Super Moon

Six years ago I had been visiting my sister and started for home near sunset. As I headed down a country road toward the highway I was absolutely blown away by the full moon. It was absolutely huge. It hung just over the tree line and I felt as if I could reach out and touch it. I was so amazed that I pulled over to the side of the road and sat there to watch it for awhile. I couldn't understand why it seemed so close and so big and for just a moment there was fear. After the moment passed I was simply filled with awe.

I now know that what I saw was something close to a "Super Moon." The last time the full moon occurred when the moon's orbit was it's closest to earth was in 1993. But in 2005 the alignment was close enough to wow me.

With this memory I was excited about moonrise tonight. We set out down the street a little before the official moonrise time here of 7:51. The appointed time came and went and we walked some more as the last of the daylight waned.

It wasn't long until the bugs started biting so we walked home and got the golf cart and headed to the other end of the street. We could see the glow of the moon peeking through the trees. It was bright and pretty but no where near the memory I have and therefore disappointing. I took 50 pictures and they are all duds. My little Kodak just does not do night time photos. I did try and get some to the tree line in the pictures. What do you think, is there a dog on the moon?

I guess I'll hang on to my memory and maybe I'll have the chance to see another Super Moon that lives up to it.

Happy Thanksgiving

I haven't been feeling very thankful the last few weeks. Time for an attitude adjustment I guess!

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving!

Sunday Fun

I spent way too much time playing with this this morning! Get your own here.

Vote for Zoe

Local author, Laurie Halse Anderson, is trying to get her children's book into Cheerios boxes and needs your vote. You can read her post and then Vote! You'll find Zoe on the third page of the ballot.

The Cheerios Spoonfuls of Books program gets books into the hands of kids that might otherwise not have any. Be sure to look for the boxes next year and consider buying a few and donating them to your local food pantry.

Mixed News

I guess I'll start with the bad news. My Uncle Bill passed away Monday. His death was expected but that doesn't make it any easier for Mom. I wrote a little about him already so I won't repeat that here.

One of my nieces just moved home with her parents to continue her education. Another niece just let us know that she will be moving half way across the country. I'm happy for her and her family but we seem to be scattering further and further away. I am finding that on Facebook I can keep up with the younger generations comings and goings.

Sprout got to meet with her pre-K teacher and she loved it! I think being in the elementary school will be great for her.

Mom is actually using her new walker! We're planning to do some major furniture rearranging at her house this weekend to make it easier for her to get around with it.

I have finally started on painting the office. I've been at it a week now. There have been several interruptions but I can't seem to work as long as I did 5 years ago when we bought the place. I'll do a whole post with the before and after - assuming I ever finish ;-?

A small woodchuck has burrowed under the house, behind the back steps. I'm not one to kill a critter just because it annoys me but he has got to go. He sees my garden as his own personal smorgasbord. I guess I need to buy a trap unless someone has another suggestion. I'd be happy if he'd just move out to the woods where he belongs. Heck, if he needs a roof over his head he can move under the shed.

I stopped at work yesterday to pick up my mail and they were starting to pave the employee lot. Yeah! No more nails in my tires.

The mail I picked up was my score from the Roadeo back in July. I was pleasantly surprised considering that I felt I totally blew it. I finished 22nd out of 41 so not good but not in the bottom third where I thought I'd be either. :-)

Cool Shirts

We don't have an official uniform at work so I tend to wear polo shirts with our school name and either a bus or the school emblem embroidered on them. In the winter I wear sweatshirts. I'm always on the lookout for new shirts and I received a post card from Have a Better Life Today. Since so many drivers are already back to work I thought I'd share the link. I really like their School is great - Bus Drivers make it better. I haven't done business with this company but I will be taking the flier to our refresher on Sept 3.

They have some other cute designs including a couple of Dairy and a Grandparents one.

Vanishing Apple

I can hardly believe that it's been nearly three weeks since I posted anything. June is such a busy month here yet certainly there has been time where I could have written something quickly. Quite simply, I needed a blogging break I guess. More than that I needed a break from the computer. All winter and most of the spring I spent 8-12 hours a day parked on the couch with my computer on my lap.

After we moved into the new garage I started having lots of aches and pains, was winded easily and just was not feeling well so I finally broke down and went to my Nurse Practitioner. She took blood to check my thyroid, ordered a pulmonary function test and bullied me into going for a very overdue mammogram. After all the test results were in it was learned that I have very high cholesterol. The only other thing wrong with me is that I am fat. While I was relieved that there is nothing wrong I found the news very depressing. I have always been heavy and I know the only way that I personally will loose weight is by lots and lots of exercise. I have 60 pounds to loose but I'd be very happy to loose 35. There have been three other times in my life where I lost a lot of weight. When I was a teenager I went to live with my father on a farm and chores did the work for me. Twelve years ago I spent several hours a week in front of the TV cursing Richard Simmons. Five years ago we bought this house and spent 12 hour days working to make it habitable.

I have elected to take the summer off. I hope to spend a lot of time working in the garden, moving plants around and expanding beds. While we've been here five years now there are still things that I haven't done yet and some of the rooms already need repainting. I will be moving things around so that I have room to do aerobics. I'm tired just thinking about it.

I do have some fun things planned for the summer. There will hopefully be several family picnics, I will be going to the Roadeo next week and the grandkids will keep me busy. John and I will be spending a week away too.

Hopefully I can get back in the habit of writing with a minimum of Apple whine.

Poor Robin

I was very excited to spot a pair of robins in the yard today but I was dumbfounded as to why they'd visit here! The snow is taking it's sweet time melting. It's been quite warm the last couple of days and we do have a couple of spots where we can see the grass in the backyard. We sent the boys out to play yesterday and they thought it was great that we still have so much snow. They especially liked walking along the snow bank in front of the window which made them so tall they were looking down on me sitting inside on the couch.

The moon was pretty last week and I tried to get a couple of pictures, none of which turned out well. There's an annual photo contest for school bus pictures but I think I need to stick to daylight shots. I'm not liking the time change at all.

Birds and Trials

Birds

Kerri has some amazing shots on her blog, Colors of the Garden. And Onondaga Lake has really made a comeback. The lake was so bad when I was a kid I never thought I'd see the day when eagles would take up residence or other wildlife either.


Trials

I have been following the Stacy Castor trial down in Syracuse with great interest. The jury returned a verdict of guilty this morning. Murder trials usually only hold a passing interest for me but in this case one of my kids knows someone who was connected to the family. My opinion right along was that she was guilty and I'm glad that the trial is now over.

I am also following the Alan Jones murder trial which is still in the preliminary stages. He is accused of killing his 11 year old step-sister. The family lived less than two miles from me, although I never met them. Then there is another trial coming up also involving the death of a child and I know some people that are really being affected by it all. I hope 2009 sees an end to my ever following these types of crimes again.

A One-Sided Conversation

"You won't feel a thing, so lets get started."

"Hmmm"

tap, tap, poke

"This is interesting....."

Poke, scrape, tap

"Hmmm, I've never seen this before"

"You doing OK, Apple? Good!"

pinch

"It's blue! I've never seen it turn blue before Patty, have you?"

scrape, scrape, poke

Now I'm sure there is a second root, let me try drilling a bit more."

buzzzzzzzzz

"Found it!!! We'll get it cleaned out and you'll be all set."

scrape, twist, scrape, scrape, squirt

"As long as we have to let the medicine sit for a few minutes we'll go ahead and fix the one on the other side. How you doing OK? Now don't close!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I was in the chair for two full hours and he was right, I never felt a thing! I had the initial root canal back in mid December and he couldn't find the second root. He put something in there to soften it up and I gather that was what turned blue. I had to cancel my last appointment due to snow. Meanwhile I broke a tooth. I like my dentist and he is very good but I hope not to see him again until my next cleaning.

Super Bowl Ads

The only part of the Super Bowl that I ever watch is the commercials. I am sure that in a few weeks time I will be quite tired of them! Tuning in to watch commercials is just somehow wrong but millions of us do it. Here are the commercials from last year and supposedly the ones from this year will be added after they air.

Catching Up

I was spoiled by the guys at work last week, they started my bus for me three days in a row. The temperatures never did get as cold as they were calling for but it was still plenty cold! I'm hoping we don't see temperatures that cold again for the rest of the winter.

They were calling for us to get 1-2' of snow Thursday into Friday but it stayed north of us. Starting just 5 short miles to the north they got hammered. The dentist had rescheduled my appointment from Wednesday to Friday. I started for Oswego after work, got about half way there and turned around and rescheduled again! I'm not a winter driving wimp but when the truck in front of me and the car behind me both disappeared I figured it a wise decision.

Friday turned out to be my lucky day! I won the raffle for this throw. If you look carefully you can see how far the snow is piled outside the window - we don't need anymore but there are two more months to go. (A lot of what you see is what has been raked off of the roof.)



We've decided to try and get to Mom's on Monday's and Friday's but with the dentist appt. (that I didn't get to!) we ended up going on Saturday. We got her take out from an Italian restaurant she likes. She was a bit more relaxed and seemed more "herself" than she had the last few weeks. We didn't get there today because of the holiday so we will go tomorrow. This is what the deer have done to her shrub.


Because there was no school we had the kids in the afternoon today. The idea is that they have a chance to play together. John's been working on fixing up some old computers so he had one for each of them and they were thrilled. Maybe we'll play a board game next week.


I was beat at the end of last week but the foot is finally not hurting much at all. I pulled a chest muscle on Sunday but it is a lot better today. How do you pull a chest muscle!? I have no idea what I did. Hopefully there won't be much snow to clear in the morning.

Do You Hulu?

We have basic cable, basic being about 10 channels and we rarely rent movies. So I was quite pleased to discover Hulu. They have full length movies, episodes of various shows and clips from other shows. They stream them to your computer in short segments so you will need a high speed internet connection. A whole lot of what they I have I can certainly live the rest of my lifetime without ever viewing but they have some things that I'm happy to be able to see. The movies do have commercials but they seem to be shorter than those on TV. Over vacation I watched A River Runs Through It and there was only one small section where the feed seemed to bunch up.

You can also use the embed feature to place things on your blog. I think this is quite funny. Enjoy!

Sprout & Twig

Bean and Sil are both working now and since I'm still on break the kids came here on Monday. This was their first time staying with us that Bean wasn't here too.

Twig was quite willing to mug for the camera.

Sprout did not want her picture taken.

Until we made her hair pretty!

Twig was tired after lunch but refused to nap. He did lay down for a few minutes but shortly after I took this he was back to playing!

It was fun to have them here but with I was ready for a nap myself! The foot is still healing. I really hoped it would be fine by now but at least it hurts less than it did before surgery. As I do more the arthritis is bothering me less.

I had planned to post a slideshow of a 2008 review but with my computer problems I haven't been able to get to it. Hopefully I'll have it up by the weekend.

Tonight we'll have Mike and Alex here until B gets out of work. Our good friends, JD and Sam will be here to play a game and see the New Year in with us.

Snowy Friday

I'm the guest author today at Shades of the Departed! I was very flattered to be asked. The focus there is on photography and is also home of the monthly photography carnival, Smile for the Camera. Be sure to check it out.

I had an appointment to get my stitches out this morning so snow did not fit in well with my plans! John had go to out and shovel so I could get to the car. He had cleaned the steps up well but they were still a little slick. The ramp at the doctors office hadn't been cleared at all. There was only about an inch of snow there. Of course I slipped but manged to grab the railing rather than fall.

The appointment went well. The stitches are out and I now have no bandage, just a compression stocking. Of course If I'd known that I would have taken a sock to the appointment. A walking boot is a poor substitute for a winter boot being open at the toe and all. I can now start walking on the heel and I'm getting around much better. John no longer will have to wait on me whenever I want something. He wasn't taking any chances on my hurting myself so when we left the office he took me to the car in a wheelchair. Both embarrassing and a relief. I did say something to my doctor and the office staff was trying to hunt up a shovel as we were leaving.

The district I work for closed early today but I'm not really sure why. They are predicting that the storm will intensify and we may have thunder snow near the lake but when we went through town this morning they hadn't gotten all that much yet. John has to get the boys off the bus this afternoon so I'm keeping an eye on the closing list for their district, so far it it doesn't look like they're going to close early and Angie said the sun was out there at noon.

Not much has been happening here. I've been transcribing letters and driving John nuts. I'm looking forward to being able to do more over the next couple of weeks. I suspect that my bulbs aren't going to get planted after all.

Be Careful What You Wish For

I went for my first post-surgery check up today and was ready to get up and dance a jig when he took the splint off. If I didn't keep the foot in just the right position the split caused pressure and discomfort - especially at night. Poor John has only had one or two good nights sleep all week because I kept tossing and turning. Without the splint I'd be able to get around much easier and sleep better!

The doctor took new x-rays and things are starting to heal but the toe is not quite straight. That means that I may be looking at another bunion down the road. *sigh* At least I hope to have a few pain free years. He did tell me that he may still be able to fix the right foot later but I can't make any decisions about more surgery right now.

After he bandaged me all back up I thought I was set and then he told me he was going to give me a boot to wear. I got a size medium for my tiny little foot. I had been doing very well on the crutches - not any more! It weighs a ton. The boot comes up to the middle of my knee so it is hard to bend it. If I bend it so the foot is behind me the toe tends to drag on the floor. If I hold it out in front of me I loose my balance. Just after surgery I had no problem with the steps; today John had to help keep me from falling. I guess I'll figure it out in a day or two. Maybe it won't be as uncomfortable as the splint at night but somehow I doubt it. Next week, if all goes well, I should be able to start putting some weight on the heal.

With lots of time spent just sitting on the couch I've had lots of time to transcribe letters and have started a new series of them at Apple's Tree. Enough Apple Whine, John made steak for dinner and I intend to enjoy it!

My Bus From Space!

One of the projects I had to get done at work before surgery required me to come up with a diagram of the bus loop at one of the schools. An artist I am not! I tried taking pictures from a distance and couldn't get everything in. I finally decided to try finding an aerial picture online. I found just what I needed at Google Maps. The detail was amazing, I could actually see a bus on the road! Since you can drag the map around and move along the roads I did. The satellite images must have been taken right at afternoon lineup. By finding the first bus in line and following the roads and counting buses back to the garage I was able to pick out my bus just about to leave the lot. How cool is that!


So the last couple of days I've been playing with Google Earth and Microsoft Live Maps. I couldn't find a great view of my house with either. The one from Google is a bit better. I quess when you live in the middle of nowhere Snowville there isn't much call for detailed images.

So I decided to take a look at the last couple of place I've lived. I was pleasantly surprised with the detail from Live Maps. It doesn't look like the new owners have done anything since we left. The barn looks good and the neighbors still have their pool.

Wow! This was two houses ago and the detail is surprising. The cherry tree I planted is still there. You can see that the garage door is open and is that an oil spot on the driveway!?

OK, so I'm a bit bored. But it's been fun peeking at the places I used to live. I've only shared the last couple but there were many more I wasted the morning looking at.

Big Foot

Surgery went well (I hope!) We had to be in Syracuse at 6:30 and I was home about 10:30. I have very little pain, except just after I've been up on the crutches so my plan is not to get up any more often than I have to. When I had the other foot done John was working but since he's home now he's been a very good sport about waiting on me ;-)

Wednesday was a very tough day. It is going to take three people to cover my two routes. One of the regular drivers will pick up my secondary kids and another will cover my elementary both morning and afternoon and I think they are both looking forward to the overtime but they will be putting in very long days. My secondary kids will be taken home by whom ever is available each day. My elementary kids had a melt down on Wednesday. I ended up staying late writing discipline reports. It's rare for me to take any time off at all so to be out six weeks or more will be very frustrating and full or worry for me.

Wednesday evening our house was rocked by a small explosion and this wasn't the first time. My neighbors bring home the rubbish from their business, pile it up in their back yard and burn it. They must use a lot of gasoline to get the fire going and that is what we hear and feel. You may not be able to tell from this picture (taken from my back steps) but the fire is huge and the flames were higher than their house; it is still burning 36 hours later. I would certainly never have this large a fire so close to mine! (OK, I would not be burning rubbish in my backyard to begin with!!!! Lots of folks around here have burn barrels in their yards and I have no problem with that.) The building you can see at the far left is my garage.


In trying to get everything done I never got this picture posted. These were our only Trick or Treater's again. They had already been out in Angie's mom's neighborhood and were tired by the time they got here. I hear they still have lots of candy left. They were here yesterday and quite unimpressed by my bandage.

Winter Wind

Taking it down was on the to-do list for this coming weekend.

The dryer died.

Crap

Laughter is the Best Medicine!

I definitely was not laughing on Thursday. The reason for waiting for fall was to protect the garden that surrounds the house. I was heartbroken to look outside and see part of the azalea that Bean gave me when I first started gardening in the trash trailer.

It does look like it will recover and I suppose I should feel lucky that it is the only plant that was severely damaged.

The windows were installed that day and it was quite chilly to have the house wide open. Between the rain and cold both Tuesday & Wednesday I was chilled and just could not warm up. I sat at the kitchen table and worked on the thank you letters all morning. (The flash on the camera refused to work that day too.)

So I was already in a foul mood when I left for work. The car that had just been inspected the day before started making a strange noise whenever I turned the wheel. So after work I headed into the city instead of home and ran into traffic gridlock. They have a big paving project going on and traffic was backed up half a mile or more back from where the highway ends. My 10 minute trip took 25. My mechanic had one of his guys look at it and told me the power steering line had blown. Nice guy that he is he said, "This one's on me." If he's giving me free work I have to believe that his guy did something wrong the day before. (In fairness to my mechanic, I have never had any problems with him, he charges reasonable prices and does good work.)

Friday went by without anything awful happening. I did have a spare bus that is uncomfortable for me to drive but that really wasn't a big deal. I got my letter confirming my surgery date and the contractor finished up and actually did a good job cleaning up.

The new windows and look wonderful! I can already feel the difference - no drafts!


Saturday I was painting the trim and friends called to say they wanted to come out and see the new car and siding. I was cranky (big surprise, I know) because I have the trim on 10 windows to get done this weekend.

I am so glad they came! Very little painting got done but we sat around playing cards with much laughter. And once I started laughing I started to feel good for the first time in a couple of weeks. I think laughter is what finally chased Mr. Murphy away.

I will get some more painting done today, but it won't all get done. The sun is out and I have some things outside I'd like to do and the last scanfest of the year is today so even though my scanner is packed away until the painting gets done I hope to be able to chat for awhile.