Back to work, hopefully.

I should hear from The Daycare Mom about her new work hours. She has an interview tomorrow, with the manager at the same place she was working at before. She says that they want her to come back, and will give her a schedule tomorrow.

I'm really glad that she is going to go back to work, and so I'll have my job back. I will only get about half the hours of a normal month, but even a little bit is good. We've missed having the kids here. I hope she gets things worked out and can work full time as soon as possible.

In other news, I got a new camera. It's a Nikon D40 D-SLR, I really like it. I'm still learning about it and will be trying different things as I can. It's a bit big and bulky compared to my old point and shoot, which makes it hard to just grab it and go, but it has a quicker shutter speed so capturing the moment is easier. I ordered a tripod for it, so I can do low light/natural light shots, and fireworks shots this summer. I've always wanted a tripod, and it was a mark down on Tiger direct so it was cheap. I'm very excited to try some of the manual settings. I'll post some pictures I've taken with it soon. I already have several of The Boy and a few other things, I just have to put them in the computer and edit them, if needed.

My family grows a litte bigger.

My youngest brother, Mark, and his dear wife are adopting a boy from the foster care system. He came to live with them this week-end. I'm so excited! They have wanted a child for years, and now they have this wonderful little boy. He is 8, he will turn 9 in February. He's cute as can be and will fit in with the rest of us really well. He likes movies, reading, cars, boats and trains. This past month has be a crazy one for Mark and his new family. This time last month they didn't know they were going to get my new Nephew, and now he's all moved in and part of our family. There have been meetings, and tons of paper work. There will probably be more of those before it's all finalized, but it will be so very worth it.

Congratulations Mark and Eileen!

The Boy has BIG dreams.

I was talking to The Boy the other day, about what he wants to be when he grows up. I suggested the typical, Fireman, Doctor, and "A cook like Daddy", all of which he said no to. So I asked him what he wanted to be. You will never guess his answer ... Okay I'll tell you, he says that he wants to be "Chef Gordan Ramsey" when he grows up. Not Chef "The Boy". MY boy wants to be GORDAN RAMSEY himself LOL. Now to break the news to him that he can't take over someone's life just because he thinks they are cool. (I guess I watch too much Kitchen Nightmares and Hell's Kitchen when he's around.)

And so the New Year starts.

Happy New Year! So far the year is starting out okay. The Boy and I are watching Loony Tunes on Cartoon Network. We had toast and hot chocolate earlier, and will probably have more after dinner. I found an instant hot cocoa mix recipe and mixed some up, it's really good and it's nice and warm when we are feeling chilled. There is some bad news however, I'm probably unemployed again. My Daycare kid's Mom has been having a hard time with her Ex. There have been problems that made her late to work and one night she didn't home from taking the kids to see him and his family until after 2AM. So she's missed work a day or two, with weather and the kids and her Ex, so they fired her. I understand why they had to do that, they need to be able to depend on someone who works for them. But until she finds another job, I will only be getting a few hours here and there while she looks for work. If it takes too long I'll have to open up those spots and find new kids.

It not all bad news though. I'll be getting a good pay check in a couple of weeks because I worked quite a few hours last month, I only get $2.20 and hour but that is per child so when I have all 5 it's actually $11 and hour. In fact I had each of the older 3 for 33 hours more than the approved amount of hours for last month. I'm going to send a letter setting out the details of what happened, with the snow days and I don't think they took into account that she worked some week-end hour, and all the week day hours were late afternoon/evening hours. (2 PM to 10 PM) So we will see if they will cover those extra hours or if she will have to.

I want Hot Chocolate, and toast. I'll have to make bread before I can have any toast. It takes about three hours to make bread. (About 30 minutes to mix and knead the dough, two one hours rises, and 30 minutes to bake.) It's worth it, we all prefer home baked bread. I need to make more apple butter, and perhaps more pumpkin butter as well. I don't know when I'll get the apples but I have plenty of frozen pumpkin.

Our Holiday, in pictures.

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas. It was quiet, Howard had to work, and other plans were postponed due to weather.

Our "tree".

The Boy checking out the presents. (M0st of them are for him).

A book he got from Grammy and Grandaddy.

The Boy and his Daddy gave me toe socks.

Here are all his presents.
I hope all of you had a wonderful Holiday.

Happy Winter Solstice!

Today is the first day of Winter, I guess it officially started around 4 AM or so. The weather co-operated and we have a pretty winter scene outside. However, it's ice on top of the snow on top of ice, so it's a mess if you need to go out in it.

Here are a few pictures I took this morning at 8:30, it's only about 1 degree warmer now at 12:43 so it looks nearly the same out there right now.

Close up of an evergreen bush with the layers of ice.

This is the top of the same evergreen bush.

Ice on the cast iron porch supports.

A poor little rhododendron, frozen and ice covered, but strangely pretty.

Our neighbors made these snowmen yesterday late in the day. You can just see the smaller one peeking out from behind the bigger one.

Winter weather photo post.

We've have snow, and freezing temps for the last week. This meant NO SCHOOL! Winter break started a week early I guess. So here are a few pictures I took this week.

This first one is titled:

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!

(However, The Boy doesn't understand he says he wants

"All the Hottest toys.")

It was almost dark when The Boy finally talked his Dad into taking him outside. Mom had to go out too in order to get the necessary "Snow Day" pictures.

The next day was better, the sun actually came out. We had a great day.

There was some beautiful color in the sunset that evening.

This is a street half a block away from out apartment. We were waiting for the bus to get some shopping done before the next wave of snow and ice was supposed to come.

An old, non functioning water fountain, The Boy thought we should try to take the ice out but it wouldn't come out. It did wiggle around some though.

The Boy and his Dad playing in the snow. The snow ball Dad is making? It hit ME on the shoulder mere moments after I took this shot. It got snow on the camera, luckily it seems the camera is snow resistant.

I'm working again!

After a lot of waiting and worrying, I finally have some Daycare children. They are a family with 5 kids, Ages 2, 4, 6, 7, and 9. They are really good kids, well behaved, interested in learning stuff, and friendly with Aidan. As long as things keep working out for their Mom with her job, and nothing happens to take them away from Salem, I'll be watching them close to full time. The pay rate around here isn't very good, she gets daycare assistance, but the hours I have all 5 together I make pretty good money.

Howard has been home from work for the last week, because of the snow and ice on the roads between here and the casino. They called and told him they changed his schedule. He will never think that me staying home and babysitting is easy ever again. The kids were here for only of the days he was home, they were really well behaved those days, but he felt drained those days when they went home. Plus there were 2 of us! LOL I think he has a greater respect for what I do now.

The next thing I need to do is figure out how much I need to keep out for taxes each month. I don't think I'll make enough to really make much difference for tax purposes, but I'd rather have some money in Savings I can spend in February than have to figure out how to come up with some extra money to pay taxes. With Earned Income Credit, and all the other credits we can usually depend on, we should still have a plus at the end of everything. I guess I'm still worried that we'll end up owing if I don't save, even though we will probably be fine if I don't. It's not a bad thing to get in the habit of saving, right?

Sadness, memories, and Holiday wishes.

I'm feeling sad today. I'll admit to watching all the ABC soaps, every day I'm home to watch them that is. So, today was the funeral for a still born baby girl, born to young parents on One Life to Live. I was reminded of our little Erin Marie. It's been over 10 years since she was still born to my Oldest Son and his fiance, but now and then I think of her and wonder what kind of a girl she would be now, what color of hair would she have? What color would her eyes be? Would she be like her Dad and be into computers? And I tear up missing her.

It helps to think of my Grandson, he turned 10 this year. He's a lot like his Dad, the good and the bad. I miss him too, because he lives all the way across the country from me, but I know that his Mom is taking good care of him. And that his Dad is trying his best to be a good Dad for him. I talked to my Grandson on his birthday, he was a bit distracted as 10 year old boys tend to be when talking to people they don't really know, but he was nice and polite such a good boy.

It's a bit strange thinking about my Grandchildren, who would both be 10 now, while watching my 5 year old son play with his toys. It's not the usual order of things. I'm kind of old to be raising a young child, at least in the eyes of most of society. However, I feel much younger than I really am. Perhaps it's because of the boys. I'm still in touch with some of their friend who still live around here, or maybe it's because of The Boy, he keeps me busy and doesn't let me get too set in my ways. Or it might be because I have really good friends who are younger and they keep me interested in things and more aware.

This time of year always brings memories of family for me. Those who are still here and those who have passed. So now I have to go plan for the Christmas presents I'm going to make for my family this year. I have things I need to remember to get when my Mom comes to take me shopping this Friday. I hope you all have a nice evening, and that the coming days are not too stressful.

Picture Post

Sitting and waiting for the bus.
Do I hear Geese?

Good Moring.

This is how my Spider Boy sleeps.

Pink Apple Butter Bread.

The Boy and I made the Apple Butter Bread yesterday. I think the water was too cold to activate the yeast correctly. I didn't have oil so I used butter but forgot to adjust the amount of salt, so it's a little salty. I didn't have any Whole Wheat flour so I used all unbleached all purpose flour, I know that changes things somewhat, but I already changed it with the butter so ... I also added 4 drops of red food coloring, because The Boy asked me to. Other than a little bit too much salt, The Boy and his Dad didn't seem bothered by the saltiness so maybe it's just me, the taste was nice. It might be because it was Thanksgiving and our minds were preoccupied with all things Thanksgiving, but it tasted and smelled as if it had pumpkin in it. This morning I used it to make french toast, that was really yummy. I'm going to try it again in a few days and see if I can get it to rise better. I want to try Pumpkin Butter too. Maybe for Christmas.

Here's a couple of pictures of the Apple Butter Bread all sliced up and ready to eat.

You can see the slightly pink coloring, maybe next time we will add more drops of color.

Parent Teacher Conference, yesterday.

For some reason I thought our parent/teacher conference was at 1:30, I guess it was actually at 12:30, but we got there early. The Speech teacher happened to see us and took us to the classroom. We had 30 minutes to talk to them, instead of an hour as scheduled, but we covered it all in that time.

The Boy is doing well, he is in a classroom with Kindergarten, First and Second grade kids. All of them have a few different problems. Things like Downs Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Speech Delays and other learning disabilities. We don't know what, if any, disabilities The Boy may have. He is a little delayed, and seems really innocent for boy almost 6 years old. There hasn't been too much in the way of testing to figure it out yet, but we are working on it.

The Boy is in the highest reading group, he is picking up reading pretty quickly. He is still working on some comprehension aspects, sight words, and being able to retell a story sequence.

Speech seems to be going well, he is communicating appropriately, asking good questions, and contributes relevant information during discussions.

He is still having trouble with writing, he really dislikes writing, and won't practice very often, so he isn't dong very well yet. I'll have to keep working with him on it. The teacher wants him to use colors rather than markers when he is drawing or writing, because it will make him work a little harder building up strength in his fingers. He also suggested getting more Playdoh, since the stuff we have has dried out, or clay for more strength building play. Maybe that will help make writing easier for him.

Math is an on going project. He isn't showing them his knowledge of numbers as well at school as he shows us here at home. But for kindergarten he is doing pretty well, or so they told us yesterday. There are a few things that we can work on here at home, now all I have to do is find a way that will be fun enough that he will want to do it.

He needs to learn how to stay on task and finish his work in a reasonable amount of time. He's not too far off an average kindergarten kid in that area.

All in all we are all pleased with his progress this grading period.

Pumpkin stuff.

I have 4 small pumpkins, I'm planning on cooking them up and making some pumpkin butter. I want at least 4 pints of pumpkin butter from them. I'll buy some canned pumpkin to make some pumpkin bread or pumpkin butter bread, because I don't think my little pumpkins will make all that much. I'll probably try to make at least on pumpkin pie, and I want to make pumpkin pancakes too. I wish I had more pumpkins.

I haven't been knitting much this year, at least not like I was last year. I also haven't been taking very many pictures. I guess this year is my non creative year. I've been baking bread though so I'm not feeling totally deprived.

School pictures.

We got The Boy's school pictures back yesterday. They are pretty nice for school pictures, not great, but good for what they are. The photographer obviously told him to show his teeth when he smiled, so his mouth is kind of strange, but that's fine. Now I want to scan he 8x10 to post here for everyone who would like to see it, but don't really want a hard copy of their own. I'm not sure if its okay to do that. Copy right and all. So, what would you do?

Sunshine and rain.

It looks like those of us who live in Oregon are going to get a few days of sunshine. I think it's Aidan's fault. You see he got a new umbrella day before yesterday, and he really wants to use it. So of course the weather will be nice for as long as possible. It's like washing a car is an almost sure way to get it to rain. So we will be enjoying the sun while we have it, and we will enjoy the rain when it comes.

Happy Birthday!

To me and all the other October birthday people out there. My brother Cody had a birthday last week, and a blogger friend had a birthday on the 14th. Both of my Mother's parents had birthdays in October, as well as her sister. (All three are gone now.) My friend Soloman also has a birthday this month, I believe it's the 31st. (Or am I remembering wrong? Hennifer or The Girl, I know you two will know.) I'm 49 today, can you believe it? I feel 29 most of the time. I don't mind my age at all, it's hard to deny it anyway since I have a son who is 29, another son who is 26 and a grandson who will be 10 in December. I'm sure I look fairly close to my age, being over weight helps me look my age. I have several friends who are late 20s or early 30's, and The Boy is 5, which helps keep me feeling younger and looking at the world with a younger set of mind.

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY! To anyone who has/had a birthday this month. I hope you all have a wonderful birthday and a great month.

Forgotten birthday.

I had migraines for most of the last week of September. That's the only excuse I have for forgetting that my Grand-nephew had a birthday during that week. I have a gift for him, but forgot to call or send a card. I didn't hear about a party either, so I guess I'll have to keep the gift until I see him next. It's not much, I wish it could be more. Anyway I feel a little guilty for letting it pass and not at least calling. I don't think that his Mom reads my blog, but his Grandpa does. So, Mark I'm sorry I missed your grandchild's birthday. I hope he had a great day, because he is a great kid. Love to all of you.

Baking.

Yesterday I was very busy baking. I made a pizza from scratch. It was a thick crust pizza. I had some frozen leftover pizza sauce, and some inexpensive sausage. I planned for this and got some grated Mozzarella cheese. The Boy likes pineapple, and I like tomatoes so we had that to add as we wanted. It turned out pretty good, except I over cooked the cheese. Next time I'll cook the dough for 20 minutes then add the toppings and finish off the last 5 to 10 minutes.

I also baked 3 loaves of bread. I used a recipe I found on a Cooking for Your Family message board. It's called Amish bread. It's a good basic white bread. (I've made it with some whole wheat flour and it turns out really good. However whole wheat flour is fairly expensive and right now we can't afford it.) I doubled the recipe, it usually makes 2 loaves. I made it into 3 loaves instead of 4 because my loaf pans are a little bit bigger than normal pans. They turned out really well. I was pretty busy for about 3 hours, making the pizza dough, then the bread dough, baking the pizza while the bread did it's last rise, and then baking the bread while we ate dinner. I get a little over heated a lot these days, so I had to spend all down time sitting in front of the fan to cool off. I want to do cookies, but I want chocolate chip and don't have the money for chips. Oh well maybe next payday.

Ramble about financial options.

I haven't found any kids to babysit yet. It would be good to have 2 or 3 full time kids. I want to have a couple hundred dollars to ease up the budget some. So we can get extras once in awhile. H's pay checks pay our bills, and buys food. Sometimes we just barely make ends meet, but they always meet. Thank goodness. So if I can't find some kids soon, I guess I'll have to start looking for something I can do when H is home, something that won't cost much for transportation and that I won't have to spend much for work cloths. Data entry from home would be good, if I could find it. Something online that would allow flexibility? So far I haven't found anything to fit those conditions. I don't think we can afford daycare for The Boy, even part time. Well, if I found something that paid well enough to cover daycare, food at work, transportation, cloths and still let us have 2 or 3 hundred a month after all that, then it would be worth it for me to work outside the home. It's been suggested that we apply for food stamps, we probably qualify, but I'd rather not unless we absolutely have to, and right now we don't have to.

I don't have money to start an on-line business, advertisement and what not is out of our budget right now. I'm not sure that would be the best thing for me anyway.

We have decided that we want to get a house some day. H was impressed when we were looking at M's new house. (They were finishing up the moving in process about 2 weeks ago when we were there for M's birthday.) So, since our typical pay checks pay our bills and get some food, we decided to put at least half of every Tax return check in a savings account. If we can do it, and not dip into it during the year, we should be able to have a decent down payment in 6 to 9 years. We probably should save all of it, but with The Boy's birthday in February, and computer/camera/other electronic stuff we want to get, I don't think it's realistic for us to expect to save more than half. If I get some income myself, we might be able to save more money and be ready quicker than that. I'm not sure we can save anything to tell you the truth. There are always things we need or want to get, cloths or shoes for The Boy, bikes for all three of us, special foods, rented cars to go places with, helping pay for gas so my Mom can come visit, Holiday gifts, and birthday's. But we are going to give it a try.

First Day Of School, with pictures.

Wednesday was The Boy's first day of school. Kindergarten is wonderful so far, so he tells me. He likes his teachers and the other children in his class. And he enjoys playing on the playground. We will see how he does as things progress.

Here are a few pictures I took on the first day of school. I know that every other blogger with kids has probably done this millions of times, but this is OUR first day of Kindergarten. I didn't get to do this with the older boys, the Internet wasn't around for the public when they started Kindergarten.