Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Wednesday 10/31/07 Halloween...

The kids went trick-or-treating tonight. William said that he didn't want to go and he didn't want to share their candy. He wasn't upset...he just wasn't interested.
When it was time to go trick-or-treating I asked William if he wanted to go with us, just up and down our street. I knew that he had already said ''no'' but I wanted to make sure that he felt welcome. He said ''yes''. I was so suprised. He put his shoes and jacket right on and went outside. There were four houses on our street with lights on. After we went to those houses, he said that he wanted to go along...just to watch...and maybe he could bring a bag. Horray!!! I am always so glad when William chooses to go with us. He ran into the house to get a bag.
It is so different now that he is eighteen years old. He needs and can handle some time alone...but we miss him. We have always been a close family, and it is odd...different...strange...not to have him with us.
Our record for candy is five, gallon size, ziplock bags. This year we only got four. But four is still a lot of candy.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Tuesday 10/30/07 Trick-or-treating...

We went trick-or-treating last Saturday night at a local park. William didn't want to go with us. I took the girls. We did have fun, but the girls and I miss William. The park has a small lake in the center of it. There were tables all around the lake with people at them giving out candy. We must have stopped at thirty tables. Maggie went in an armed forces uniform, and Beth went as a cowgirl. The park supplied all of the candy and local groups or churches had people at the tables in costume to hand out the candy. When we left the house to go to the park I had the girls put on winter coats and hats...because I'm always cold, I think that everyone else is cold too. When we stepped out of the house it was nice out, no hat needed and jackets could be unzipped. I didn't say anything about the weather and we left for the park. When we got to the park it was still warm out, lots of the other kids didn't have any jackets...but my kids looked like they were ready for winter. After we were there for about fifteen minutes, the wind started to blow and it got cold. Then I wished that we had brought gloves.
The most popular costume was the cat. Big kids and small kids were cats. I saw a lot of witches too. The most unique ones that I saw was a McDonalds Coca-Cola cup and a giant chicken. I enjoyed tha walk around the lake.
We bought and carved our pumpkins tonight. As long as we get our good memories in before the holiday, I think that we are still OK

Monday, October 29, 2007

Monday 10/29/07 William's birthday...

We celebrated William's birthday on Saturday. It went well. My mom and brother came over to celebrate. The lunch was at 2:00. That gave us plenty of time to pick up the house, do the laundry and make sandwiches for next weeks lunches...peanut butter and jelly and bologna and cheese freeze well and are still OK after one week of being frozen.
After lunch we measured William on the measuring stick. He is about the same height that he was last year.
William wanted to move his computer from the dining room to his room. He does not have access to the internet or any games that I wouldn't approve of...so I said OK. He wanted it moved so that at night when he went to his room, he could still play on it. William got the whole computer moved and he and I moved the desk, then he realized that he has a three prong plug and two prong outlets. I never thought to look at his outlets before the computer was moved. I felt so bad that the computer couldn't be used. William didn't want to move the computer back to the dining room so I will buy him an extension cord to plug it in in the bathroom. How long can the cord be? Is 10 - 15 feet too long?

Friday, October 26, 2007

Friday 10/26/07 - William's birthday

We are celebrating William's birthday tomorrow. He will be 18. His birthday is next week, but it is more relaxing to celebrate on weekends. We have dinner..or lunch.. then have cake...or pie... and ice cream. Next we measure the birthday child on the measuring stick. Last is the presents. We tried having the presents earlier, but it was hard to get the kids to have cake or get measured after they had the gift in their hands.
We use a measuring stick. It is a piece of wood from the lumber yard that is 6 feet long and smooth on all sides. This was chosen when the kids were little, because we were in an apartment, and I wanted the stick to move with us. It has worked really well except for the year that it wasn't put flat on the floor and it warped.For the next few years, the measurements were a bit off because the board was curved. Now it is almost straight again and the measurements are closer to reality.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Thursday 10/25/07 Yesterday's post continued...

Yesterday's posting said that I want to move but the house needed painted. The closet, the deck and the bedroom could never have that ''all over'' ''just-about-to be-sold-look''. The basement had been painted by a previous owner. One of the walls still looked clean and white. The other three had paint pealing off of them. I don't have water problems with my walls, but it looked like I did. The realitor said that everyone would assume that the basement has water problems. Scraping the basement was the worst. Everything had to be moved away from the walls. The washer and dryer couldn't be used until the paint behind them was dry. I painted behind them first. The worst part was scraping and painting under the stairs. I was going to skip that area, but with the rest of the basement looking so clean, that area really stuck out. I painted it.
I have now finished painting, except for one small unused heater that I would like to put rustoleum on. We now need to get things to storage. I have been going to Kroger (grocery store) to get boxes.
But...the problem now is that it is getting colder. I have two rooms that were added on to the house. I don't think that any insulation was added. Also...the windows now need plastic on them. Will the house sell with two cold rooms and plastic on the windows? Lots of people have plastic on their windows, they just don't sell their house with plastic on the windows. I would like to insulate the two rooms before we move. Especially if we stay here another winter.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Wednesday 10/24/07 I would like to move...

I want to move to a different house, to get the kids into better schools. I had looked in other areas when I bought this house, but I couldn't wait long enough for a house in my price range to come onto the market.
I started painting the inside of this house last year. I painted the chair-rail in the dining room, around the living room windows and the wood around the living room outside door a blue gray. It is mostly blue and not bright at all. The kitchen ceiling and walls also got painted.Then I called the realitor this summer to list the house and was told that one of the upstairs closets needed painted, one of the bedrooms needed painted, the back porch (deck) needed painted and also the basement. All of these rooms did need paint, and I am glad that I have finished them. I still have not listed the house

Monday, October 22, 2007

Monday 10/22/07 - Cutting the front yard tree down

There has always been a small puddle in the street in front of my house. One day the water started flowing out of the crack in the street. The city came and put an orange cone by it.
A few days later, when we came home the city workers were in front of my house taking away the last part of the huge tree that stood between the sidewalk and the street. They had two huge double dump trucks (one dump truck pulling another). All four trucks were full. They said that when they start to cut open the street to repair the leak, they couldn't risk cutting a root and hurting the tree. If the tree had fallen on my house, it would have destroyed most of my house. I was glad that they were being careful, but sad to see the tree go. The gas company had also come and marked where their lines were. A few days later another group came and cut open the street.
When the repair work was done, they said that it was a large pipe that took all of the water from the neighborhood by us. They were able to put bands around the pipe and not replace it. He said that if it had not been fixed there would have been enough water pressure to take out the front of my house.
They put a black-top patch over the road (this was at the end of last fall) When they cut the area of the road, they also took out the curb. I was glad that it was fixed, but it looked awful. The man said that it was too cold to put cement in, it wouldn't dry. They would come back in the spring to fix it correctly. I was upset. I was starting to think about moving my family to a new house and the road in front of my house was all patched up. I decided not to panic. They might come back and repair it before we moved. I still needed to do a lot of painting inside, and take items to storage...so that we didn't look so cluttered.The City people came back in the spring, fixed the street and the curb. There was still a ditch between the yard and the new curb. After the curb dried they came back and filled in the ditch with dirt and seeded it. It settled. They came back again and added more dirt and added more grass seed. I had been so worried, and now it looks so nice.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Saturday 10/20/07 - Hello

Hello, I'm back. I can't get into my previous blog ''joycerowley.blogspot.com'', so I had to start a new one. If I can figure out how, I will get all of the posts onto one blog.
The kids and I went to get a family picture today. I needed one before my son William goes off to college. It went well.