The battle continues

Our neighbour has struck again! We came back from church on Christmas Eve to find an inflatable decoration in our yard, surrounded by gnomes. We had a good laugh over it, especially when our neighbour told us the inflatable Santa was ours to keep. Be warned friends; you never know who's yard Santa will end up in next year!

I'll be gnome for Christmas

Our neighbours got us back for stealing their hippo. Yesterday morning we woke up to a gnome army on our front step. Creepy and hilarious; but mostly creepy! Our neighbour says this is phase one. To be honest, I am a bit concerned (and terrified) about the next phase. In case you are wondering, yes, these gnomes do belong to our neighbour - she is slightly obsessed with gnomes and may need professional help!

The front view

The back view

I want a hippotomaus for Christmas...

Our neighbours have an inflatable Christmas hippo in their yard. A few days ago, Husband suggested we "steal" the hippo and place it our yard. Last night when we saw them leave for the evening, we knew it was the perfect time to pull off the heist! A couple of other neighbour kids caught us in the act, but instead of ratting us out, they helped us (They are brother and sister and as we were moving the hippo, the brother said "If you wanted to steal a hippo, you could just steal my sister!" Ha!). After we got Hugo situated, we began the task of patiently waiting for our neighbours to return. We were like children checking for Santa on Christmas Eve, constantly looking out the window to see if their car was in their driveway. Finally, five hours after the kidnapping, they returned! The neighbours say there will be retaliation, but we aren't too concerned. How can you top kidnapping a hippo yard decoration? By the way, another neighbour has an inflatable polar bear in their yard. I am thinking the polar bear would like to see the world from our yard in the next few days.

Missed the memo?

This afternoon we had about 20 wild turkeys pass through the woods behind our house. They were good and plump too! They looked perfect for a Thanksgiving feast. Maybe the missed the memo about Thanksgiving being next week, or maybe they need a calendar. I know if I was a turkey I would be hiding this time of year!

Guilty

On the morning of Halloween I posted this status on my facebook page:

"Just walked into Walmart where my ears were assaulted with Christmas music. Halloween isn't over yet! One holiday at a time please people! One holiday at a time!"

Comments on the status were mixed. Some people agreed with me, while others thought it was wonderful. Someone (who will remain nameless!) even went so far as to call me a Grinch (don't worry, I knew it was all in good fun)!

I would like the record to show I am not a Grinch and I am just as guilty as the next person when it comes to starting Christmas a bit early. Tonight Husband was at work/church, and I decided to restock our supply of frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. "What?" you say, "You can freeze PB&Js?!?" Oh yes you can! It is amazing. Husband takes PB&Js every Sunday to church/work and let me tell you, having some in the freezer has made my Sunday mornings easier. Find all the information you need about freezing these sandwiches here. Anyway, I digress. Back to my "not a Grinch" post. I decided that I needed some music to keep me company while making the sandwiches so I logged onto Pandora. For some unknown reason, I was overcome with a great desire to listen to Christmas music. Before I knew what was happening, I had clicked on a Christmas radio station and sounds of Michael Buble singing "Let it snow" filled my kitchen. For the next 30 minutes, I put together sandwiches while singing along to Christmas music. And you know what? It wasn't all that bad. In fact, I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much that the music is still playing while I type this post.

See? I like Christmas as much as the next person, but I do prefer to wait at least until sometime in November to start listening to the music. I'm not ready to put up my tree (those who put their tree up in November are just plain crazy. Yes, I'm talking to you CR and NP!), but I think there is something to this whole listening to Christmas music after Halloween. Now to find a way to convince Husband of the same thing...

Halloween

We decided to dress up for the trick or treaters that came to our house. Husband was a monk and I put on a 1970s style dress and wore a ton of purple eye shadow. We also carved pumpkins. Husband went with a classic happy face and I made an owl.

Where I've been

My faithful readers (haha!) will have noticed a huge absence from posting over the past couple of months. I had plans to write a post about my summer and I actually started to write it, but it didn't really come together the way I had hoped, so I scratched it. I do feel that some explanation is needed, so here is the short version. I spent the entire night of July 23 puking my guts out. When I say "the entire night", I mean the ALL NIGHT LONG. I slept on the bathroom floor in between meetings with the toilet. By morning I was exhausted (so was Husband who stayed up all night with me) and I knew something wasn't right, so we headed to the doctor. The doc gave me a shot to stop me from throwing up (the bill for that shot was $33...best $33 I've ever spent!), and sent us to the ER. After blood tests, CT scans, and hours of waiting, it was determined that my bowels had fused to my uterus and were kinked (like a kink in a garden hose). The course of action to correct the problem: surgery. The next morning (July 24), I was wheeled into the operating room and opened up. After surgery, I spent 9 days in the hospital recovering. I was home for 10 days when I spiked a fever and headed back to the ER for another round of blood tests and CT scans. The problem this time? An abscess deep in my pelvis. The course of action to correct the problem: insert a drain and put me on some heavy duty IV antibiotics. I proceeded to spend the next 6 days in the hospital as we waited for the drain and drugs to work their magic. Thanks to modern medicine and the prayers of many, many friends and family, the abscess completely disappeared in a matter of days. The doctors expressed surprise that it was gone so quickly--there had been some discussion about sending me home with IV antibiotics, but that wasn't necessary. Instead they sent me home with some STRONG oral antibiotics to kill off any lingering infection.

That pretty much sums up my summer and explains where I've been the past couple of months. It took me a long time to recover. I was exhausted all the time for weeks. I couldn't eat very much and only a few things appealed to me. I pretty much lived off of McDonald's cheeseburgers and Walmart deli potato salad for a couple of weeks. Everything else would turn my stomach. Thankfully my appetite picked up and the pain and exhaustion subsided. I went back to work the middle of September and except for the occasional pain, I am all better, although I still play the "I had surgery" card if Husband tries to get me to do something I don't want to do!

We are so blessed to have great people who were a tremendous help during the summer. From the best visiting teacher in the world who brought us  many meals and vacuumed for us and cleaned our toilets, to our great neighbours who brought in our trash can on trash day, to everyone who sent cards and dropped off meals and goodies, to those who prayed. We felt the love and support of so many people. We were truly overwhelmed by the support. Thank you.

4th of July

Fruit kabobs to celebrate the 4th of July! These went like hotcakes at the BBQ we attended! And, they looked very similar to the picture I followed. Double win for me!

Anniversary camping trip

Husband and I recently celebrated our sixth anniversary. We decided to go camping to celebrate the occasion. We camped in the Blue Ridge Mountains and had a wonderful time. The weather was absolutely perfect for camping. The setting was beautiful. We went on hikes. We visited an old homestead/farm. We read a lot. We relaxed.  Best of all, we had no cell phone reception so we were able to unplug for a couple of days and just enjoy being together without any distractions.

The Great Smoky Mountains

A couple of weeks ago, we headed down to Tennessee to spend a couple days in Gatlinburg and The Great Smoky Mountains. We had so much fun that as we were driving home, I was already planning our next trip down there! It is a beautiful park. We hiked to a couple of waterfalls. During one of our hikes, we saw a BEAR!! He was off the trail a bit, and seemed more interested in finding some food than the people walking by. The weather was perfect as well. We saw some ice on the rocks on the side of the road in some places, but no snow or ice anywhere else. As we drove back home, we were blessed with a beautiful sunset. It was a great ending to a great weekend.

Forecast gone wrong; very, very wrong.

Last night we went to bed knowing that we would wake up to a dusting of snow. The forecast called for light snow, followed by mid-morning rain. By 8am, we knew the forecast was wrong, but we had no idea how wrong it was. It snowed all day, finally ending around 5pm. When it was over, we had about 6 inches of snow. So much for the "dusting" they called for.

Taken about 11am. This is our front yard and the road.

Definitely more than a dusting!

The poor tulips! I hope they still bloom.

Ice and water on some tulip shoots.

Robins mean spring right? Not so much.

I cut these daffodils from our flower bed on Saturday. I like how they looked in front of the window with the snow falling outside.

Because it was spring snow, it was perfect for making a snowman!

Duck lips!

Ouch!

It was bound to happen sooner or later. The wood stove claimed me as its first victim this week. Thankfully, the burn isn't too bad. My arm BARELY brushed the stove and I got to cold water right away. It will probably leave a scar though, so I should come up with a cool story about how I got it. Any ideas? Oh, and don't worry, it won't happen again (I hope).

Little house on the prairie?

The house we moved into has a wood burning stove. We absolutely love it! It heats up the house quite well on the cold, cold nights, thereby cutting down our use of the heat pump. We often joke about hauling the wood to the fill the wood box, saying we are living like they did in Little House on the Prairie.Well, except for the fact that we have electricity and our bathroom is inside the house! A common refrain around our place is "I'll get the wood, and then I'll milk the cow and churn the butter." We have both become very proficient in building fires. That old boy and girl scout knowledge is coming in handy!

Husband doing the hard labour bringing wood in from the wood pile.

Feb. Catch up

One of my goals for this year was to post on this blog twice a month. Well, as you can see, I've already failed at that! I guess I shouldn't have such lofty and unachievable goals! Haha!

This month has been a busy one for us. Our biggest news is that we have moved to a different place within the same city. A retired couple in my church left this month for a 23 month mission in the Philippines. We are renting their house while they are gone. It has been an absolute blessing to us. We went from just over 800 sq. feet of space to just over 1900 sq feet. It is a beautiful home in a nice, quiet neighbourhood. We love it! Moving was a hassle (as always) but we had great help this time so everything was loaded and unloaded in less than an hour.

We also enjoyed a huge snow storm this month. One Wednesday it dumped 8 inches of snow in just over 18 hours. It was the most snow in this area in 4 years. We didn't get our street plowed until around midnight Friday morning! We were stuck at home for almost 36 hours. That was fine with us. We used the time to unpack and get settled in. We also took the opportunity to meet our new neighbours as we were all out shoveling together. I had 2 snow days off of work, plus it happened right before a long weekend, so I enjoyed an unexpected 5 day break from work. Can't complain about that!

 This is our road! Not much was getting through that snow.

 Husband shoveled, and shoveled, and shoveled. Poor guy!

 Our snow covered backyard. 

This month also marked 7 years since Husband and I met and started dating. To celebrate the occasion, Husband sent me this gorgeous bouquet at work. It made my day!

Compliment Jar

It was my employer's birthday last week and I wanted to have her daughters give her a present that would be meaningful and that she would enjoy. I wanted it to be something that they made themselves (for those of you who don't know, I work as a nanny). I searched pinterest for "mother's day gift ideas" and saw some great things, many of which were outside of my crafting ability. But when I saw this compliment jar, I knew it would be perfect. I had each girl write out things they liked about their mother or things that their mother did that they were thankful for. The idea was that when she was having a rough day, she could pull out a stick and be cheered up! She loved it and the girls loved doing it. They asked me this week if they could add more sticks to the jar!  Of course I said "yes".

My birthday!

I wasn't going to make a post about my birthday, but I got a request from one of my two readers so I figured if 50% of my audience wants to hear about my birthday, I should comply! For my birthday we spent the afternoon in Roanoke. There is a place there called Center in the Square. It has museums, aquariums, and a rooftop garden. We didn't go to any of the museums, but we did look at the aquariums and the garden (not much of a garden in the winter, but the view of the city and the Blue Ridge Mountains was amazing). After the Center in the Square, we walked along the Rail Walk, where we also saw some cool art made out of pipe cleaners hanging on the fence.