Pretty Snow

Short post tonight. I spent Monday out by Lauren and the little girls. I got my baby fix, it is fun to see their changes with every visit. Monday was in the 50s here and it felt great to have a glimpse of spring. Rob watched the kids when he got home and I ran to. Mariano's...alone. It was nice to shop alone and I felt like I got everything I had on the list, in my head.
Tuesday I started listing again. I have had a lot of things selling and I needed to get some replacements listed. I volunteered at school. I joined Mom and Dad for a trip to Whole Foods and Target.
We had another snow storm go through overnight. Thankfully it did not snow more than a couple inches. The snow was so pretty flocked on all the branches this morning. I drove the kids to school because the bus wasn't here. I spent the day listing. I got a good number of items up. Nick was the reader at school today.
Visualizing my healthy and continually healing body and the new normal, Tree

Such an Active Weekend

Thursday was our 15th anniversary. The kids were at school, and Rob at work. I did some listing in the morning. It was so sunny out that I felt the need to get out and enjoy it. I ran to Unique and found a few things. I hit Salvation on the way home and found a few new in box games and puzzles and a few ties. I came home to a bouquet of flowers from Rob. Mom and Dad brought dinner for the kids and watched them so Rob and I could go to dinner. We went to Tapas Barcelona in Evanston. We enjoyed a few plates together and then took a brisk walk around downtown before heading home.
Friday I did some thrifting in the morning. I went to Morton Grove Salvation and found a new in box Rejuvenique mask, it is a scary infomercial anti aging product. I went to Wings but didn't find anything. I ended at Avenues and found 3 kids costumes and a puzzle. The kids came home from school and we went to get ice cream. Ellie finished her ISAT testing and needed to unwind. We stopped into Half Price Books and then went to the mall to walk around.
Saturday morning we all slept in. I woke up to a fantastic email, my kind of creepy doll sold. In less than a week for full asking price. Rob went to work a side job for an hour. A bit after he got home there was a door bell ring, it was the tree company asking us to move our cars. We are having our very large cottonwood taken down. We constantly lose branches, some pretty big ones. One came very close to hitting Nick last summer. It was instant entertainment for the day. Ellie and I ran out to Salvation and Unique because she wants to update her spring wardrobe. We came home and found that they had almost one half of the Y split taken down. It was a great ebay afternoon, lots of items moving out. We went out for breakfast for dinner. We went to Walker Brothers and were pretty much alone in the restaurant. We went to Target afterwards to walk around. We found hepa filter/purifiers were on clearance. We have had ours for about 5-7 years now and trying to find the filters is getting hard and pricey. We decided to get new ones for each bedroom and one for the 1st floor, too. We came home and got the kids to bed since we would be losing an hours sleep.
Today Rob and Ellie were up in time for church, Nick and I came down just as they were getting ready to leave. I took the time to really get my boxes organized. I had crap bins in every room and I tossed them all on the table to go through. I had another good sale day with more items moving out. Rob and Ellie got home and brought in the hepas. Rob did the switch outs of the old ones. Ellie made some bath salts this afternoon. The house is starting to not look like a hurricane hit it. We went to Mom and Dad's for dinner. Mom made pizzas, salad, roasted potatoes, and fruit salad. Ellie made 3-2-1 cakes for dessert and Mom had cinnamon rolls.
Visualizing my healthy and continually healing body and the new normal, Tree

The Eve of Our 15th

Crazy to think tomorrow is our 15th wedding anniversary - seems both like yesterday and like decades ago.
Monday the kids had off of school. We saw a matinee of NutJob. It was nice, we were one of about 3 groups in the theater. I ran to the post office afterwards to talk with the carrier supervisor. My carrier got hurt last week and her replacement left my outgoing mail in the box on Thursday and took my tote with 9 packages begrudgingly on Friday but never scanned them in. Not Friday, not Saturday, not Sunday and nothing Monday until a couple hours after I went in to talk with the supervisor. We spent the afternoon at Mom and Dad's house. Nick played trains with Dad, Ellie and I introduced Mom to the Sequence game.
Rob has a crazy busy filming week this week. He has worked each evening and will continue through Saturday - at least he put in for tomorrow night off.
Yesterday I started listing all my treasures from last week. I felt good, I got an entire box of Christmas crafts listed. I volunteered in the morning. Mrs. Berkowitz is back from maternity leave. After school,  Ellie had her 1st Battle of the Books meet. Mom, Dad, and Rob met us for it. Ellie was up 1st because she was one of the students who had read the most books. Unfortunately, they lost this round.
Today I did some more listing. I got all my Scrapbook items listed and my dear, scary doll. I listed her for $300 and I had 2 watchers within a few hours. I also listed just the Cookie Monster from the play doh set and have my opening bid of $24.99 and 9 watchers! My most expensive tie sold for $102.00, I paid $1.99. After school we went to Target because Ellie was asking for specific snacks for ISAT testing this week.
So, I am a bit annoyed...March is colorectal cancer awareness month. I think I have voiced before that I believe they should be 2 separate cancers - as I was diagnosed with rectal cancer, not colon cancer. Long story short - I am annoyed that rectal cancer doesn't get enough talk. I know survivors of rectal cancer that say they had colon cancer because they think there is a stigma with rectal cancer. I will get off my soap box - I did see a funny announcement - Make sure to give your doctor a booty call, butt no excuses.
Visualizing my healthy and continually healing body and the new normal, Tree

Happy March

Had the most excellent thrift week last week. I have such fun things to list this week. On Thursday I went to Target and found a good number of things on the end cap clearance. I had lunch with Mom, Dad, and Teo when I dropped off some diapers. In the evening I went to a Relay for Life meeting. I have signed up to walk this year. Friday was 50% off day at Unique. I started in the city and worked my way North. I found some nice clothing, some new books, some weird doll craft things, and ties. I found the tagged with certificate of authenticity Gotz doll. Lara is 30" tall and quite scary...I have her wrapped in a bag just in case she is thinking of escaping. I got her for $9.99 - I am thinking of listing her at $300. I scored 5 seasons of Gilmore Girls dvds - not selling those! We started watching them on Friday.
Saturday Rob worked in the morning. The kids and I  took advantage of the snow not starting early and we headed to a rummage sale. We found some games and puzzles for our house and Michigan. Ellie was very happy to find Sequence, I had never heard of it. We played in that evening - it is fun. It is a card strategy game. We watched some more Gilmore Girls and got the kids to bed.
It was nice to see some new, clean snow this morning. I was glad the early week predictions were way off and we only got a few inches. We spent the morning cleaning up around here. I organized all my inventory on the first floor...it had been just in the store bags but I got prices off and placed in bins. I rearranged the couches in the back room for more even wear. I cleaned up the kitchen - partially inspired by Ellie making a batch of cupcakes. We had family Sunday. Mom made tortellini, chicken, cabbage, broccoli, tofu salad, fruit. Cookies and packzi for dessert and Ellie's cupcakes. We were celebrating our anniversary, Ellie and Nick's birthdays, St. Patrick's Day. We drove the GGs home and came home for the Oscars. The kids have the day off tomorrow - not sure what we are doing yet.
Visualizing my healthy and continually healing body and the new normal, Tree

How Many Polar Vortexes Can a Winter Have?

It is a bit chilly here again...wind chills way under 0 and snow on the way.
Not too much to share. I have had an awesome couple days thrifting. Had some great scrapbook luck on Monday and a huge Christmas stocking score today. Since March is only a couple days away, I am waiting to list until then. Have had a couple sales each day.
I volunteered yesterday and got to hear some of the completed stories. I went up to Dean's today to get my baby fix for the week.
Mom and Dad came for dinner. We had soup, a ton of veggies, chick'n patties, salad, and fruit. We played Scategories for a while before watching the Middle.
Hope everyone stays warm and safe this weekend. Visualizing my healthy and continually healing body and the new normal, Tree

700th Post

So, a few of you can now say you have read 700 of my posts.
Thursday and Friday I didn't really leave the house. I got busy listing all the clothes I have around the house. I did get about 75 items listed over the 2 days. I was grateful that we did not take in any water during the rains on Thursday. Nick and I picked Ellie up from yearbook and we ran to Mariano's to pick up a pizza and grab some stuff for breakfast. Friday evening Ellie had a rec night at school. Nick and I went to Costco to pick up some things. He asked if we could have a movie night while Ellie and Rob were out. We came home and watched Free Bird. We picked Ellie up from school afterward and came home for bed.
Saturday morning we went to the bank to deposit the kids change jar. I ran to salvation for a couple minutes and found a couple things. Ellie had been working on her Google doodle entry and she put in some time on Saturday. When Rob got home from working we drove up to see Dean and Lauren. The kids were very excited to meet their new cousins. It was funny, they each had their favorite - it was good they were different. It was a nice visit and great to see so much happiness.
Rob worked a bit this morning. I did laundry. Ellie continued her doodle. Nick watched some movie and played with legos. This afternoon, Mom, Jo and I went to Margaret's bridal shower. We picked Kate up and drove down together. It was nice to visit on the ride. It was nice to have some girl time. Rob took the kids mini golfing and for ice cream. I came home and we played for a bit and then got ready for bed.
Visualizing my healthy and continually healing body and the new normal, Tree

Let's Just Say Frozen

Ok, ok, forgot to blog...frozen brain. Let's see if I can recall the happenings these past couple days. Monday morning I got the kids off onto the bus and traded cars with Rob. His car needed an oil change and brakes. I walked out to the car and found ice at the end of the walkway and quickly found the ground. I drove up to Bredemann with books to read while I sat to wait. I got to read about cool things we might want to do on our spring break vacation. Turns out that it was only an oil change needed - brakes are at about 50% and they said I would be prematurely spending money on them. It was massively snowing, blizzard like snow when I left. I needed to get some groceries, though. I stopped at Trader Joe's and should have made a list of what I really needed but didn't. I got out to the car was driving away and remembered I didn't get what I really needed, chocolate milk boxes for Nick's lunches. I ended up hitting Meijer. I got home and put groceries away. I took a shower to have the heat hit my knees. I decided it was time to begin our taxes and spent the afternoon organizing and beginning to input data. I walked down to get Nick from the bus and was inside a fierce snow globe. My hair was white and covered about an inch thick of snow when we came home. In under 2 hours about 3 inches of snow had fallen. It stopped eventually but it was so weird.
Tuesday it got warm enough to begin to melt...how truly, weird. Rob didn't have to go into to work until noon so we went out to breakfast. We tried Alexander's downtown...we had a really nice breakfast. I went to volunteer and Rob went to get his haircut. I went out with Mom and Dad afterwards. We went to Hallmark and the dollar store. It was about 50* by the time the kids got home from school. They finally had packing snow and wanted to play outside. They spent about an hour building a snowman. They were very proud of it. They came in and had cocoa and took hot showers.
Wednesday I got the kids on the bus and headed out to Dean and Lauren's. I was watching Savvi when they took Kenzie to the doctor. It was nice because Savvi was a bit more awake and we got to look at each other for a while before she knocked out. I finally got to cuddle with Kenzie. I left after lunch and was able to stop at Goodwill on the way home. Mom and Dad came over for dinner. We had chick'n sandwiches, fruit, green beans, asparagus, and sweet potatoes. Mom baked cookies for dessert. The kids entertained us with a dance recital and then we watched the Olympics for a bit.
Today - we need to build an ark because it is to be about 50* again and suppose to rain all day. Visualizing my healthy and continually healing body and the new normal, Tree