P.S.

DO NOT DRINK MANY BEVERAGES AND WATCH MAMA MIA!!!
or you will call sister numerous times as it is SO hilarious.
and you will have many bathroom breaks
and the movie will take FOREVER to be done.
But Pierce is really cute :)
but he can't sing

The one where I am home......alone

Due to a scheduling glitch (my sickness),
I am home.
by myself.
alone.
with no one.
How did this happen?

Son #1 and hubby are out of town at hockey tournament. Son #2 is at a friend's house. I had to work at preschool this morning, so after practice last night, he went home with a friend (as there would be no one to watch him this morning). I was invited to play cards tonight, so I asked if they could keep him another night.

Well, the sickness I have contracted has made me:
1) sneeze
2) blow nose
3) wash hands
4) repeat, many many times.

So I bowed out of cards, called friends to let them know I could get son #2 and bring him home, son #2 says: "no, I want to stay here".

So I went grocery shopping, did a load of laundry, and now I am having dinner;
beer and popcorn. Yum
Then I'm going to watch a movie.
Then off to bed.
Life is good.

The one with the cold medicine that you

take "every 4-6 hours" yet it stops working after 2 hours, thus leaving you miserable for the next 2-4 hours (depending on if you go by the directions).
And it's beverage night.
What to do???

The one in which the entire hockey team goes

out after practice to celebrate 3 birthdays and I end up coming home with 2 extra kids.
Son #2's hockey team in THE BEST, we all get along very well, we like going out after games/practices to partake in a few beverages. Last night was no exception.
We have the most wonderful team manager, gknee, she is the one who makes sure the evening goes off without a hitch. And she does this almost.every.week.
Since last September, when the season started.
So, last night was her son's birthday, it was also another player's birthday this past week and Son #1's birthday is next week. Her son wanted his party at BW3's and she/he was kind enough to let the other boys celebrate with him. There was one big cake and singing and lots of merriment.

Must I confess that we started the merriment at 5:30 while the boys were at practice?
Back to the extra kids....after the evening of merriment is over (not just tonight, but every Friday), the boys like to pester their "beveraged up" parents for sleepovers, with the players changing houses willy-nilly. Son #2 had already asked for P1 to sleepover, he was not coming to practice, P2 had to back out after parental figure said no. P3 and P4 were readily available (I guess they were a package deal). Fortunately for me, Son #1 gets along well with P3's sibling, so I only agreed to the terms if Son #1 went home with P3. All was arranged and we went on our merry way.
If you've ever had a hockey player, you know what they do. They play mini-sticks in your basement until 2:30AM. Never mind that they are spending the entire day at your house on Saturday, no, they must play into the wee hours of the morning.

I must be out of my mind.
Oh, and hubby is gone to a seminar and won't return until this afternoon.
Just me.
and 3 hockey players.
and rain.

Here is an updated photo of the tomato plants. They really started taking off last Tuesday, after I decided they needed to be watered.

The one in which I think of all the witty things

to say while driving the kids to school in the van, but by the time I get home, I've forgotten most of them because it took the computer so long to boot up.
haha I'm going to be funny today, should make for an interesting post.

Anyway, today will be all about me saving the economy; because if you haven't noticed, no knitting is happening in this house.
Yesterday I went shopping, for the first time since probably Christmas.

First off, new purse, I've been using the green one for almost a year, so it was time. I got it last year on clearance, thinking the color was not "happening" that is why it was on clearance. Well guess what? that is the new "it" color for spring, all the new purses are green. So of course, I can't match everyone else, I orginally got it so I could be different. So this time, I bought red. Again on clearance.
I think Sister wants the old purse.

Next stop, the bookstore. I hardly ever buy books**, I always get them from the library, much cheaper that way.**except for Twilight series, I went nuts and bought them all, got my money's worth, read them all twice, going for the third time now.
Anyway, my teacher gave me a book to read, she bought it because the lady at the bookstore said "everyone is reading it". Well, she started reading it, determined she wasn't "hip enough" and gave it to me because she thinks I am "hip" :). She also loves that I wear 70's type jeans, they would be the ones sister made me buy. Turns out, the book is by Jen Lancaster aka Jennsylvania (see side bar for link to her blog). Sister read them all, told me to read them, I never did. I started Bright Lights Big A** yesterday. OMG, it is so funny, I was laughing so hard I was crying. Son #1 wanted to know what was wrong. I had to put the book down many times to compose myself. Found a 20% off coupon online, went to the bookstore and bought the first book, Bitter is the New Black.

Off to buy soap, you know, from that fancy store, they were having a sale (they are ALWAYS having a sale).

Last stop, JCP for a new shirt. Saw a shirt in the April 1st Family Circle (yes, I am sensible) that I liked, so I was on a mission. Finally found the shirt, and another, so I got them both. Hubby wants to know where I will wear these shirts. We don't go out much.together.alone. Mostly all the time with the hockey team.
He says they are kind of "busy" WTF, I'm not wearing them together.
Hmmmmm, old purse matches one shirt, new purse matches other....

And that is how I saved the economy yesterday.

Last, but not least, here is an update on the tomato plants. If you look really close at the one in the bottom left, you can see a tiny sprout. Not much going on in the other pods.


PHEW, that was the longest post EVER, I hope my 5 friends enjoyed it!!
And I saved it like every 10 seconds because you know how Blogger can be; and I wasn't going to retype everything. TTFN

mom's night out

oh my.
hockey team had mom's night out last night.
we ate and drank and laughed and cried
and ate and drank some more.
and it was a sleepover.

I need 2 days to recover.

Mid Winter Break Blahs

Here we are at the end of break.

We did not go anywhere exotic or fun.
We did go to the movies, a birthday party and the rink.


We did play countless hours of video games and watch lots of tv (boys)
We did read 2 books (me)

Son #1 wants to grow things, here is his new project, tomatoes.
I will keep you updated.

No knitting, the socks are still waiting at the heel, I haven't decided if I want to do short row, or heel flap.

Sister is MIA.

2 hours

That is how long it is taking son #1 to eat dinner.
Son #2 finished after an hour.
This is so out-of-control.

It's not like I made them eat liver and onions and lima beans.
It was pork chops, cooked in the crock pot. With sweet spices.
They said it tasted funny. I thought it was pretty bland.

I am locked away upstairs, and guess what?
The wi-fi that is based in the basement, reaches all the way up here!

She is so bossy

Sister says I need to update the blog
Sister says she is tired of looking at the socks

Maybe Sister should try and come up with witty and exciting things to talk about if she has that much time on her hands :)

Anyway

I was home with a sick child for 2 days this week. I did a lot of nothing.
Read a book, did lots of laundry, started a new sock.
I am using what I thought was solid pink yarn, but it isn't, there is sort of a stripey thing going on (2 different shades)

I'm not happy about that.

Maybe I'll give Sister the not-solid-pink socks; then she can put them on her Facebook page, 'cuz I think that is where she is spending all her time lately, she sure isn't calling me.
:)

Happy Feet Ampersand

Here are the socks. I will wear them this week.
Hubby had camera with him in DC, sorry for the delay.

The socks are done! The socks are done!!

Yes, finally, the socks I started last October are finally finished. I knit up a storm yesterday afternoon/evening and finished the mate. Now, what do I do?? Work on the hibernating Modern Quilt Wrap? Work on the scarf? Start more socks??
Photo to come later.

yea me!!!

I did it!
Also overlooking the easy, obvious choice:

uninstall the printer
reinstall the printer, making sure laptop is on and connected to network

printed, twice!
Now, do I dare to turn off either computer? or even the printer??
Because if I do, will it all work when I turn them back on? and in which order do I turn them on??

So, now, hopefully this blog will go back to knitting and not computing.

Missing Stephanie

Well, I have been cruising all over the internet and I cannot find a crockpot site like Stephanie's :( I really miss her Crockpot 365 blog. I am making the Pasta E Fagioli for dinner, it smells really good!
More bad news: that darn printer is still not working. I am going to give up. I can always print from the desktop, so I will let it go....
Good news: I have been knitting fast and furious on the Ampersand sock. Finished the gusset today and now I just have to knit on down the foot!

Finally, knitting

Yes, I have turned the heel on the mate for the Ampersand socks!
but the printer still won't work.

and now.............

the printer won't work. uuuuggggghhhhh


print from desktop - check
print from laptop - no check
print from laptop via desktop - check
print from desktop via laptop - no check

I don't think it is a mcafee issue, though, you never know.
This is a "print spool service not working" issue. I did find
out how to re-set it, which I have done 2 times. But I can't
seem to figure out how to make it work correctly.

I think it is 5 o'clock somewhere.

Still with the computer not working.....

STOP THE PRESSSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I FIGURED IT OUT!! AFTER I TYPED IN ALL THE PINGING STUFF, I DECIDED TO GOOGLE THIS PROBLEM AND SOMEONE HAD THE EXACT SAME ISSUE (CAN YOU BELIEVE IT)
SO I DID WHAT THEY DID AND IT WORKS! I CAN SEE THE DESKTOP.
it was McAfee firewall, I had to allow incoming from the trusted laptop :)
I
AM
SO
SMART


Ok, it's been almost a month since I set aside the non-connecting issues between the laptop and desktop. I decided to try again today. not good.

Here is what I've found out, with some help from sister's husband:

I am able to ping the laptop from desktop
I cannot ping the desktop from the laptop
I can ping the router from the laptop

In the meantime, I'm still not knitting that other sock or the scarf. I am reading "Inkheart".

Also, son #2 won his hockey tournament this past weekend :)

-25 cold day

No school today due to frigid wind chill temps.
so......
son #1, who we have to DRAG out of bed every morning for school...waltzes downstairs at 7, makes himself comfortable on the couch and refuses to go back to bed UUGGGHHH
son #2, comes into my room, sees that I'm still in bed and says "mom, we're going to be late for school, get up" :), no school today, go back to bed!
no, they both plant themselves in front of the tv.
Meanwhile, I have to go to the bank and go grocery shopping! Also, I hear that we may get 7" of snow tomorrow.

Cold Cold Cold

Oh bother, time to move to Florida, or maybe just a vacation. I'm tired of this cold and snow and wind. Well, if I make it through the rest of the week, maybe the rest of the winter won't be so bad. HA, this is Michigan, this is just the beginning of winter.
Anyway, finished my 2nd book, and still the sock sits there. I also cast on a new scarf, Ruffles, but that is going to take FOR-EV-ER. So, I won't even worry about finishing it anytime soon.

Out of the gates........

So, I finally cast on the mate for the Ampersand sock AND I started a new book, Water for Elephants. It's ok, nothing I can't put down and walk away from each night (unlike the Twilight series).

Back to work and school today. We survived, wonder how tomorrow will be??

Time to 'fess up

Ok, so here is what I've been doing for the past 2 weeks.

Banging my head against the computer!! I don't know what else to do!!

As I posted previously, I have a new mini netbook, HP 1035nr. I was able to do something, don't ask me what, or to do it again, but I am able to see the laptop from the desktop (aka access the files). This is great! It took me a week, but somehow, the stars lined up, I hit the wrong, or right box, and they connected.

But, I really, really, really, want to be able to sit at the laptop and see the desktop. Can anyone help me figure this out?? I have been emailing HP, but with no luck, nobody can point me in the right direction. I have been all over the internet, it seems lots of people have this problem, but nobody can tell them how to fix it.

This has taken up DAYS of my vacation and it bothers me that I cannot figure it out. Can anybody help me????