Sunday, January 12, 2014
Cookie Time
It's girl scout cookie time, and since Alison is in a troop again this year, she's selling cookies. We thought last year was going to be it, but she decided to stay in her troop this year. I thin this is it for her though, because she just doesn't want to do the work for projects and badges etc. But we still have to sell cookies, so if you are looking for girl scout cookies this year email me and I'll be happy to hook you up. Early bird orders are due this week (the 16th). If you miss the early bird period, they start up again January 26th until Feb. 13th. MMMMMMMM, cookies. See, you want some now don't you?
Early Spring Cleaning
Since this was our first free weekend in over a month and with no Packers game, it was time to get some things done around the house. I have a list of things to get done so today I tackled Sarah's closet. Unfortunately the closet for her clothes is way too small, but it is really too small for all of her shoes and boots. She has them just piled on top of each other.
So Kris and I decided to make some more room for her in the dormer part of the closet. I crawled in and started tossing things out, and then began re-stacking bins and other things. I was able to combine a few things and eliminate at least one large bin of clothes, which freed up a lot of room. in addition tossing out a few pairs of worn out shoes and boots helped free up some room.
So now she has a little bit more room just inside and around the corner for her shoes and they won't be falling out when she opens the door. That's one closet down and two small ones to go. Hopefully, once I get the little, shelved closet cleaned up a little bit, I can cut a hole in the wall in the hallway and actually get a small linen closet made. But that's a little way down on the to do list.
So Kris and I decided to make some more room for her in the dormer part of the closet. I crawled in and started tossing things out, and then began re-stacking bins and other things. I was able to combine a few things and eliminate at least one large bin of clothes, which freed up a lot of room. in addition tossing out a few pairs of worn out shoes and boots helped free up some room.
So now she has a little bit more room just inside and around the corner for her shoes and they won't be falling out when she opens the door. That's one closet down and two small ones to go. Hopefully, once I get the little, shelved closet cleaned up a little bit, I can cut a hole in the wall in the hallway and actually get a small linen closet made. But that's a little way down on the to do list.
Burnin' Down The House
In contrast to the -10° high we had on Monday, Friday we had a temperature of around 36°. About an hour before I left work, Kris sent me a message that there was a house on our street that was on fire. Sarah and her friend went down to see and she said there were flames coming out of the upstairs windows and through the roof. I had to take a different way home because the fire trucks had the end of the street blocked off.
For anyone who knows where we live, the house is, or rather was, next to the path into the park one block down from us. I drove down a little later when I was out just to see what it looked like (yes, I'm a gawker). It was about two hours after I got home and the fire dept. still had the street blocked off but I could see the house from the end of the cross street because they had huge spot lights on the house. It looked like all the flames were out and there were a few firemen standing in front of the house and looked like they were talking to someone.
The next day Kris and I were running to the grocery store for her dad and we drove down past the house to see what things looked like in the daylight, and it wasn't good. I wonder if they'll try and salvage the house or not. It looked like the entire second floor was burned out. There was no roof on the back of the house and there was a crew there already boarding up all the windows and putting a big tarp over the top of the house to cover the huge hole in the back. I can't remember ever seeing anyone outside that house when we would drive or walk by, but I would suspect it was old people just based on the mix of people in our neighborhood. Sarah said that when she was down there she saw an ambulance leaving. Hopefully they weren't hauling a corpse.
For anyone who knows where we live, the house is, or rather was, next to the path into the park one block down from us. I drove down a little later when I was out just to see what it looked like (yes, I'm a gawker). It was about two hours after I got home and the fire dept. still had the street blocked off but I could see the house from the end of the cross street because they had huge spot lights on the house. It looked like all the flames were out and there were a few firemen standing in front of the house and looked like they were talking to someone.
The next day Kris and I were running to the grocery store for her dad and we drove down past the house to see what things looked like in the daylight, and it wasn't good. I wonder if they'll try and salvage the house or not. It looked like the entire second floor was burned out. There was no roof on the back of the house and there was a crew there already boarding up all the windows and putting a big tarp over the top of the house to cover the huge hole in the back. I can't remember ever seeing anyone outside that house when we would drive or walk by, but I would suspect it was old people just based on the mix of people in our neighborhood. Sarah said that when she was down there she saw an ambulance leaving. Hopefully they weren't hauling a corpse.
Monday, January 6, 2014
Bringing The Heat
No, we're not doing anything to try and stay warm, I'm talking about Sarah's cheer competition yesterday, sponsored by Heat Athletics. Luckily she was done before the Packers game started. In fact, we got home just in time for kick off.
The girls took second place (actually third because there was a tie for first in their division). I have to say, their performance wasn't great. In fact, I don't know why but there didn't seem to be a lot of enthusiasm from the squad, and it looked like everyone would have rather been someplace else. They just didn't seem focused and they had a couple of falls during their routine. I figured that they would have ended up in second or third after seeing all the other teams, but there was one team that I wouldn't have expected to have finished ahead of them.
The place sponsoring the competition teaches tumbling and gymnastics and is located in the same town as one of the schools that finished ahead of the Falls. It makes me wonder if any of the girls on that team go there for any sort of tumbling instruction or if there may somehow be a conflict of interest. After seeing their routine, I do wonder. Then again, they have pretty much stolen the Falls' routine from last year (which I already said in my review of the Indian Invite), so there's that.
The next competition is the State Jam in two weeks, so they better get their stuff together fast. The competition there is going to be much tougher that what they saw this weekend.
The girls took second place (actually third because there was a tie for first in their division). I have to say, their performance wasn't great. In fact, I don't know why but there didn't seem to be a lot of enthusiasm from the squad, and it looked like everyone would have rather been someplace else. They just didn't seem focused and they had a couple of falls during their routine. I figured that they would have ended up in second or third after seeing all the other teams, but there was one team that I wouldn't have expected to have finished ahead of them.
The place sponsoring the competition teaches tumbling and gymnastics and is located in the same town as one of the schools that finished ahead of the Falls. It makes me wonder if any of the girls on that team go there for any sort of tumbling instruction or if there may somehow be a conflict of interest. After seeing their routine, I do wonder. Then again, they have pretty much stolen the Falls' routine from last year (which I already said in my review of the Indian Invite), so there's that.
The next competition is the State Jam in two weeks, so they better get their stuff together fast. The competition there is going to be much tougher that what they saw this weekend.
Cold-ageddon
In case you haven't seen it, the country is in the grips of a huge cold spell. Our high here today (at least what I saw) was -11°. We have been getting the warnings since Thursday or Friday last week. Schools were closed today as of Friday last week, and they closed school for tomorrow this afternoon.
Last Saturday we had to run to the grocery store to get a few things and to get some stuff for Kris's dad. You would have thought that we were going off the grid. The grocery store was crammed and the shelves were empty, at least of a lot of items, such as bread, yogurt, frozen pizzas, cheese and many of the produce items. Part of the problem, I think, is that the news reported that the Pick N Save stores were going to be closing early, apparently so people didn't have to go out in the cold. Congratulations weather people, you have succeeded in scaring the population. So for about a two and a half day period where the temperature is going to be below zero people freaked out enough to go stock up on food as if there was going to be a nuclear attack and we all had to go underground. I didn't even see this reaction when we were coming up to the Mayan apocalypse. Guess what? By Friday we'll be at 32°. I think you can all make it through this stretch.
Last Saturday we had to run to the grocery store to get a few things and to get some stuff for Kris's dad. You would have thought that we were going off the grid. The grocery store was crammed and the shelves were empty, at least of a lot of items, such as bread, yogurt, frozen pizzas, cheese and many of the produce items. Part of the problem, I think, is that the news reported that the Pick N Save stores were going to be closing early, apparently so people didn't have to go out in the cold. Congratulations weather people, you have succeeded in scaring the population. So for about a two and a half day period where the temperature is going to be below zero people freaked out enough to go stock up on food as if there was going to be a nuclear attack and we all had to go underground. I didn't even see this reaction when we were coming up to the Mayan apocalypse. Guess what? By Friday we'll be at 32°. I think you can all make it through this stretch.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Christmas Season Is Over
It's official, the holidays are over. I spent the day yesterday taking down all the Christmas decorations (few that we have) from outside and put them away. I am not sure what I am going to do for next year yet, but I have the feeling that I am going to need new decorations for the yard for next Christmas. The reason being that we have a couple of lighted, grapevine snowmen that I place in front of the bushes. This year we had a lot of snow, and then it warmed up right before Christmas. It got up to around 40° and everything started melting, then it froze again, resulting in the bases of them being iced/frozen to the ground. So when I was trying to get them up, I ended up breaking some of the grapevines. They aren't all that bad, you can't really see it from a distance, but up close it's pretty clear they're broken. The problem is that I haven't been able to find anything like them for a few years, and I am not about to spend over $50 for a single lighted snowman. Maybe I'll start looking this summer and see if I can get something at a discount. If I can't find anything, then I may just go without lights outside next Christmas.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Taking Down The Tree
I was going to leave the tree up this year until the feast of the Epiphany (you really should leave it up until then) but I just wasn't going to have the time to take it down after the 6th for about a week after, and I just couldn't imagine having to deal with the Christmas tree until the middle of January. Plus, I really wanted to get the house back in order. So I started taking things down about mid-morning today.
In the past the tree came down much faster than it took to put up. But since we had a mix of ornaments this year, it took forever to find the boxes for the ones we used mixed up with ones we didn't. So by the time the tree was down and everything was put away and put back to the way things were pre-Thanksgiving, it was about 8:00 PM. That was about four hours longer than I had anticipated. Maybe next year I'll leave it up until the 6th.
I had to replace four strings of lights this year, and I didn't see any plain, clear, white lights in the stores after Christmas. So now I don't have any spare strings for next year. There had better not be any lights that just happen to go out in the box over the summer, though I am sure I can get replacements next year. I just don't like being held up when it is time to get the tree up and decorated.
In the past the tree came down much faster than it took to put up. But since we had a mix of ornaments this year, it took forever to find the boxes for the ones we used mixed up with ones we didn't. So by the time the tree was down and everything was put away and put back to the way things were pre-Thanksgiving, it was about 8:00 PM. That was about four hours longer than I had anticipated. Maybe next year I'll leave it up until the 6th.
I had to replace four strings of lights this year, and I didn't see any plain, clear, white lights in the stores after Christmas. So now I don't have any spare strings for next year. There had better not be any lights that just happen to go out in the box over the summer, though I am sure I can get replacements next year. I just don't like being held up when it is time to get the tree up and decorated.
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