He did it! AJ passed his Board, so he is now an Eagle Scout! They said another 3 weeks to finish up the paper work, and he is done. Next - his Eagle Court of Honor! AJ said he was looking forward to that (he is supposed to plan it as well) so will work hard on it. We'll see.

Another first yesterday for AJ - he was invited to the Senior Prom! I have like 2 weeks to get him organized for that now. Hopefully, the girl he is taking already has a dress - does he need to color co-ordinate with her with his tux? I have no idea - I have been out of the loop for proms - never actually having been in the loop in the first place, the truth be known! Hopefully, they have fun - that's what a prom should be!

AJ has his Eagle Board of Review tonight! This will be the last step in a long journey for him. I'm so proud! Unfortunately, Moms don't get to go to those, so I'll have to find out later how it went!

Sunday was another milestone - I cleaned AJ's room! Not the best pictures, but notice that there is nothing on the floor, the books are all put away, his tables are clear.....Wow! I even cleaned out his closet. I have a couple of boxes to donate of outgrown clothes and shoes, too. He was gone most of the day, so when he came in I had him go through my toss pile, just in case. He and the neighbor kid had a lot of fun playing with old toys I had found buried in his room.

Here are the bookmarks I made for the club - I blocked them out just to make sure they were shaped nice, and the stem had a it of a curl to it. Too cute!

Today is a milestone for Alli too. I have her IEP today, and it is a transitional one - she goes to high school next year. I wasn't able to meet with any of the teachers though. I just found out about the meeting last week, and didn't get return calls from the Enterprises teacher, and I didn't have time to go see the Anderson teacher (I was short-handed at work, and busy!) The Enterprises teacher couldn't go to this meeting anyway, but I would like Alli to go to school in Redding, since that is where we work, but....we'll see what the Anderson School will offer.

I was all excited when I got up this morning - no rain! Then I checked the forecast - 80% chance of rain today. Sounds like we are just in between rain clouds right now. There is hope, though - we are supposed to be sunny and hot (79 degrees!) on Thursday! As much as I love the thought of sunny warm weather, going from this to that will probably throw my system into shock. I'll take it though - we need some sunshine around here!

We had our first book club meeting a couple of weeks ago - a fun time! As usual, I was running late, and then....got stopped at a sobriety checkpoint on the way to the meeting. Good thing it was before the meeting! (We were good - we all ate and had one glass of wine - no DUI's for us!) The book we read was "A Time Traveler's Wife" - a very odd book that left lots of questions (I hated the ending!) The book for the next meeting (in May) is "The Art of Racing in the Rain". I finished it in one night - that's how good it was! I gave it to Ralph to read. The story is told from the dog's perspective, so I knew it was going to be sad - the dogs always die! Even with that, it was a very good book - I can hardly wait until May now! Since our last meeting was the day before St. Patrick's Day, I made up some three-leaf clover bookmarks - and then forgot to take pictures of them! This time, I am making flower/flower pot bookmarks. I made the flower and the flower pot last night, now I just need to make the connecting stem. I made one as a test, just like the pattern, and the others are slightly modified. Here's my test bookmark - I'll post pictures of the finished ones later (I hope!)

I'm up for hosting the July meeting - they want to swim in the pool. That means I really need to get the yard and pool cleaned up! We are having a family reunion here this summer, so I already had Ralph started on getting the yard in shape, but I think it will take more than one summer to do that! We've neglected it for too long, but it now has weed-and-feed on it and grass seeds, unless they were washed away in this last series of storms. We'll see! I think the weed-and-feed is working - we have yellowish plants in the yard, and with all this rain, they should all be bright green!

Rufus was playing with the other kittens - caught in the act! He usually doesn't play with them!

Just a short post - I'm running behind again lately. I woke up in plenty of time this morning, but I also woke up with a migraine, so I'm moving much slower! I finished this little baby rattle on Sunday - it is just the cutest thing, really!

AJ and I took the dogs for a walk on Sunday, and Clover Creek is full enough Jasper had to swim to get across it. Koori didn't want to play in the creek, though the puddles were fine. We've had even more rain since then, so I have no idea how deep it is now! Koori even flushed out a snake for us on our walk. Poor thing was so cold it could barely move. The rising water must have invaded his winter home and made him move to higher ground.

What a nice winter storm! So far, our highest wind gust was 45 MPH - that's a lot of wind for us! We've gotten almost 3 inches of rain with this storm - and almost an inch since midnight. I'm ready for summer!

Since it was such a blustery day yesterday, after shopping and cleaning, I made a cute little lamb toy. I already have some changes in mind for the next one I make - a lighter face color (so you can see the eyes!) and a little less stuffing.

Isn't he cute!

Friday was a 'celebration' day at work - the bank brought in lunch for us, and had raffles during the day, and other fun stuff. Here's what happens when one of the balloons being used as decorations escapes:

We shoot it out of the sky! Okay, it took a while, but we managed to get a pin to stick to the Nerf dart, and then managed to actually hit the balloon with the dart - not nearly as easy as it sounds! We only had one dart set up with a pin, so after every shot that missed, the dart had to be thrown back up to us on the second floor. We also had to make sure there were no customers in the bank lobby during this time. (The bank has an open ceiling between floors - a beautiful look!)

But we did it! (Which is a good thing - our motion detectors would go off when it ran out of helium, setting off the alarms. The security company already told us they charge extra for 'sinking balloon' calls, not to mention it usually happens in the middle of the night, and someone from the bank gets a call and has to go in and check it out!) The last time, it was a bunch of balloons, and we were able to thrown a ball of yarn between the strings to bring them down.. A solo balloon was a bit tougher.

Whew! I made it through the week! Then, instead of going to bed early and catching up on sleep - I stayed up past midnight reading. I did sleep in a little bit this morning (7:00) but not enough to catch up with the sleep I've lost this week.

One of my co-workers had a baby boy last week - 2 months premature. I had plans of making a afghan for him, but....that didn't get done yet. I did make up a pair of baby cowboy booties (the dad is from Texas) for the little tyke. I think they were a hit - Dad said I was making his allergies act up, sniff, sniff! (Quite an admission from a tough Texan!) Little Robert is doing fine, but is still in the hospital.

I tired out my new pattern for baby booties and am disappointed with the first pattern I made. They would be cute decorations, but they are nowhere near the right shape for a baby's foot. I'll try a couple more pattern before I toss it though. They have a couple of cute-looking boy booties - those are harder to find than cute little girl booties. Babies are breaking out all over at the bank right now, too. I have an order right now for booties for two grand-babies - and I have three sets done - one more to go. I have an afghan started for a baby shower in a couple of weeks for a co-worker, and I found out yesterday there is a new baby expected in August from yet another co-worker. Wow!

Where is the time going? I rush and rush, and....it's gone! I know the time change hasn't helped - it's so hard to get started in the morning now. We have a nice little winter storm in the area, so we are raining and dreary and cold - beside sleep deprived! I had a ton of things I wanted to get done this week, and so far - nada!

I took my first exercise class last night in a hundred years - okay - an exaggeration - but at least 25! I once took a class in Susanville - just once - and never went again! Last night was fun - I made AJ go with me, with the promise that he didn't have to stay if it wasn't 'his thing'. He actually had fun too, and will go with me to the next class - Cool! This is probably the most basic class - an hour long class that combines step (very simple step!) with weights and core training and balancing. I did okay on everything but the balancing! Even my Wii Fit program flunks me on my balance! (It actually asked me once if I fell down a lot - not a nice machine!) It is the type of class that you can make as hard as you want - keeping with the same moves. AJ worked a lot harder than I did - I just wanted to make it through the class. He had a lot more weight than I did, and he did the 'hard moves', whereas I just tried to keep up! All in all - fun!

A busy week, and a slow, lazy weekend! I spent most of yesterday crafting - so much fun! First I played with my beads.....

I had a little help!

Then I crocheted. I am working on baby stuff right now - I think the whole bank is having babies! I got a new pattern book that I am trying out - I'll post pictures when I get them done.

Daylight savings starts today - I love having more light when I get home from work, but it is hard to adjust to getting up that hour earlier. Once again, I stayed up too late (watching a pre-season Giants game) and then got up too early (Ralph woke me up inadvertently, and I couldn't go back to sleep.) Now, I need to go start laundry and feed the kids.

And I thought I was going to have a restful day yesterday after I finished my housecleaning! I planned on just laying around the house and doing nothing of importance, but....AJ talked me into a bike ride, and then I talked him into a walk with the dogs. (The walk with the dogs was because they threw such a fit about us leaving them for a bike ride!) I haven't ridden my bike in at least a year - if I even road it last year. We road a 4 mile loop around the neighborhood - beautiful ride, but my gears stuck, so I was stuck in a high gear most of the way. Needless to say, I walked up the hill. I made the rest of it okay though! The walk was full of leaps and bounds - as you can see from the photos.

AJ running with the dogs

The dogs running back to me (I'm always the slowest!)

Swimming in the puddle

AJ caught Jasper mid leap - I was always getting the splash!

I'm a day late in my plans - I really meant to do all my cleaning, etc. on Saturday, but...better late than never, I guess! I got the housecleaning done today instead (and instead of going to church! But I was on a roll and didn't dare stop or I would never finish!) I did finish up a few projects I wanted to do - I finished up a flower scarf and made a button scarf using the new Dewdrop yarn, and worked on some jewelry. The three pairs of earrings on the right were ones that I did a couple of weeks ago. The bracelets and red bead earrings were ones that I did yesterday. Not too bad! (and a lot more fun than cleaning house!)

It's hard to tell with my photos, but the yarn has sequins in it, and it is very pretty! I need to find just the right buttons for the blue scarf, so I will need to take it in to the store with me, I think.

I did something last night I haven't done in ages - stayed up till midnight to finish a book And then I wished I hadn't, because the ending was so sad - I wanted to change it. That makes for very odd dreams!

The book I just had to finish last night is "A Time Traveler's Wife" and I started reading it for "just a few minutes" before I went to bed, and....I just had to keep reading! This is a book I picked up for a recently formed book club. I've never joined a book club before, and never worried too much about a book except whether of not I liked it. This could be a fun event, and it is only every other month, so I have lots of time to read the book! (So why did I stay up till midnight to finish it????)

I had a houseful of guests last night for dinner - Conner is here with AJ, and then a couple of friends stopped by for dinner and dessert. Patti, Kimberly and I were supposed to go to a Comedy Night last night, but that didn't work out, so they came over for steaks and cheesecake. Not only cheesecake, but I made the flour-less chocolate cake again - much better this time. Yummmm! Good food and good friends make for a good evening!

Ralph brought home his new C-PAP machine yesterday - the machine to stop his sleep apnea. It is so quiet I can hardly believe it! I heard horror stories about how noisy they are, but the new ones are quieter than a humidifier. I also didn't realize how much I did hear him snore. I kept waking up all night because he had stopped breathing. No, he was still breathing, he was just very quiet about it! I think he slept good, but I kept waking up! Oh well, I'll get used to him sleeping quietly pretty quick, I'm sure. He also has an appointment to get his hearing aide fitted later this month. He's going to be a new man pretty soon - all re-worked!

I fell in love with a new yarn yesterday. I went in to Michael's to pick up a gift card, and since I was there......I wandered back in the yarns. Like I needed new yarns! I still have a small amount of the baby giraffe to finish, and some baby shoes to make, and some book marks and.....anyway, they have a very cool new yarn. It's called 'dewdrops' and it has sequins built in to it. I picked up a beautiful silver/grey and started a flower scarf with it. There's only 71 yards in the skein, and I think I need at least 100 for a flower scarf - at least I didn't have enough to finish it last night. I might be able to get a button scarf out of one skein. When I pick up the extra skein to finish the grey one, I'll pick up one and try the button scarf. It works up beautifully! Pictures tomorrow!

We have our very own lol cat photo! (in reference to the icanhascheezburger website) What kind of captions could we come up with for this?? Indy is such a wild cat - he was completely under the rug at one point - not even his little stub of a tail sticking out. Those are the days I hope Alli doesn't step on him!

More rain yesterday - I think we got over an inch, and most of that came in one deluge. I don't know what the city of Redding got, but I am sure it is more than our measly little inch. It was pouring yesterday - in buckets! Ralph said the rain in the street/gutter was so bad at daycare that it was over the tops of his shoes to get in the truck.

We have rain again - back to winter in Redding. Yesterday was mainly sunny - beautiful! I know I will get tired of the sun, just as I get tired of the rain but...I am ready for Spring! Well, no I'm not - I still need to get the yard cleaned up and ready to go. The garden need to be fertilized and rototilled, etc.

I have a "lap"rador instead of a Labrador! Jasper decided to sit on my lap - and it is tight squeeze! AJ loves to see her playing with me - she is such a clown! Indy was ignoring the whole crowd and playing nicely by himself - not a usual occurrence, I assure you - he is usually into everything!

It seems I have an impromptu party at my house Friday after work. I originally had plans to meet up with some friends and go to Comedy Night at the Corning casino. One of the friends was coming over to the house after work to meet up with us, and have dinner. It turns out we were too late to reserve a table at the casino, so we would have had to sit in the "open seating" area - not what I was thinking about for a girls night out. Now, I have extra people over for dinner - which actually sounds more fun than driving to Corning and listening to a comedian. My only problem now is my usual - getting the house ready for company! Oh well - these friends don't expect miracles on a Friday night after a long work week, so it will be okay!