Hurricane Hype

For the past few days me and my family have been anxiously watching the tropics. Living in the Southeastern United States on the coast it is impossible not to do this. I watched with amazement Gustav go into the coast and have had eyes on Hanna and particularly Ike. We started the week making plans on what to do depending on the track or severity. Since Hanna was predicted to come right into Charleston at one point we went and got a generator and a window air conditioner.

The generators were in full stock on Monday night at the Lowes down the street from us. But my husband did not buy one. On Tuesday morning he purchased the generator on lowes.com for in-store pickup. A woman from the store called him and said if he did not pick it up immediately it would be sold and he would get the first one to come into the store in the next shipment. So I happened to be driving the kids home from school and going right past the store when he frantically called me. I went into Lowes with he 2 kids in tow and talked to customer service. I was informed that I would need to be escorted out with my generator to make sure no one beat me up! This made me feel real good. Then another man came with the items on a roll cart and said "do not take your eyes off of these. A man had one on his cart this morning and turned away and it was taken." (Not sure how this man didn't hear this but ok) Now I am walking to the parking lot with the Lowes man and people are looking at us asking where I got it and he has to keep telling them I bought it online and it is the last one! Geesh.

So I have also been cleaning out my freezer. I cooked a full organic chicken on Wednesday night as the chicken took up way too much space and ended up melting my baster! Very sad. But boy was it good. I stuffed the inside with a bunch of rosemary sprigs! It was divine.

My poor baster! Notice the bend?

Bottom shelf of freezer!

Top shelf of freezer!

Now that we will not take a direct hit and my daughters school has a half day and my sons school is closed (his school followed the public school system rather than the private school that owns them that my daughter goes to! Go figure). I will have my son, and another 4 year old girl and 3 year old girl until it is time to pick up the bigger kids up at 11:30 (3 first graders). They should be here about 8:00 am. I will drop off one of the first graders and the 4 year old girl at their dads office and take the other 2 back with me until about 1 o'clock! It should be loud but fun. I miss having little girls around. Their play is so much different than boys. These are our car pool families. Two of the most incredible families you will ever meet. The moms both work full time and I don't drive many days so this is where I come in really handy! Really works out well.

So in a nut shell we played this thing right. We took caution and watched and got all our supplies and will not get a direct hit. It also looks like Ike will hit South Florida so we might not have to worry about that one either and Josephine looks like it is weakening. All in all a good week for us. I am making chicken stock and my house smells yummo!

My yummy chicken stock that is simmering

Have a great day and stay safe.

6 Random Things About Me

Happy Labor Day! Last day of summer for Cambridge as he finally starts school tomorrow. I can't wait to go see all my coffee buddies. It will be a grand ole reunion at Starbucks! I was reading one of my favorite blogs, No Fear Entertaining, and she posted this interesting question. So here is a bit about me for you to see.

6 Random things about me...

1. I get goosebumps when I hear the national anthem and always sing along.

2. I made it half way through my MBA at The Citadel (at the time an all male military college but women were allowed to go to their graduate programs at night) but travelled too much for business and gave it up.

3. I was a writer for my college newspaper The Good 5 Cent Cigar at the University of Rhode Island (go Rhody!)

4. I am a closet NASCAR fan thanks to my NASCAR obsessed son. I love to watch races as it is such an incredible sport. Imagine going that fast and being so close to other cars. The skill is what gets me every time. Kind of like a scary rollercoaster. But shhhh don't tell anyone.

5. My best friend and I used to go out in the woods when we were little and try to get lost in Newtown, Connecticut. We each had about 5-10 acres of land on Castle Hill Road (4 houses in a row) and there were streams and swamps in between and in the winter we would build forts and bring a box of Jello for survival and mix it with snow and eat it. I lived across the street from a nunnery owned by the Carmelite Sisters and we would pick apples in the fall and ice skate in the winter. It was the greatest place to grow up.

6. I have a blood clotting disorder when I am pregnant (elevated anticardiolipins) and lost 3 babies at 12 weeks, 13 weeks and 16 weeks of pregnancy. I lost one baby before my daughter and then went on the have Lucy with no medical intervention and had a 5%-10% chance of carrying her to term. She is a true miracle. I had 2 additional miscarriages after her and was finally diagnosed before getting pregnant with my son. He too is a miracle but I did Heparin shots 2 times a day and took baby aspirin to keep my blood from clotting in the umbilical cord. Thank God for modern medicine and a great OB and RE.

I am not going to tag any one blogger on this but consider yourselves all tagged and take a few minutes and let us get to know you better! If you decide to do this let me know so I can come and read it! (this is word for word from No Fear).

Enjoy and I hope to read what you write too.

What a beautiful day!

Today is a great day. The sun is shining (although the mosquitoes are awful after the rains of Fay and you can't go outside without being bombarded by them - think horror movie), the grass is green, I had a Starbucks Coffee with a good friend and no kids in tow. I called a friend yesterday to see if I could take her son today for Cambridge to play with. The mom is a teacher at C's school. I told her I was meeting (another teacher from the school) for coffee at 7:45 and maybe I could pick him up after. She said "I will be at school so why don't you drop C off and they can play in my classroom until you get back." Umm no hesitation on my part...YES!!! (She is setting her classroom up for school to start next week.)

So I went to Starbucks and had a nice relaxing time and while we were there the person sitting next to us was taken out by EMS and we never even noticed anything was wrong. We saw 2 EMTs and 2 Firemen come in and I thought they were sitting next to us and then they started bringing in oxygen and I looked over (literally at the small round table next to me!) and the lady is slumped over and slurring and one of the EMTs is talking to her. Now 2 more EMTs come in with a gurney and at this point I moved my table out of the way and left. Seemed like the appropriate thing to do.

I picked up the boys and we came home and they made homemade chocolate chip cookies (I can't remember the last time I did this !) and then we put the ingredients for dough into the bread machine so the kids and Dan can make pizzas for dinner (of course I have to go to Lucy's school for a new parent meeting and while I am no longer a "new" parent I am the chair of the new parent committee). The cookies look awesome. Crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Each of the boys ate 2 (but they also had half and apple to round it out!).

Now I am getting the ingredients ready to make cranberry bread (with craisins since they were on clearance at Target (only $1.77 for a large package that costs $3.99 at grocery store - can you say bargain?).

I picked some limes and gave them to my friend and now have found a yummy recipe online for which I have all the ingredients in the house (it doesn't get any better than that. See I told you life is good). We will have that tomorrow night.

Here are some pictures of my abundance of what is outside. I have basil, parsley, more rosemary than I know what to do with (this is one plant and I have 3 more in the front that are now part of the landscaping because you can't kill them and they smell so good!), limes, chives, the yummy cookies the boys made and whatever else I took photos of today. Oh and a picture of my 2 helpers. I think you can figure out which one is mine (Tony Stewart).

Speaking of bargains and Tony Stewart, all his stuff is on sale at racingusa.com. 75% off! I got Cambridge a new costume since he wants to be Tony Stewart (again) for Halloween and the one we have is getting small. Normally it is $30 and I got it for $5. How great is that and they had his size. Again, life is good.

Joseph and Cambridge (Buzz and Tony!)

The yummy cookies Buzz and Tony made!

2 limes on the tree waiting to be picked

Chives

One of my basil plants

One of my rosemary plants - this one is in a planter the rest are in the ground

Have a beautiful day and I will let you know how the recipe turns out (if you want it just click on the words yummy recipe and it will bring you to the link.

Welcome!

Welcome over here. Glad you followed me. I will start blogging full time once Cambridge starts school next week. Right now I still have him home with me. But I wanted this blog to be more about me, my family and my life rather than commentary on subjects in the press, etc. that would cause me to open my big mouth. Now I am sure there will be some of that but this will be more about what is going on around here. What is up in my garden (right now a ton of limes that are soooo good, basil and tomatoes!), what is going on with me and the kids and dh and life in general Come on in and sit down with a nice cuppa joe.