Dec

I have quite few things to do today — things have somewhat taken the back burner due to the surgery I had on 12/10.

My things to do today are:

• Dust
• Vacuum
• Laundry
• Mop
• Clean the bathroom
• Fix the movie bookcase
• Dogs bath
• Clean out the icebox
• Make shopping list for Wednesday
• Work on the calendar for crop nights/classes.
• Start working on December’s and January’s KOTM.

*sigh* there are not enough time in the day to do all fo this, but I will manage somehow! It may take me till tomorrow to finish all of it!  I have all my 3 boys back home as of last friday! They were staying at the in-law’s from December 10th till 19th due to my surgery.  I’m so happy that they’re home, even though they cause havoc on the house, LOL!

Dec

Cops, bikers take kids Christmas shopping

WOOD RIVER - Six-year-old Breanna Belfield smiled as she hopped from one clothing rack to another last week at the Wal-Mart Supercenter.

“Look at this,” Breanna said as she held up a pink T-shirt imprinted with her favorite pop star, Hannah Montana.

As the precocious Eastwood Elementary School first-grader continued picking out items Wednesday night, she showed them to her mother, Michele Belfield of East Alton.

“(Breanna) loves Hannah Montana,” Belfield said. “She really is enjoying this. She never gets new clothes. She always gets things secondhand or from yard sales and thrift stores.”

Breanna was one of 26 children who took part in the seventh annual Shop-with-a-Cop program, sponsored by law enforcement agencies from East Alton, Wood River, Roxana, Bethalto, Hartford and South Roxana, along with the Madison County Sheriff’s Department and Dream Weavers Motorcycle Club.

Belfield stood back as Breanna walked alongside the cart with East Alton police officer Mike McCormick, his wife, Ashley McCormick, and friend Megan Koelker of Glen Carbon, who is also the fiancee of Glen Carbon police officer Jeff Blind.

Mike McCormick kept a tally of the purchases, while the two women helped the young girl find the “really cool clothes.”

Each child gets to spend $300 - $100 for clothes, $100 for toys and $100 for household essentials, said Sgt. Brent Wells of the East Alton Police Department, the organizer of the event. He said the program is especially beneficial to disadvantaged families during the holiday season.

Wells said half of the children were taken shopping on Wednesday night and the other half on Thursday night.

“There are a lot of people who work hard but can’t quite get their kids what they would like to for Christmas,” he said.

Wells said besides helping families afford Christmas, the event benefits the police department.

“Some of us look forward to this all year,” Wells said. “It allows us to have positive contact with children.”

Wells said underprivileged children come across more negative experiences with police than positive. The same goes for those in motorcycle clubs.

“Most people don’t think the two mix,” he said.

He said the program allows everyone to interact with children in an uplifting atmosphere.

Belfield agreed.

“Breanna is at the age she doesn’t know quite what to think about police, and this is a really positive experience,” she said.

Belfield said she appreciates the kindness.

“We’re not used to something good happening,” she said.

Belfield said she and Breanna’s father are divorced, and he lives in Iowa. She said the two live on her disability payments, and it makes it tough getting by sometimes.

“Words really cannot express how I’m feeling about all this,” she said. “It’s probably the kindest thing anyone has ever done for us.”

She said she volunteers with the National Alliance on Mental Illness to keep herself busy.

“I’m really looking forward to Christmas this year,” she said.

Belfield said her oldest son, who is 23 and in the U.S. Army, will be home for the holidays.

“He’s in the honor guard at Arlington National Cemetery,” she said. “I’m just so proud of him.”

She said she also has a 21-year-old son.

Debbie McNeal, a member of Dream Weavers, said it was her first year attending the event.

“This is so much fun,” McNeal said. “I had a ball taking these kids shopping. The look on their faces makes it all worth it.”

Deana Bantle agreed. She said shopping with the children truly brings out the “spirit of giving.”

McNeal said she is co-chairing the event in 2009 with Deana Bantle’s husband, Bob Bantle.

“We are already accepting donations for next year,” McNeal said. “It takes us that long to raise the money and get everything together.”

The motorcycle club holds events throughout the year, including an auction, dinner and dance in the fall.

McNeal said anyone interested in making a donation can contact her or Bantle at (618) 541-2522 or (618) 741-0878.

Besides the thanks and hugs police officers and motorcycle club members received, the sweetest gesture came Wednesday night from 10-year-old Brennen Bazzell, son of Sgt. Lee Bazzell of the Roxana Police Department.

“When I told (Brennen) the purpose of what we were doing, he asked if he could give all the money from his piggy bank,” Bazzell said.

Brennen carried a plastic bag filled with loose change and dollar bills with him through the store as he and his family shopped with a group of children whose father died in early November. When the group checked out, he handed the store’s clerk all that he had - $37.61.

“That has to be the sweetest thing any kid can do,” McNeal said. “How many kids would give up money from their piggy bank to give to someone else so they will have a better Christmas?”

Nov

Nov

I had my hair colored again.  I normally get it colored every 6 weeks or so.   It has caramel tone underneath it, but the highlight is normally plaitum blonde.  This time, I decided to do what Jeff want me to do PARTIALLY!  I had the highlights switched out to “Flame Red” streaks :)  However, the picture make it look “orange”. It is NOT!

Nov

I found a blog that does recaps on GW.  Here’s the link.  Hope this helps ya!!

Nov

Jeff got me hooked on the tv show, LOST right when they started showing the repeats.  The new date is January 21st!!  WHOO!

You can find it on their offical LOST website.

Nov

The shipping has been very good for CTMH!  I put in the order late Saturday afternoon, fully expecting that it wouldn’t be able to ship out till today or tomorrow since the weekend usually get packed, so I figured it’d be here NEXT Tuesday..  WRONG!! Well I got the notification yesterday afternoon around 1 pm and it is scheduled to be here Thursday afternoon!!!   It was JUST picked Monday then be here Thursday!? Talk about fast shipping!

I caved in and bought the CTMH’s Original Card book. SO now I’m all done with the books.   Will be working on December’s Kits of the Month. I’m really looking forward because the first set is going to kick butt!!

I really worked my rear off yesterday – Now that I got the new vacuum on Thursday – Jeff put it together for me.   Yesterday, I pulled all of the furnitures away from the wall and cleaned the walls and got everything out of the way. Vacuumed everything. OMG!  It was sooooo dirty!!  I can’t even tell you when the last time I did that for the living room!  I’m thinking 5 years?!  EWW!! It was so nasty!  I had to dump the vacuum container FOUR TIMES!! Just for the living room!!  That’s how dirty it was! I started in there at 10 am and finished at 2 pm!!  Yeah, that’s how long it took me to really clean everything out.

Now my back’s paying for it. It’s just very very sore..  not threw out.   Today I’m just going to tackle the bathroom; something easy.. – Tomorrow I plan to do either my scrapbook room OR the front room.  I’m not sure yet..Hopefully by next Sunday I’ll have everything really cleaned then it will be easier to clean it up afterward.Then I wouldn’t have to freak before the surgery about what I need to do. Oh yeah that reminds me!!

I got the paperworks for the surgery date.  The surgery is December 10th at 1 pm! YES, at 1 pm! I was like uh oh, I’m going to be so hungry!  UGH!  So it DOES look like at this point, that I will be spending the night at the hospital, which I was hoping to avoid!!   So my pre-op is Dec 3rd and post-op is Dec 18th.  So it does look like I’ll be activated sometime after Christmas to the first part of the year.  I’m hoping to talk to Brenda today and see if we can go ahead and set up the schedule for the activation for the left side so I can work around the kids since they will be off from Dec 19th till Jan 5th for their Christmas Break.

Well, It’s gonna be rainy day today. EW!   Kids have no school today!  I have appointment in STL at 11 am. So, I am dropping the kids off at Jeff’s mom’s at 9:30 am.  Thankfully soccer is done!!
I’m gonna let the kids sleep in today. I made Jeff get me up because I’m not doing good with getting up with the alarm clock anymore… so hopefully after Christmas, I can get back on that and don’t need Jeff to wake me up. It sucks!!
Okay I’m off to hop in shower before kids get up so I can have some quiet time to myself, hopefully. LOL!

Nov

Know where I can find previous shows online?  Im trying to find the video from 5/16/08 of Ghost Whispers.

Thanks 

Nov

OMG!!

I did not get to watch it until Saturday afternoon. Friday night I was busy working on my websites. When I got ready to watch it, my oldest son, who is 11 years old had warned me to make sure I had some Kleenex on it. I said Oh really, so something’s going to happen and he said Yes mom, just watch it.

If you read my original post about this. You can see I had some hunch about this.

I’m still in shock about this!! At the same time, I wonder what the heck the writers were thinking about writing him out, but having him show up as ghost?! That’s not fair to Mel!  She was ready to make a baby with her hubby and they do this!? ARGH! I guess we’ll find out next week!   I’ll check back in a few days on line to see if I can find the full video and post the link here.

Nov

Connor just had his last game of the season this morning. It was COLD! It was hovering just barely over 40’s. I was lucky to score a decent parking right in front of the field so I could stay in my bus. (Bus — is what my kids call my trailblazer :)) They managed to win 3 to 1. They’ve done very very good this year. 9 wins, 3 ties and 0 loss. Basically from what we have been told, is that we’re undefeated. Next weekend is the bowling party for the team. Thankfully the season is over because it was getting unbearable with the weather. Normally it doesn’t get THIS cold till the end of November, but mother nature decided to switch us on and did it in the 3rd week of October. BRRR!!

Oct

Walk on while trick and treating..

Oct

Whoo I finally walked!!  I’ve been meaning to start walking and lose some weight… Here’s what I did!! I took Metzger out and we walked for half hour and this is what I ended up with!!

Oct

Last night, we went to a friend of mine. They’re like us — one deaf/one hearing — We met up with another cpl there too. The house was full of KIDS! There were total of 7 kids!! It was crazy last night!! We played 2 different games last night. There was one point during the evening that I heard something fall and I said “Did something just fall?” One of the hearing said yes it was a kid collaspable chair — and then mentioned that wasn’t used seeing me hearing things. It was kind funny at the same time. Always knew me since I was little girl and not hear anything and now I am.
Kids were WORN out by the time we got home. We left at 7 pm and didn’t get home till 1 am and they really had a great time, so did we.. Looking forward to the next time we get together!! Defintely needed that!!

Oct

UGH!! I’m ready to SCREAM and pull my hair out. Connor was doing so well with the counseling and now he’s scaling back to his old behavior and is not doing his chores and is being disrespectful.

Duncan and Aiden, on the other hand, is throwing the line of “I didn’t do that!” when I ask them to pick something up. I’m like I DON’T care who did that mess, just do what I said. I finally pulled Duncan into the living room this morning and said to him and pointing to one of the cover that i did not use last night and I said, but I’m STILL cleaning it up and putting it up because no one will and being lazy about it and has no respect for what I’m doing around the house. it’s a hard job keeping this house decent with 3 kids and 2 dogs.

UGH, this DEFINTELY is not going to be one of my good day for sure.

Oct

THANK YOU all!! We went camping over the weekend and got back in late yesterday afternoon (after getting stuck in traffic jam on 44 E for 2 ½ hours with 3 kids and 2 dogs. UGH!)

I think I did okay overall with the eating, but drinking was the other story — all I had was sodas all weekend. SO my quest, today to is start drinking water!! I was really uncomfortable all weekend as the water down there is not drinkable and the nearest store was 30 miles away!! However, I did walk 3 times a day with the dogs and it’s probably about a mile all together as we were in a “loop” where we camped. I hope that counted somewhat. I’m planning on taking the dogs out for a walk this evening if weather permit and hopefully I can stick with it! my rotty is pretty good about not pulling me, but it’s the mini dachshund that is giving me grief! She has to be ‘first’ in the line. It is hilarious seeing this big rotty and this little mini dachshund competing for the “first” in line. LOL! It’s a sight!

Weight – so far I’ve lost only 2 lbs this week. It’s always 2 lbs lose, then 4 lbs gained. It always seem to stay within the same weight since last year. It is driving me nut. I still haven’t gotten on the exercise wagon as I’m still having hard time waking up at 5 am. I hit the snooze till 6:30 am! *sigh*

I need to start to stay off the computer and moving around the house, but the computer’s so addicting! I’m going to be adding the pictures from the camping trip to my picture blog hopefully this afternoon – after I tackle the mountain of laundry Fun, NOT!

Okay I better get off of here and go down-stair and tackle the laundry if I want to get it done today (about 2 weeks of laundry down there) anyone wanna come and help me, LOL!

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