Holiday Wrap Up (in a nutshell)

In our great tradition of Doc in Stocking photos, here's one of the most photogenic hamsters in the world posing on Mary's Santa hat. Just ask how many sunflower seeds it took to get this shot!

Richard goes with us to tour Opryland hotel.

Mary looks "grim" as she opens her Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales printed in both English and German.

Robin opening Star Trek, the Second Season.

Here we are at the hotel, posing near the giant Christmas tree.

Seasonal Happenings

Somebody is happy Mary is at home today!

The village people from Dickens of a Christmas carol.

A gigantic tree at Opryland Hotel.

Halloween Totals and some more photos

Our official Trick or Treater total this year is 167.

Because we are odd and keep meticulous records, here's how this year stacks up against the last several years:

2008: 157
2007: 223
2006: 215
2005: 165

I think the best costume I saw this year would have to be the teenager dressed like Ozzy Osbourne. The little ones were cute as a variety of fairies, pumpkins, lions and other small fuzzy beasts.

Helping a fellow writer

I really enjoy a blog called Chickens in the Road. The lady who writes it is a writer and a farmer in West Virginia. Her recipe section alone is worth a visit to her blog.

She's competing for a paying writing job. The competition is based on people voting for her through a website. If you would like to help, click here to vote.

If you'd like to check out her blog, click here. I read it every day and greatly enjoy it.

Thanks!

Robin

All things Halloweeny

I have been decorating and carving pumpkins and buying candy. Lots of candy. (Richard, do you think we have enough candy yet?) And then even more candy. Hopefully I will get some trick or treaters. I had better get some trick or treaters. I have to go to the dentist tomorrow for my
regular check up and I am reluctant to tell them how much candy I bought. I feel like I should do some sort of penance for contributing to the tooth decay of minors. One of these years I'm going to hand out toothbrushes. Promise.

Mary and Kyla carving pumpkins. Mary looks quite maniacal.
I think next year, painting pumpkins might be a safer idea.

Richard walks beneath the spider web tunnel. I spray painted blood stains
on the white webbing. I also have black webbing for accent,
and glow in the dark green webbing for coolness.

Still working on this spooky tableau. I have a giant scary guy
who gets wired into the tree with an ax and a small 2 foot spider
to suspend from the tree into the web.

This is my new witch gifted from Beth. She is gazing toward the area
where the trick or treaters will approach the candy.
I have some cool strobe lights to go under her face.

This is Mary and Alivia dressing up in Mary's old 101 dalmation costume
a few months ago. We found the costume when we cleaned
out the attic (and kept it as we could not get rid of something so very cute.)

Look quick at Mary before she makes me take this down.
She apparently used to live in this costume when she was younger.

A trip to the "Country Ham Festival"

It was time again this weekend for the Spring Hill Country Ham Festival. This is a yearly festival they have to benefit the Tennessee Children's Home. It's held only a couple of miles from our house, so we usually head out there and try to score some barbecue. We listened to the hog calling contest, ate some good food and listened to some good music. They also had a nice collection of classic and modern corvettes.

And we're back!

I have been remiss in my blogging duties. I have been overcome with chasing after a teenager for 3 months. I don't remember everything that has gone by over the summer. I saw a lot of movies. I learned to appreciate new forms of musical expression at high volume. I ate a lot of junk food. My body keeps telling me that 34 year olds just don't need that much chocolate. Or caffeine. Or pizza. And we need sleep.

Now that Mary is away at college, I have started reclaiming my time. This has been a gradual process. First I had to dig myself out of the abandoned lists full of chores. This week, I was going to do some much needed work outside, weeding, painting, scrubbing, etc. This great plan was interrupted by a monsoon. I would put a picture up, but it's dreary, it's dark. It has rained for 4 days and 4 nights. You get the idea.

What I will do is post Mary's graduation photos. These are so late it's pitiful, but I have a good excuse. I am blaming Richard and Linux and procrastination.

Mary and her friend Tracy after graduation.

Mary with John and her mom

Mary with her dad.

Mary with cousin Tori and Aunt Jane.

Mary with me and Richard and the inevitable bunny ears.

Richard and I both in formal clothing at the same time.
Wow. We got a shot of this for posterity.

Mary's room

Sammy is the queen of all things. Here, she's resting comfortably on Mary's paisley bed cover (or duvet cover as I have learned). The paisley pattern is a light green with the same blue as the walls.

Some "better late than never" photos of Mary's room. I painted everything Warm Breeze with white trim. I also managed to find a Roman blind on sale at Penney's. After ordering the wrong size (who knew you were supposed to measure the window or the old blind?) I finally got the correct one. It's really cool looking and adds some nice texture to the room. I was able to return the other blind to J.C. Penney very easily even though I originally ordered it online. I hate it when you order something online from someone who has a retail storefront presence and they won't take returns back at the store (I'm talking about you Barnes and Noble).

Enough of my rant. Mary likes her room, doc likes her room, the cats like doc. It's all good.

It was time.

I have many things to blog about, like
Mary's graduation!
Mary's room!
Mary's new bedspread!
Mary's College Orientation!
Cute Cats!
Cute Hamster!

And I will get to those things. But first, Richard's car finally gave up the ghost, so we ended up searching last weekend for a newer model. The Nissan has been a great car, but with an hour+ commute, something a little more reliable was in order. The car is a 2008 Toyota Corolla. We bought a pretty red color so people could see Richard coming :-)

Prom photos

Mary shows off her hair-do.

The complete ensemble.

It's taken a while, as I have been working furiously putting out a few papers and some special sections the past two weeks, but here are Mary's prom photos! She had a lot of fun and she looked fabulous. I helped her get ready, sat for many long hours in the beauty salon and went to the wrong florist looking for the corsage I had ordered. They told me they had no order under my name, so in a panic (this was Saturday morning) I stopped in at the first florist I could find and begged them to throw together a corsage for me, which they very kindly did. Then the actual florist I had preordered from called me later that afternoon and confirmed their address, very similar name but not the same florist I had been to in the morning. So I picked that one up too and one of Mary's friends ended up wearing it.

We took the photos with her early graduation present--an olympus digital camera. It's about half the size of my tiny coolpix and takes great photos. We also got her an HD card(?) that they recommended so she has a gigantic capacity for photos (about 1600).

She's excited about graduation. I'm trying to find a few minutes to finish painting her room and cleaning the carpets. Plus somewhere in the next few weeks I have to find a dress for graduation. I think I'd rather paint the whole house than shop, but I have little choice in the matter. :-)

Richard is doing great. He likes his new job a lot and they seem to really value his opinions and experience. He could do without the commute, or the fact that there are no available places for lunch (although that's actually saving us a fortune).

In my next blog, I will get some photos of the yard. The peonies are gigantic, the hellebores are 3 foot tall. The bishops grass is huge. The catnip is threatening to take over the galaxy. I seriously think it has mutated. I also have a nice crop of broccoli and cabbage, plus some romaine lettuce that is growing really well. This is my first time for growing any of that stuff, so I have no idea why it's doing well. I'm also trying to grow rhubarb with mixed results. I'm pretty sure Richard mowed it down last week, but we'll see.

Spring Showers and all that

Just wanted to write to tell everyone that we have not yet washed away, even though we've had rain every day for about a month now. We had some dry weather Friday, so we took advantage to try to mow as much of the yard as possible and clean up the back yard a bit. At the rate the grass is growing back there, we may have to get goats :-)

Everything has been hectic around here. I helped Mary get ready for her prom two weeks ago and I've been working at the paper non-stop since. I will eventually get around to throwing a few of Mary's fabulous photos on here.

Mary's Honor's Banquet

Mary with her medal.

Mary's outfit was very cute...those are her prom shoes that she is trying to break in.

I attended Mary's Honor's Banquet in Johnson City this past week and really had a good time. She received a medal and a certificate for her achievements. We had a nice banquet style dinner with the others who qualified for honors and the school board. The kids got to stand in front of a microphone and introduce themselves and talk about their planned colleges and majors. Mary was nervous, but she did a great job. One thing I noticed was that her honors group had 3 sets of twins in it. That seemed statistically odd to me. It also seemed odd that the pork loin looked like turkey or that the turkey tasted like pork loin.

We had a very funny exchange looking for an alteration place in Kingsport. Oddly enough, I spent a year of my life living near Kingsport when I was very young. Nothing looked familiar, but luckily I had my trusty GPS to direct us to the downtown area and to the seamstress who agreed to take on her dress to hem. After I missed a turn ordered by the GPS yet again, and we had made several detours to get back to where we were supposed to be, Mary said to me "You always argue with the Garmin. I think we both have issues with authority." I hadn't realized until that point that yes, I do argue with the GPS and at times I berate its parentage. I have resolved to be kinder in the hopes that the Garmin will continue getting me where I want to go.

I drove back Saturday after all the storms and baked a pound cake for Easter. Here's the recipe if anyone is interested. It was amazing, but incredibly rich.

Speaking of Easter, I know this is a little late, but still, very, very cute:

The geese decide to masquerade as the Easter Bunny.

"Hey...you're not a real bunny. There's something fishy going on here."

Cleo nommed the ears off the goose. (She usually doesn't bother them, but I think they were in a strange place and attracted her bored-cat attention).

the joys of sisterhood

Mary and I in our zany Christmas photo.

I found this article linked off coasttocoastam.com, my favorite reliable news source :-)

Having a sister makes you happier
and more optimistic, say psychologists

Richard looking all spiffy

This is Richard after his job interview for everyone interested in what his new suit looks like. I was hoping for a nicer photo, maybe outside under the blooming Bradford Pear trees. He was in a hurry to put on more comfortable clothes though, so this is the best I could do. Everything fit very well and made him look very "professorish." He had very positive vibes about the interview itself and felt that it went really well.

The joy of cats

A site I like, jibjab.com has a setup where you can load your photo into animations and illustrations (think dancing elves). I did this one for Richard in honor of the fact that Libby sometimes likes to gnaw on his head for no good reason. We have long since stopped trying to figure out why Libby does anything, she has wily and mysterious aims.

This is also a fair representation of what we will endure next week as we load Sammy and Libby into cat carriers and take them to the vet for their annual checkups. Well, Sammy's not too bad. Her biggest weapon is a serious bit of silent rage and a bug eyed look of disbelief. To put Libby in a carrier, one must first assemble a first aid kit and put on armor. Oddly enough, Mary's cats are a lot better to take to the vet. Boo and Tilly go right into the carriers. Cleo goes in (she's like a dog and can often be directed) but she doesn't want to stay in. She's sort of claustrophobic. Tilly is so tiny, she's no trouble at all. And our very kind vet gives us a multi-cat discount. By the time we get to the last cat, it's almost free.

Sammy is having a cantakerous day today. Nothing is pleasing her, not us, not our offerings of table food, not the other cats who are constantly doing things to annoy her, like breathing and laying about lazily in odd spots in the house that she wants to inhabit for a few seconds. I think she woke up on the wrong side of the cat bed. Maybe she's just getting older and with that comes some grumpiness. We have various made up songs we sing to the cats (yes, we are weird). Here's the one Richard made up for angsty Sammy (sung to the tune of "Smelly Cat" from the TV show Friends:

Grumpy Cat, Grumpy Cat
Who peed in your gooshy food?
Grumpy Cat, Grumpy Cat
It's not my fault.

In the interest of silliness, here's the other cat song Richard came up with, set to the tune of Hank Williams, Jr.'s "Family Tradition":

Sammy why do you hork?
Why do you regurgitate?
Why must you throw up the food you just ate.
Stop and think it over,
put yourself in my unique position.
It may be rude to throw up your food,
but it's a Sammy tradition.

We survived the World's Greatest Hobby Show

I forgot the camera, so I have no pictures of the experience, but we survived the trip yesterday to the hobby show in Nashville. It was a definite upgrade from previous hobby shows because it was in the Nashville Convention Center, so they had food and drinks and some lady selling homemade donuts (that you could smell everywhere). The convention center also has better bathrooms than the civic auditorium and more seats.

The show itself was about twice the size of a regular show, so Richard was in total sensory overload. I did what I normally do at Train Shows...I looked around at the models and then found a seat and read a book. There was also an interesting show about Walt Disney and his love of trains narrated by the son of one of his original imagineers. That was actually pretty interesting. It was also where the chairs were, so I was compelled to listen. :-)

The place was mobbed with kids and Thomas booths. It's too bad Matt couldn't have gone...I think he would have loved it. After a couple of hours, we hiked back to the truck and went to Corky's for barbecue. Because you just can't have a train show without barbecue :-)

I had the same trouble I always have at train shows with Richard. I try to find him and everyone there looks like him. They all are wearing jeans, sneakers, a plaid shirt and a cap. Some of them were wearing the same shirt as he and the same cap. I told him next year, I'm making him wear a bright pink shirt.

Skiing Geese and a Pile O' Cats

We've been getting some vacation photos back from the geese. Here they are, hitting the slopes. I was musing to Richard that it's really a shame that the geese are more athletic than we are.

Tilly is constantly trying to get the other cats to clean her ears and her head for her. I can see that she is using that tactic here: "I love you Cleo, I'm going to lay down next to you and you can wash my ears." The gigantic black shadow behind them is Boo.

Goose nurses and a late witch

I haven't updated in a while, but I had some new photos to put up. Richard is still doing well. We are both taking it easy, taking naps, getting lots of rest and things are getting back to normal.

The geese are hanging out in their nursing outfits. Richard says that after the bill
from Vanderbilt, we need to find barrels for them to wear.

The witch steals my chair, my remote and the cat toy.

Beth wrote me a nice poem to explain that my witch had taken a detour. This was a great Christmas present and I look forward to putting her out with the other decorations next year. I may put her out for Easter. Spice up the neighborhood. Hand out fanged Peeps. I wanted to write a nice poem too, but this is what goes through my head when I try:

"The house began to pitch. The kitchen took a slitch.
It landed on the Wicked Witch in the middle of a ditch,
Which was not a healthy situation for the Wicked Witch."

The Fed Ex man had a fit. He could not find the box in which the witch did sit.
The witch went on a trip, disguised as a no tool needed bookcase kit.
After such a snit, the witch some luck did hit
and ended up in Spring Hill and on the porch alit:
"Sorry for the mix up!!!" upon her box was writ.

If I had a day job, I wouldn't quit it. :-)

And finally....

Libby continues to be A-door-able.

Update on Richard

Just wanted to let everyone know that Richard is still doing well. The cats are being very gentle with him. :--)

We are both recovering from the hospital stay and the lack of sleep that entailed. We both want to thank everyone for their good wishes and prayers!