First post of 2010

This is my first post of 2010, and part of that is because my blog is messing with me! All of a sudden one day my words started turning into hindu looking words, and it doesn't matter if I'm in compose or edit html, one way or another it's messing with me. If anyone has an idea why it's doing that, please let me know. So far so good on this my hundreth try, but we'll see if I make it all the way to the end before it turns into hindu again. (UPDATE: Problem solved...somehow I had enabled the English to Hindu setting under Global Settings. I don't even remember being on settings since I set up almost a year ago, so I must have been in a black-out!)

One of the things I've been doing the last two weeks is clean out my pantry/storage/laundry room (though room is a misnomer, because it's actually a closet). If you read my last post you know that it was one of my 'wants' for 2010 because it had gotten out of control. Some of you will think that my 'before' looks better than your's does on a good day, but the problem is that it's so small that even a can out of place leads to frustration, especially when paints and pesticides and crackers and cereal are in the same small room, along with a washer and dryer! Basically, the room is three doors wide. Anyway, here's the before and after:





Ok, so now that I have the photos here I can see that the 'before' doesn't look all that bad on first glance, but I took it long before the area was at it's worst. The dryer on the left and the washer on the right were piled high with 'stuff', like a basket of dog grooming supplies, plastic containers of misplaced household items, etc. They all had a 'place', but getting them to their place was hindered by...all the other stuff that wasn't in it's place.

Remember my post about demented mawmaw, when I had a temper tantrum in response to Garrett's temper tantrum, and smashed his just purchased gun with a hammer? Well, I threw most of the pieces into a recycle bag, but put these smaller ones into a zip lock bag and stored it in the laundry room...as a reminder of my flash temper and the need to get it under control. I have thought of that moment so many times, usually when we're in the midst of another drama, and it's not one of my prouder moments. Though I still think he deserved it! And it did serve it's purpose in some ways, because to this day I can say "do I need to mention the hammer incident?", and he knows exactly what I'm talking about!



You may have heard that we had a snow event a couple of weeks ago, and frigid temps in the 20s. The snow was a whisper, but the temps kept us all in the house for a couple of weeks, including the dogs. You've heard about a dog's life...here's a perfect example of it:







And here's our snow event (please don't laugh too hard):
(Eva Jean thinks I'm taking another picture of her!)

Conner rolled up a snowball about the size of a marble, but it was big enough to pretend to throw at me!


You can't tell from this photo, but the pond at the phone company is frozen.

And even with the frigid temps, mother nature graced us with a perfect sunset:


I hope your first few weeks of the new year are going well.