Not much here (A little more than I thought)

Well. I wrote that 2 days ago. I will try to finish it now. As I said not much going on here. Today Elizabeth had an eye Dr appointment (finally). No surprise here, that she needs glasses. She is not happy as you can imagine. She is already considering laser eye surgery, but we'll see. The Dr is giving her a weaker prescription then she needs to start as it will be such a change for her.
In other news, we hung our Christmas lights, cleaned up in the garage. You can see the excitement we live with daily!
The newest member of our family Cocoa Bean Jelly Bean (Cocoa for short) had a medical problem that appears to be getting better. I won't go into details...
In regards to pets there has been a lot of change around here lately. Since moving here we have lost 3 pets, gained 5 more and the gave away 2 of those. So I guess we broke even in a way. Pets lost: Miss Kitty (disappeared July 5th), Tiger (killed October) and Silk (found dead Nov 4th). Pets found: Bubbles (found July), 3 black kittens (found Halloween night) and Patches (found about July in our driveway with an electrical cord around his neck). Pets given away: 2 of the black kittens we found.
Here are some pictures of the newest members of our family. This is Patches



This is bubbles





This is Cocoa Bean Jelly Bean



These are my children with our neighbors, if your not sure which are mine then you shouldn't be reading this blog. This was Jennifer's birthday. I know Robin knows when that is anyway.

That should do it for me for now, I'll try to think of something interesting to post about next time. Or I'll just write whatever comes to mind like I did today. I don't want to wish for anything interesting, it is usually not the interesting I had hoped for. Bye for now.

Colleen

Icy Delight

Yesterday I made my fingers completely numb by gathering ice pieces off of frozen birdbaths to put in my rainwater jugs - it was a lot of fun!  As for the plants in Squattersville I tucked everything tender under some shrubs and except for a bit of tip damage everything else looks fine.  Of course the plants local to this area - those lovely natives - had no trouble weathering these frosty mornings with no damage.  I exhort you o sundry family members and those affiliated with family members - plant the Grindelia, the Platystemon, and the frothy bunchgrasses!  On a related note, I saw the Sierra Nevada when we went to Sacramento, and it sure was snow-laden (hence the name).  

My living space

Here's a few pictures of my apartment. As I'm sure you all remember - especially Jill & John who did most of the moving the 2nd time - this is the second apartment I've lived in since I moved to Sacramento. I liked the first apartment but it didn't get a lot of sun and didn't have a dining room. This one gets a lot more sun and has a separate dining room (which I don't use as a dining room...). It has a built-in bookcase and a larger living room and larger patio. The only negative thing is that the bathroom is smaller and I share my bathroom with a litter box. Oh well, it's the penalty for having two cats!

This apartment faces the street and I can hear cars going past all night. Some people would probably consider that a drawback but I rather like it. I remember when I was a kid lying in bed listening to traffic noises. It put me to sleep usually. Is that odd? I can also hear people on the sidewalk. During the summer I heard a few interesting conversations as people walked past. Once some guy said something like "you could kill him for that." I wish I'd heard the rest of that conversation. Last night I heard someone singing as they walked along the sidewalk. My bedroom window looks right out onto the street and Pippin spends hours sitting on the bookshelf looking out. The bad thing is the window is poorly insulated and lets in a lot of cold. I bought some fabric a few weeks ago to make a curtain for the winter but I haven't done it yet. I need to get busy because it's cold! Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night and Pippin will have pushed the blinds open and be sitting in the window. This means that anyone who cares to come peer in the window could see me. This doesn't please me but hopefully the curtain will help.

Anyway. . . I really like my apartment a lot. And I like my neighborhood. It's a nice neighborhood, mostly houses and has lots of trees. Later I'll post some pictures of trees and falling leaves. I love this time of year with the leaves all over!

A Quick Update on Stephen

Hi...my first post, as promised. I just (about 10 minutes ago), completed my application for the Oakland Teaching Fellows program. If accepted, I'll undertake a six-week orientation in the summer of 2011 and then begin teaching at a high-need school somewhere in Oakland (probably my neighborhood). I have my fingers crossed. On another career front, I am working feverishly on my new website for photography. I am going to give being a professional photographer a go starting in January...wish me a lot of luck on that. Finally, we are almost done converting our garage into a living space so that our dear friend Jen and her son Kavi can move in. With luck, that will happen in December. Well that should bring most of you up to date on me. How about a quick update from the rest of you? What's new?

Hi!

First of all let me say that I enjoyed visiting with everyone (even the person that forgot about me . . . .)! I am, however, quite happy to be back home in my quiet, WARM apartment. As I traveled from Sacramento to Stockton to Fremont to Hayward to Oakland and back to Sacramento (wow no wonder I'm tired!), many things occurred to me. Most of them I won't share as you'd probably find them odd.

The important thing is that I feel kind of disconnected from everyone. Yeah I know it's my fault for moving all the way to Sacramento. Anyway I feel like I don't know what everyone is doing. Given what I found hidden under sinks this weekend that may be just as well. But I digress. I know I've tried this blog thing before. One of the many, many, many things I greatly admire about myself is my persistence in the face of great adversity. So. . . I'll give it another shot. This isn't for anyone except our immediate family (which of course includes spouses, significant others and children) and I'm hoping we can use it to share a little bit every week about our lives. Honestly, really and truthfully it only takes maybe 5 minutes a week. Unless you're like me and feel compelled to ramble endlessly.

I know that you all have computer access! I think most of us are online at least once a week (some of us, like me, at least once an hour). Put the blog on your home page, click on the link, share something you did that week. It's easy girls and boys. Really, really, really! I'm not trying to turn you all into blog fiends, I'm just hoping we can all share a little of our fascinating, exotic lives. Or go with boring and tedious. It's still interesting to your family.

So how about it? I've sent you all the link to this blog which is why you are reading this post. In awhile I'm going to send you all a link to log in as an author. I hope everyone will do that and start sharing something. It doesn't have to be "big" stuff. Lives are mainly made up of little moments and it's sharing those that keep ties between people strong. I'm not doing this because I feel the need for another blog - I already have 6 or 7 (plus 4 twitter accounts, innumerable emails, facebook, youtube, etc. By the way the mayor of Sacramento follows me on twitter as does our current Governor & his wife. I'm still working on Neil Diamond. Oops digressed again.

Everyone is busy, everyone has their own lives but I'd hope that we can be a little more connected than once a year at Christmas. I hope you will all want to participate a little. Share a picture, a thought, a song, a quote, an IDK (I got that from Elizabeth), whatever you want. It's really simple. Believe me if Jill can do it anyone can!