the ones I want...

I saw some online that are made out of rope, but they glue them together on a piece of cardboard. I just can not see them holding up... so I am lightly stitching them together then I will glue some felt to the bottoms...

Ramblings

Well I got two out of three of my grades for this term:

Criminology A
Juvenile Delinquency A-

Im a bit disappointed in my A-, but I will live. I just hope to PASS composition II! LOL Next term, I have Introduction to Corrections, Crime Scene Investigation, and get this... SOCIAL PROBLEMS! I know I have problems, but sheesh did they have to make a class about it?? I am all ready to go for next term, but since we switched from 11 week terms to 10 week terms, we now get a week off between them. Let me tell you... this is the second longest week ever! The first longest week was winter break. It just did not want to end!

Since I have not had to worry about going to class, or writing several papers a week, I have managed to do silly little things around the house that I usually put off cuz I have more important chores to do! Yesterday, I gave Zeus a much needed bath, and I cleaned out the fridge! It was so nice when I got home from grocery shopping today to just put everything in and have room for it all!

I never really thought we did ok money wise for groceries until today when I bought food only. I spent about 100 bucks on food for two weeks. The grocery list was longer then usual too! This doesn't include our soda or junk food, but wow. On the menu:

Tuesday
B Oatmeal
L PB&J
D Meatball Subs

Wednesday
B Cereal
L PB&J (Zoe gets PISSED if she does nt get PB&J)
D Mediterranean Chicken & Rice

Thursday
B Oatmeal
L PB&J (See above)
D Sloppy Joes

Friday
B Cereal
L Nuggets
D Going Out

Saturday
B Cereal
L Mac & Cheese
D Chili

Sunday
B Oatmeal
L open
D open

Monday
B Cereal
L PB&J
D Sketti & Sticks

Tuesday
B Oatmeal
L PB&J
D Beef Chimichangas

Wednesday
B Cereal
L Mac& Cheese
D Meatball Strognoff & Potato wedges

Thursday
B Malt O Meal
L PB&J
D Fettichini Alfredo

Friday
B Oatmeal
L PB&J
D parmeasan chicken

Saturday
B Oatmeal
L Mac& Cheese
D Tuna Noodle Hotdish

Sunday
B Cereal
L open
D Ham & Scallop Potatoes

Monday
B Oatmeal
L PB&J
D Meatloaf & mashed potatoes

Recycle...

Footprints in the snow

The longest

I have a small bit of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and every February is the longest month of my life. Funny how the shortest month seems like the longest every year...

Schools going great, kids are growing...

It was Craft Room Sunday today! I finished a page and a half... (well 4 and started another set for each of my family albums)

Finals are coming up the second week in March! I can not wait to see what my new classes will be! I already know my schedule, same as this term, 1 in house class, 2 online...

Is winter over yet? Someone make the "winter storm warning" go away. It keeps popping up every Sunday & Monday...

Um Ok...

I woke up this morning to me stealing my husbands pillow. I was having a dream that I was shredding pillows.....

My family doesnt know this yet but...

I have decided that we are going to change our diets in a major way... out with fast food and pizza ... in more healthy alternatives... and get read for this... fruits and veggies..

This will be fun...