What am I doing here?

I dreaded it all day, but finally lugged 2 very heavy baskets of wet clothes to the laundromat to dry. Our 27 year old dryer has finally dried it's last load. 27 years of quiet service, not only drying hundreds, maybe thousands of loads of laundry, but also served as "white noise" when trying to put babies to sleep way back when. Repairs in those 27 years have been less than the number of fingers on one hand. Thank you, Whirlpool Corp. for making a quality product all those years ago. I doubt we will ever find any appliance today that will serve us as well.

10 days....but I'm back...

The last 10 days have been just a little bit too busy to attend to my blog....between working, reading, cleaning, birthdays, sick son, Mom to attend to, some scrapbooking and card making; just couldn't quite make it to the blog. Have managed to take some pictures along the way, though, and downloaded them to my laptop tonight.

Tonight, at my daughter's request, I am posting some scrapbooking pages that I have done in the last couple of days. I haven't been able to scrapbook in while, but I had some friends over on Saturday night, and we headed upstairs to my scrap room..and I was inspired to finish 2 layouts in the last 3 days! I am still working on our April Florida trip, which involves multiple pages...these pages were inspired by my love and pride for my beautiful daughter Lyndsay.

Here's to you, honey....

Any free time in the next week or 2 will be spent making up some scrapbook page "kits", as I am spending the first weekend in February scrapbooking with friends. This means gathering photos for a layout, choosing paper, embellishments, completing the journaling ahead of time, and picking a title, and designing a layout. Takes some time, but well worth it in the long run. Got to run.....I will post again tomorrow!

Mangia, pizza!

On our last night together as a whole family, we decided to celebrate with pizza...but not just any pizza...Lyndsay/Dan HOMEMADE pizza! The best pizza ever! YUM!

We (Jim and I and Dabi and Taylor) served as Lyndsay and Dan's sous chef's: chopping salad, cooking chicken, fetching things they needed during prep time. It was great just being in the kitchen all together. We finally sat down to an incredible taste sensation....first Barbecue Chicken Pizza with peppers and sweet onion, then a spinach, onion,tomato and feta pizza, then a turkey meatball, mushroom, pepper and cheese pizza. Add a delicious tossed salad...mmmm-mmm. A feast for our last night night together. Joe got home from work just in time to enjoy the eating fest!

MANGIA, PIZZA!!!

Goodbye, my love.....

After two weeks back at home, Lyndsay left today to go back to work and school in Orlando. It was the longest visit home since she left last August, and only the third visit home in the last 18 months. It was SO great having her and her boyfriend Dan hanging out at home, just relaxing and all of us enjoying each other's company. The best times were just hanging out at home, cooking and eating together, watching TV, chatting about everything under the sun, her plans for after graduation, where she and Dan plan to move (most likely getting the heck out of Florida). For Jim and I, this is what we miss the most with Lyndsay so far away--things that just can't happen despite frequent emails, phone calls, texts. Just having her close enough to hug and kiss--so often we take it for granted until we lose it.

A look ahead, a look back...

Happy New Year to my family and friends! Tomorrow, despite being a Wednesday, and not a traditional Monday, is Back to Reality Day. Our whole family, with few exceptions, have spent most of the last 10 days together...relaxing, laughing, having fun with family and friends, and just "chillin". Tomorrow is return to work and school. The bright spot is that the weekend is just a few days away! I AM looking forward to a fresh start with a healthier eating pattern and a step up in exercise. (Those sound suspiciously like RESOLUTIONS, but they are the same ones I have every January after the holiday season has ended) I have started organizing already, and plan to continue on that path over the next few weekends....I hope!

The last few days have been loads of fun beginning with an annual end of the year drive through Forest Park Bright Nights in Springfield, MA--a spectacular light show with both holiday themes and whimsical enough (Dr. Suess; Disney; Noah's Ark) to delight all of us. Taylor hung out of the sunroof to take picture after picture with her new camera. You can check out her blog here to see some amazing pics: http://www.taylorvirginiamills.blogspot.com/

A trip to Springfield would not be complete without a stop at Red Rose pizza, where the creation is as entertaining as the eating. Large glass windows let you watch the dough action as they create pizza after pizza in dizzying speeds.

New Year's Eve found us all going in different directions; Taylor to a girlfriends house for a NY sleepover (the highlight there was "snow jumping"-jumping from the hot tub into the snow and back, repeat :); Joe was involved in Day 2 of a Risk tournament with his buddies, followed by Galactic Bowling at the local bowling alley; Lyndsay and Dan were in Saratoga, NY for a couple of days visiting Dan's Dad and stepmom where they took in Saratoga's great First Night celebration;

Jim and I headed to our dear friends home where we enjoyed the company of Jennifer and Richard as well as 4 other dear friends, Karen and Bruce and Lucy and Paul. We have all been friends for 21 years, and have seen our lives expand and grow and have enjoyed watching each other's children grow from infants to independent young men and women, right on the cusp of adulthood. A few of the "second generation" (as Lyndsay calls them) were in attendance with us last night: Willy and Tempe, Alec and Olivia, as well as Alec's friend and Olivia's BF. We had a gourmet meal that Jennifer planned, before which we gazed in admiration at Jennifer's talent with handmade pottery, mosaics and quilts. Her house is a tribute to her artistic ability. See Bruce below hamming it up with the FISH bowl Jennifer crafted, which we later used for our gigantic salad! The best part was eating all of the contributing dishes made from Jennifer's menu! Champagne at midnight, followed by a starry ride home ended a wonderful evening.