Crazy Daze Approaching

This girl is graduating Valedictorian! Graduation is not until June 29th. The day going to take forever to get here. Jennah has already taken all her AP exams of which comprised the majority of her classes this year. The concerts are done, and there's very little reason left to go to school. To watch movies all day. AGH. Except for gym. You can't miss gym class or you'll fail. Can you imagine?

So there are upcoming luncheons for Valedictorian and also for scholarship awards. There is a senior cruise coming up to the Bahamas. The Teeny Awards is also coming. Jennah was nominated for best actress in a musical. Also, the Snoopy cast was nominated for outstanding ensemble. So that's exciting. We have a graduation party to plan. Two birthdays coming up, a trip to Alaska, two summer weddings and one in the fall, a send off 1500 miles away for this girls first year in college.

This next girl doesn't know how she's going to survive the remaining two years of her high school career without her sister. Lizzy's going to find herself maturing quite a bit this coming year. So will Caleigh, I'm sure.

She's been an expert learning driver. She claims its from all the practice she got driving the DeGroot's golf cart for the last several years. She may be right. That still doesn't make me feel totally carefree about driving in the Hamptons as our big summer season approaches.  

From Memorial Day to Labor Day it becomes CRAY CRAY around here. We have NYC drivers flooding out to their vacation homes, making all kinds of demands on the locals who work for them on their estates. It has to be PERFECT!!! And the driving becomes mad! Its as if these summer folks are still on the city streets. Or maybe its more about them finally getting a chance to drive their fancy cars and zoom around on these small backroads. "Oh! Is that a 4-way stop? I will just go ahead with this car in front of me to save some time, rather than make another complete stop." And the locals go a bit bazurk because of the complete idiot driving that takes place... which in turn makes a lot of the locals the idiots as well.

And then we have the gazillion workers who are undocumented and non-licensed, who are driving around, not necessarily cognizant of the rules of the road...

Well, things like this happen!

Nate is bummed about his new car!! One of those kind of workers I talked about, blew the stop sign and took a left turn into traffic coming from both directions. Nate tried to stop and veer to the right but the other truck couldn't avoid hitting the idiot driver right and pushed it right into Nate's car. Thankfully he is ok. The car is a goner.

So, prayers are needed for the two girls with their learner's permits in this kind of traffic chaos... and prayers for my new Cady, too. LOL.

Anika's on her drive home from FL. The house will be full again by Saturday. There is some shifting around in our house that needs to take place in order to make room. Its a treat to have my kids still all so close to home for the summer. The house is a wreck and needs a super cleaning. (Whatever). They are all working which makes it tough to get them to remember to pick up their own belongings from the common spaces. But I'll take that annoyance, if it means getting to have this valuable time with them. I hope during this season in their impressionable adult lives that Terry and I can continue to impress God's love on them and His ways. The strong worldly current of our society has a strong pull. We are counting on the kids' roots to have grown deep.

Besides that...

The Spring Concert was fabulous. The music program and drama program in Bridgehampton are really beginning to take off. Its been very satisfying to be a part of it and to see my children lead the way in part, with their love for the arts and amazing talents. May it continue for many years. The school's music program is going to miss the six graduating seniors.

P.S. Yes, there are only SIX seniors in Jennah's class!

Not My Favorite Season

I've never much cared for Halloween! I do however like Snoopy. I had a stuffed Snoopy when I was young that I carried around with me everywhere, probably for several years straight. Before Snoopy, it was the blankey and finger sucking, but Snoopy must have helped me give those things up. Good Ole Snoopy!!And now I am hoping for Snoopy: the Musical to be chosen for the Bridgehampton school musical this year. It could happen. I would be excited.

As for the season of fall... I've never been a huge fan. It can be beautiful with the changing leaves, but its can also be a bit dreary and the colors can, on some years, be kind of brown. I guess it depends where you live and what kind of trees are local. The sugar maples are always AMAZING, but we don't have a ton of those growing here. The scrub oaks are what we have tons of, and they tend to turn brown if there is the least bit of rain during the changing of colors. BOOOO!! I want vibrant reds, oranges and yellows please. And I want them to stay for a while... long enough for me to get out there with my camera.

I did get out there this past weekend to get a few pics of Jennah. She's a beauty!

But back to the subject at hand, I don't really like the smell of the falling leaves, either. I've never appreciated that smell. I love the smell of springtime and SUMMER!!!!! Not so much fall and winter. And the leaves on the ground look so messy to me. Please don't make me go out and blow the leaves or rake them up. There will be a ton more to do again next week... and the next. I'd rather mow the grass twice a week, then rake leaves. The scent of fresh cut grass vs. decomposing leaves? There's a definite winner there.

And should I even mention Halloween? My dear friend, Sohailah and I, back in our college daze, always referred to it as Hell-o-ween, but that name is actually taken. (It's a German heavy metal band from the google search I just did). Anyway, I'm not a sour puss about Halloween, I just really don't care for it very much. I love a great scare, but I don't get what all the celebration is about. However, I would get a kick out of having an adult Halloween dress-up party with my friends. I can't do it this year because of the show performances, but maybe next year. HAH!

So there you have it. I just thought I'd share another very "informative" blog post with you fine readers.

P.S. As of this morning, Nate is back home from visiting his sister down in St. Augustine for a week. He'll be leaving the country for 3 months in another week from now. I'm gonna miss my boy. I already miss my Florida girl. I can hardly imagine how life will feel come next August, when another daughter will be college bound. :-|

It's been a Challenging Weekend

Adding to all the busyness and work that's been going on for the past two weeks, we finally were able to find out which company around here delivers mulch. (Bistrian's in case anyone else is wondering). We had 10 yards delivered and it was almost enough. Holy crap. I mean Holy Cow. Yea. It stinks.

More weeding was necessary to make this a successful project, but how much can one's fingers and back take? Ouch!

My parents were amazing. My mom is a trooper with her "limpy hip". She doesn't want to be left out, if there is something that needs to be done. My children, however... tend to disappear. "That stuff stinks! I can't stand it!!" "I have to work in a little bit." "I don't feel good!" "I already made plans to go to the beach!!"

Caleigh is the GOLDEN CHILD!!!! She stuck with it the ENTIRE DAY!

I can't complain about Luke either. He worked hard on the exterior lighting. Looks great, but if they would only take the huge ladders down so I could get a decent picture, and also I could feel more able to finish arranging the backyard for the party.

Here is a sample, but things aren't completely done yet... and that pic's taken with my iPhone.

The dogs are getting along. Grace is a smart smart smart dog. And she has a nose like you wouldn't believe. She may enter the work force with her high IQ and mad skillz.

So besides the work and the achey back and muscles, now I have this blasted sore throat that Terry and Lizzy had a few days ago. I don't feel well and Anika's party is on Friday as well as so many other major events this week. Its going to be a great week but I sure could use a boost of strength and encouragement.

I created a photo book for Anika which took a lot of time perusing photos to make it something she would enjoy. I thought people who come to her party could look at it and sign it. I showed her the book on Friday and her first comment was, "These pictures are all gross!" WTH??? I said, "Well, one thing I noticed as I went through all of my pictures searching for good ones, was that you were always MIA for all the events, so it was very difficult to find good pictures of you. That's all your own fault!!!" Brat! I think she realized that her comment came out wrong. She then got to the latter part of the book and said she really liked those pics. They were from when she was younger (and around more).

These kids have been brutal to my self esteem lately, and I've been a bit sensitive to their uncaring. Of course, whenever I have a meltdown with Anika she cries, too. She really is a sensitive soul most of the time. I do see that she's been trying to make adjustments.

Lizzy said this morning that I didn't do anything for her when she had her sore throat! I was like, "What do you mean???!!! I checked your throat. It appeared to be viral and not something worse, but I was watching for symptoms." I encouraged her to try gargling with salt water and to take some vitamin C. I asked Terry to take her with him if he felt he should go to the doctor. But they both seemed to recover in another day from the throat thing. So I assume I was right regarding the viral thing. Meanwhile, now I get to go down in Lizzy's books for "not doing anything for her when she was sick." Agghhh. I can't win. Somehow, whatever I do isn't enough these daze. And I'm doing A LOT!!!

I'm stressed. I'm adjusting to the change over from school to summer (even though half of the kids aren't done with school completely yet). And I'm getting ready for this big party and graduation, and I'm feeling like there are things I wish I could do but just can't afford to do or don't have the energy. I resolve to the fact that everything will be fine and I will give what I can. It will be enough and after that I'll just enjoy it. But in the back of my mind, I feel like my kids aren't going to appreciate it and they will be disappointed. Have I taught them to be this way somehow? Have I instilled too much of a relaxed attitude and not enough gratitude? Heavy sigh... never quite enough.

Who wants to put a lot of work into something and it fail to be a memorable or lovely event for the person of honor? I've done that before, and I was very hurt by the person's ingratitude. I put together a big birthday party for a very close friend about 7 or 8 years ago, and somehow nothing I did was right. That was a messed up friendship, so I won't go into details about that whole scenario, but it was ridiculous and needless to say, the friendship ended. I know this party won't be unappreciated and it isn't the case with my own daughter to be judgmental or have unrealistic expectations of me, but I guess I have flashbacks of that abuse from the past and it makes me very sensitive to criticism, even when it isn't intentionally being given.

My parents are great!!! My mom with all her high energy just wants to know what the next thing is to do and sadly, I feel overwhelmed by being asked. Um let's see... um... what can be done to get ready now? Um... I DON'T KNOW!!! HELP!!! You see, I have a more moderate tempo then she. I tend to pace myself out more. I don't want to rush rush rush and be done with everything way ahead of time. I want to time the preparation so that it is all ready at the right time. I can't change my mom's tempo, but she can't change mine either. An example of our different pace: She likes to have everything packed for her summer travels about a month in advance, I wait until a day or two to pack before I'm going somewhere. I like to relax in between bursts of work. It helps me think through what else needs to be done.

Anyway, its about time for a Hochstedler family pow wow to re-adjust a few things! These kids need a little reminder of their need to think outside of their own little worlds into the lives of their family members. The regular adjustments and maintenance check up to keep the family dynamics in a healthy and workable environment!

In your situations, do you ever run into the need to regroup?

I'm not sharing this to expose my kids and to criticize them publicly. I'm just sharing from the heart of my own struggles (as I always have... but just in case "that person" has discovered my blog and is disgusted by what I've written here, I wanted to make this disclaimer).  >:-P

Violets

Aren't they pretty? I even like the name Violet. But...

I made the mistake of allowing a beautiful small batch to grow in my perennial garden last year. Guess what? They took over several plants by the mid summer and now, this early spring they are everywhere!!!

Dang.

I've read that they are edible and the flowers are rather sweet. The leaves can go in a salad or be thrown in a pasta dish. No, I think I'll pass. They will also take over the lawn very easily, choking out the grass.

I'm such a great gardener... still dealing with the ragweed I allowed to grow up last spring until I realized what it was. I need to grab up all the mile-a-minute weeds just beyond our fence again too. So much work to having a nice yard. Maybe we should have left it all scraggly woods with lots of ticks. Now we have a pool to open and clean and gardens to tend and outdoor furniture to wash up for the season. (Isn't this what Adrienne means by #firstworldproblems)?

BJ came home from work last night in a rush to run over to a client's house before dark to rescue the perennials that were doomed to destruction in less than 24 hours. He brought back at least $250 worth a plants. Hooray!!!

 ...some peonies--not sure what color, but I love peonies.

 ...astilbe which are some of my favorites and we were finally able to fill in some of the front yard garden beds with lots and lots of them. Don't know what color they will be. Isn't this exciting?

...a nice big Rhododendron which works very well in our climate. Not my favorite but we had a great spot for it.

...some grasses which look very much like what I weed out of the hostas, so I'm a little skeptical, but BJ swears they are something that will have a bloom at some point. We'll see.

My daylilies are getting a little out of hand, if anyone wants some...

I've noticed a lot more cardinals visiting lately. They are my favorite bird.

So, all is well in our outdoor Kool Daze world, and so far I haven't lost any sleep worrying about the garden or weeds taking over or whatever other panic I may wake up to in the middle of the night. The deer better stay out! No munching allowed.

It's Just Me... with all my quirks!

I like feeling happy.

I like being happy.

Why must there be obstacles to my happiness? Stupid things! I'm sure my family wonders the same. Cuz when I'm not happy, NO ONE'S HAPPY it gently leaks out into the atmosphere around me.

I like change. Its not always easy. Some change requires a lot of work, like changing around bedrooms or redecorating or sending a kid to college. But there is one change I am never happy about! It happens every Labor Day. The change of the season.

I never want summer to be over!! I like the other seasons for what they bring, but I don't like the change from summer to fall. I really and truly don't!!! By the end of the summer my house is a wreck!!! Talk about STUFF EVERY WHERE!!! And the spiders LOVE this time of year. Its damp and cool and no serious house cleaning has been done for months. Last night I found two daughters of mine sleeping on the couches in the family room, because a spider crawled on one of them. They are terrified. You know what I told them this morning? If you kids would actually vacuum your room and all the walls and corners, the spiders wouldn't be there. They would be dead! in the canister with all the dust and dirt. HAH! Guess what they are doing. They are upstairs vacuuming their room right now.

Some people cannot wait for school to start. I like when school starts, I guess. I mean, I could take it or leave it, really. There is so much involved in getting the kids ready for school... so many expenses... so much stress, and once again, in my house there is a lot of disorganization. Summer is a time to enjoy the outdoors and the beach and the pool, not sit around and clean. But the disorganization does get to me. I see a gazillion things that need to be done. One project leads to another to another. And this is when I begin to feel overwhelmed and unhappy. AGH!!!

Also, September brings us to the inevitable... closing the pool and clearing the outdoor stuff. This is the  project which entails items descending into the basement... but guess what?! There's NO ROOM IN THE *%&^$%# BASEMENT!!!!  And the more we cram into that space, the less chances there are for the room to be completed including the planned storage space. This just burdens my soul!!!!!! Someone say a prayer.

I go to bed EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, making some kind of commitment to myself that I'm going to tackle this room or that room or make that phone call or start my workout routine again. And EVERY MORNING I say, "Yea right!" Oh, such discipline.

Anyway, I did steam clean the kitchen floor this week. And today I vacuumed the spider webs throughout the entire downstairs. A few daze ago, Caleigh and I cleaned out the pool that was filled with Irene debris (took 3.5 hours) and we put the furniture back out (because I refuse to allow summer to be over yet). I also mowed the lawn (I hope you all got to read that stream of comments on FB--hilarious). But my perennial garden is a wreck, my kitchen is a pile of random odds and ends from everyone, the bedrooms are NOT pretty, my office space is a disaster... shall I continue?

I want a dumpster, a major housecleaning, and a finished basement for my birthday!!! Just to get some peace of mind. Its really not fair that I actually get a dumpster for my birthday almost every year. But if I don't ask for one, the junk needing to be tossed, the projects needing to be done continue to be put off.

Its the stupid things that make me happy.

Springtime

My perennial garden is breaking forth (weeds included). 

 A lot of work needs to be done outdoors, but...

POLLEN!!! I already have to spend a lot of time out in the pollen-infested airways because of the softball activities at the park, and the park is about to become my life every evening of the week as Caleigh is starting today. But about my garden... the irrigation hose still needs to be re-burried. And the weeds need pulled, of course, and some wood chips definitely need to be brought in... and the lawn mowed. I would enjoy doing these things if I didn't find myself having a complete sneeze attack. It leaves me exhausted. Woah is me. Wah wah! Is that the WAMbulance I hear?

Here's a new one. Free weights are now able to be grown in your perennial garden. Uncommonly found  in the Northeastern US regions, more specifically, in the communities where teenage boys live and workout.

They can be started from bulbs right in the basement under florescent lights or no light at all and planted in the flower bed at any point of any season. They are very hardy, but tend succumb to rusty appearance on the stem after a season of heavy rain and snow. They work well with all kinds of plants, but especially day lillies.

Ho Hum.

Happy Spring! Some Random Thoughts for the Day...

This was Winter's last hurrah. It came last night. Hopefully its the last one, and thank God, it wasn't the shoveling kind. Its already melted away, but don't let my mom see this post because she won't want to come up to NY in 3 weeks, if she thinks it might snow. :-0

TWENTY-TWO DAZE UNTIL SANDALS!!! (Jamaica, that is).

The perennials are beginning to pop through the soil now. I'm so excited. Luke did a nice job of cleaning up the yard while he was home last week, although my car keys still have not arrived!! I was thinking of how I wish my house had some nice big windows, for easy viewing of the pool and perennial garden. During the winter, I'd put bird feeders out there and spend lots of time pondering and watching for birds all the winter in await for spring if there were a likely window in which to ponder. But alas, the house wasn't built with any of that in mind, only efficiency and low costs. I am utterly grateful for the house, but its not my favorite. I love the addition Terry built several years ago, and the back yard, but I wish I could rearrange everything else about the house.

On another note, I will be singing with the Choral Society on Sunday at Guild Hall, 5 PM. Tickets are $25. We're doing all broadway tunes. It should be a great time... I just wish the altos wouldn't sing so flat all the time (oops). Did I just say that out loud? Maybe the live performance will give them the energy they need. A large portion of the group is retirement age. If my parents still lived here I would definitely force them to join the group. They'd love it!! Hear me, Mom?

And now for a little complaint: WHO THE HECK GAVE MY HOME NUMBER AND CELL NUMBER OUT AS THE WAY TO REACH ME FOR RENTING THE COMMUNITY HOUSE??!!??!! One lady, to whom I had already spoken a few times, called my home and my cell and the business line 4 times in a row--each!!! Twelve calls, no lie. WTH??? She claimed not to know which number was the right one. Another person missed my call 2 daze ago and decided to go to the school to find me. WHAT??!! because they were told that I worked there, which I don't--BUT EVEN IF I DID!!!! Ridiculous. Who does that? All because he missed my call and thought he would cut to the quick by just meeting me at the school where he thought I worked??? Needless to say, I had to put a few people in their places today--I WAS JUST SOOOO MAD!!! I'm not prejudice, but this MO is coming to me from the latino contingency here in the Hamptons, and I'm trying to be understanding that its a cultural difference. Many of the parties calling my office really want things to be done their way, like meeting me TODAY at my house to talk about the rental and pay me cash, which is not my way. We do this through the mail, with contracts and a bank check. They don't seem to trust that I will send them what they need. I get tired of it. I get tired of repeating myself to the same person 15 times, to get them to believe what I'm saying. AGH! Even my kids are better than that. But it goes with the territory i.e. the job and the location.

NEWSFLASH: I am now using twitter. I can be found @karenkooldaze if you happen to be a fellow tweeter. Why am I doing that, you ask? Probably because I'm a sucker for punishment.

Snow Day

What to do on a snow day?

Goof around in your PJs and clown wig while you watch TV.

Get all annoyed about the junk that is all over the house... in every freakin' corner. NO! It can't be put away because of this...

Basement renovations! It's taking forever!!! The boyz want to go off and play whenever its a perfect time to work. I really wouldn't care if the basement ever got done except for the fact that I still have the bins of Christmas decorations sitting on the floor of the family room waiting for a place to be stored away. HELLO! As well as a variety of other bins that I so graciously moved for them to get crackalackin. I got rid of tons and tons junk. Did it all myself because I knew that no one else would feel so compelled. Problem is... I want to feel the sense of accomplishment. I want the clutter to be gone. IT'S NEVER GONE!!!!

I will have a nice storage closet that takes up one entire wall... some day.

I've never seen periwinkle-colored dry wall. Luke said it's the kind that comes prepainted. (HAHA--such a funny kid).

What else do you do on a snow day?

Play, of course.
Don't clear off the cars or leave the driveway.

But you do have the kids try to clear the trampoline of some of the weight so they can have at least another season out of it.

And you take Noah outside to play as much as possible because he LOVES it!

He wants to be chased. He plays tag.

Oopsie!

I had a lot of catching up to do these past few daze. I got a lot of work done (the paid kind)... but I also found a little bit of time to go shopping online. You see... Lizzy's birthday is coming up and she asked for something that I happened to see advertised on sale, and I also received a discount coupon in the mail, stating if I used that store credit card, I'd get 25% off. Of course you have to spend above a certain amount before you can receive that discount. SO I REALLY SAVED BIG TIME!! >:-/

And then there's the fact that Jennah's foot has outgrown any snow boots around here but mine, so she asked to borrow them a few daze ago. I allowed her to borrow them to go sled riding, but insisted that she had better remember to bring them home the next morning (she was going to sleep over her friend's house). Well... she ended up having to work the next day and the result was that my boots were left in her friend's van. AGH! So it took several days to figure out exactly where they were. Meanwhile we have 12-18 inches coming our way tonight.

I figured that I would stop over their house today to find the boots before the snow came. I was told that the boots were there and I could get them out of the garage, but had no success finding them.

So...

I ordered myself a new pair of winter boots online. NICE ONES TOO!!!

I've decided that Jennah can have my old duck boots. HAH! Btw, I got the ducks boots back later in the day. They were still in the back of the van and I happened to meet up with the dad when I was picking Luke up from work. Oh WELL!!

Decorations

Christmas decorating is definitely NOT one of my favorite things to do. It's a lot of work, and for what? a lot of people living in the household who probably couldn't care less about it. well, this year I left the decorating completely up to the kids. Terry and I headed into the city to spend a little time with Sohailah and that "quirky" OKC Cowboy (haha inside joke) while the kids were officially assigned to decorate.

They did a decent job... kind of. The tree looked good. The stockings were all hung by the chimney with care. But the more I noticed certain things, the more I felt the need to... rearrange... slightly. Bad mom. Very bad.

I waited several daze before changing anything and made it a point to ask Caleigh who put all the village houses out? (seriously... they were placed randomly about the house, wherever there was an outlet to plug in to. Very inconvenient not to mention odd. It just wasn't working for me. I usually put them all above the kitchen cabinets... nice and orderly. Maybe with a little cotton for snow. Caleigh told me that she had done that part. So I suggested that I really wanted to put them up high where they could be seen all together, but I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings by moving them. She said that she would have put them there but just couldn't reach. HAHA. OK good. Phew. No hurt feelings there.

Another problem was regarding how the "table decorations" were placed in various places alongside of the items which are there regularly. The regular items weren't put away for the Christmas items to have their season. It just looked like one big cluttered mess. So today I did a bit of rearranging and DUSTING for Pete's sake. You'd think a little bit of dusting could be done from time to time. It feels a little bit better.

And finally, the Christmas tree... there are some things that must remain as they are i.e. very few lights. But I like A LOT of lights!! [sadness] I like them all white. Non-blinking. But it seems that there are only two, maybe three long strings and that is it. Also we have many ornaments which are heavy or large. They need to be placed strategically. You can't hang them on the tips of the boughs. They have to be placed on the larger boughs and moved quite a bit to the back of the branch where it's strong and where there is room for dangling. I like when ornaments are staggered... some placed into the center regions of the tree as well as on the tips of the branches. Needless to say, I did a bit of maneuvering and rearranging. I didn't want to pull a Grinch and take down the entire tree. That would have been mean, not to mention that it didn't bother me that much. It's a good thing I did some rearranging, because my delicate ornaments were, in many cases, hanging by a thread (excuse the pun) just ready to slip off the tips of the branches, shattering onto the floor.

Yikes! It all leaves me to wonder if Caleigh did the majority of the tree decorating, too. Nah. Just kidding. All the kids obviously need a little guidance with these things, and I'm so grumpy when it comes to decorating that I'm sure I scare them all away each year, as soon as the boxes are opened.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not necessarily anal about Christmas decorations, I just don't enjoy putting them up. And I thought I didn't care how they looked, but actually I kind of do. Next year I will try to be sure to decorate together with the kids. I'll even try to be nice. They need to learn some of the tricks that I've learned from my friends--the ones who love decorating at Christmastime. I should make an attempt to make decorating a happy time, a joyous occasion, a beloved tradition. And there should be spiked eggnog on hand to make it go better for the mama and the papa.

Christmas Comments from the Peanut Gallery

Caleigh: Mom, Jennah won't let me sleep in the family room tonight. She doesn't want me to see her presents because they're not wrapped.

Me: Jennah, do you want me to wrap them?

Jennah: Nope!

****

Me: Caleigh, Santa won't come until you are fast asleep in your bed.

Caleigh: I don't believe in Santa, anyway.

Me to Terry: When did that happen?

Caleigh: You just write, "Blah blah blah, From Santa" on the presents yourself. I already know that.

****

Anika: Hey Mom, how come you never made a big deal about Santa when we were growing up?

Me: Um... ??? ... I guess we just didn't want Christmas to be all about Santa, so we didn't talk about him much. Are you upset about that?

Anika: YAH!

Me: Awwwwwwwww Anikaaaaaaaa [hugs hugs hugs] You poor deprived child!!!

Anika: Did your parents leave Santa out when you were growing up?

Me: No. But when you are the 5th child of 6, there isn't much time left to believe in Santa. The older brothers kind of ruin it by showing you were all the presents are hidden.

****
After tonight's Christmas Eve Service, where I was completely frazzled and doing the very best I could, considering my day...


Caleigh: Mom, you did good tonight! But some of the singers were way off. They weren't singing with you at all (of course I am way up in the balcony with no microphone).

Amos, the lay leader at the FEHUMC where I play the organ: Hey Karen, you seemed a little off tonight (said in front of all my kids, my husband and the pastor).

Me: ... [smirk] Yeaaaa... um...

Pastor Juhye: You were the busiest person here tonight, Karen. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoy the gift I gave you, Merry Christmas.

Marilyn: Karen, thank you for your wonderful talents. Here is a little gift ($50) from the ladies of FEHUMC.

Me(later at home): *#%$&@#* (cussing Amos out several times in my mind... and finally giving way to a good cry for about 20 minutes... what a jerk).

****

Me: I'm now happily listening to The Christmas Story on TV. I think I'll go watch.

Merry Christmas!!!

Yesterday...

The slab for the patio was poured. YAY!

Oh Happy day.

The next step will be laying the bluestone. It may take a while. We'll see.


We also took our bi-annual trip to the Wildlife sanctuary with our bag of sunflower seeds.

We were also there to spy out some new growth... something green...

Found some!!


It was Michael's first time to feed the birds.

But these two are "old hat's "(har har--sorry Harriet)

And these two are serious bird tamers.

Bea and Caleigh are a bit impatient with the birds.

The gang likes to play a game where they get points for each handfed animal. Squirrels are worth the most... well, squirrels and cardinals... because there is no way they get that close.

but two birds at once gets bonus points.
Caleigh is serious about this whole thing!
Any signs of spring where you live?

Snowy Weather...

Makes Apple Dumplings a little more enticing to whip up.You may notice that one is already missing... alright, one and a half because they were that good!Can you guess what might be happening here tomorrow?It's good to get some scrumptious dumplings made, and the kitchen cleaned up before... before...

hint #1: the box below contains a beautiful new faucet...
hint #2: all the drawers have been pulled out below the counter.
hint #3: countertops have been temporarily cleared.

Did you guess yet?

A: The green countertops are going the way of all other countertops... ones that are being replaced with granite! YEAH BABY!!! I can't wait to see how my kitchen is going to look after tomorrow! WOOHOO!!!

In other news... Friday was when the snow started.

Friday was a CRAZY day.

Elizabeth had her heritage report for Social Studies at 12 noon as the flurries heavy snow began. I was scrambling between some other projects and making potato soup that I needed to bring in for this event. Thank God for Nicki, who brought me some potatoes!!

Elizabeth did a great job!The report was on Germany. (And yes, our 5th graders use smart boards in their classrooms because Bridgehampton ROCKS!)Ok, I made enough soup to feed the students, parents and teachers, as well as having an even bigger pot remaining at home, which provided our family of 8 and a Nicki's family of 6 dinner Friday evening. It was really delish, too! I'm not just braggin'.

Everyone brought in their favorite ethnic foods to share for heritage day. I love this day. I love ethnic foods--but my tummy was not very happy with the challenges I provided it... coupled with the major amount of stress I felt all Friday long! Reilly made some appetizer below that was REA-HEE-HEE-LLY GOOD!And if you were curious, my kids have German, British, Swiss, American Indian, and who knows what else in their mixed heritage... my forefathers and Terry's have been here for a long, long time.

At home I fly the American flag... because I'm a great American. ;-) Don't be a hater!This pics shown below are what the kids came home to on Friday when they were released early at 2 pm. The sloppy, wet snow meant that the basketball game was cancelled as well as the Christmas play at Church! They will both be rescheduled for Monday.

Sooo... that just means I get to experience that same stress I had on Friday all over again on Monday! Oh JOY!!! But maybe this time there will be some satisfaction at the end of the day.Anyhoo--Caleigh and Noah headed right out to play on Friday. Well... as soon as I went into the attic, retrieved all the snow paraphenilia and equipment, and dressed the girl up in her boots and snow digs. What a frikkin nusance!!!
But she loved her new coat and snowpants, given to her by India. (Me too!)

Eating snow is ok... as long as it's not yellow!

But it will make your face and hair wet and cold! And you'll want to come in...And the floors will become wet from all the kids traipsing in and out and in and out! AYI!!!

SIDE NOTE: The Clique had a stroke of spontaneity and went bowling on Saturday night. What a HOOT! I don't have any pictures--just a report that Terry bowled a 181! and yours truly bowled a 125. Our two best scores so far. YAY! (But I also bowled a 70--pathetic).