Hannah and Wilma

We have heard from Hannah! Thank goodness!!! She is fine. She doesn't have power and likely won't until November 15th!! I only spoke to her briefly, but she has quite a tale to tell.

I got a lovely Halloween card from my knitting secret pal. As a special note to her...I'll post pictures of Tasha when it's done. The pieces are all made, but I haven't seamed it together yet, turns out I'm terrible at seaming and I'm having some major trouble with it.

Happy Halloween!

What and interesting weekend

Well, Hannah and Wilma are currently getting to know each other really well. A bit too well for my own personal taste. According to The Weather Channel, Wilma is going right over the top of Hannah's house as I type this. I have to admit I'm a little freaked out. It's stronger than she was hoping it was going to be. Please keep her (and Josh and Joan) in your thoughts. I'll be sure to let you know when I hear from her.

There has been an interesting development at work, not involving me directly, but certainly indirectly. My job is secure, but things above me are changing a little...and it's making me a little nervous, purely from a personnel perspective, not an employment perspective.

In the meantime, I got some pictures from Mary this morning.

Jane and Lucy








Now you see her...











Now you don't!











The family Maiocco.








Guess that's it for now...

Later days.

You take a very nice photo Mr. DeLay

Is it just me, or do you consider it odd that Tom DeLay's booking picture looks better than a posed picture? Who smiles in a booking photo!!

(Sorry Uncle Dick)

Hurricane Wilma and Hannah

This just in from Hannah:

Well all, I am writing a mass email to let you all know about Ms. Wilma. Joan, Josh and I were scheduled to leave tomorrow for a big driving clinic and we were going to take two horses and come back on Sunday. Well know its looking like that wont happen. We are not 100% sure of what we are doing, but we are staying here. Not leaving at the moment. Wilma, depending on the course she takes in the next day hopefully will drop to a cat 2 or 3 by the time she makes land on the west coast of Florida. She is a tight storm with a small eye, so by the time she reaches the other side of Florida, we are hoping she will be a cat 1 or lower. We have already started stocking up on water. Some windows are going to be boarded up tomorrow. I have to id the horses halters tomorrow with zip lock bags, because when the storm hits I have to turn them out. It is saver for them outside where they are not trapped. The course now has the storm coming right over the top of us, this will change probably before this weekend. Wilma is suppose to make landfall late Saturday night. I am sure we will lose power. With luck we won't have much structural damage.

Anyway I wanted to give you all a shout to let you know. Josh and I just came back on Monday from taking the big truck to PA with some carriages to an Auction and know we are dealing with this. On a slightly humorous note, Josh got the truck stuck turning it around because the ground was too soft. We managed to get it unstuck and then today he backed it all the way out our driveway, turned it around and backed it all the way back in, so it was pointed out, if we need to leave. Mind you our driveway is not straight and has several small bends and too large curves and is close to 1000 feet long.

Hannah

All I have to say is YIKES!

Home from the Left Coast

Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. Okay, so there weren't any reports, but I have a excuse for not writing in a while. I have been in San Francisco. I was there attending a conference, the San Francisco Money Show. It is not nearly as interesting as it sounds, but it was educational. I went as a marketing rep for EverBank and learned a lot about the company and finacial planning in general. I came away from it both horrible depressed at my/our current financial situation (just poorly managed, no real problems) and a new found desire to do something about it. I have moved money out of the poorly performing savings account we had into a new one with 4% interest and will soon open a new interest checking account. These are all good first steps on what I hope will be a five year journey to a more properly managed financial picture. I wish somewhere out there there was a company that I could just hand everything over too, tell them what I want and they would do it all (including paying all my bills), but I haven't found anything for a small household like ours.

On to the much more fun part of the trip...I got to spend some time with the Munson/Maioccos and the Collazos while I was there. Mandi, Felix and I went to the The Dead Fish and had more crab than I have ever eaten in my life and man was it delicious! I spent most of Sunday hanging in Lafayette with Mary, Sarah, Matt, Jane and Lucy. Well, Lucy didn't so much "hang" as she did scream, but that's what you do when you're 8 months old, so it's okay. I brought Jane a dress-up wedding dress, she is so cute in it you could almost die! Apparently she spent most of Monday in it according to Sarah (who even got to wear the veil). People look at me funny when I say I went to spend time with my in-laws by myself, voluntarily, but hey, I have pretty cool in-laws.

All of my flights were uneventful, some minor turbulence, but I was sleeping for most of it. I can't believe that Halloween and Thanksgiving are right around the corner!

Later Days.

Happy Monday

Hmm, not sure what exactly is happy about it, perhaps Adequate Monday would be a better headline.

Not much in the goings on this past weekend. I took Friday off and spent the day with Mom. We played games and solved the problems of the world. She beat me in Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble, though the Scrabble game was very close, she only one by 3 points. Trivial Pursuit was also very close, I just couldn't get to the center before she did.

Chris brought home (free) Smoked Salmon pizza from one of his remotes this weekend. He loved it, I was not really sold on it, but it was free, so I can't really complain that much. He has been hard at work on the Colchester beat covering the looming Colchester teacher strike. They officially went on strike this morning.

I'm headed to the left coast on Thursday. I'm hoping to be able to spend some time with friends and family if time allows.

I have finished the pieces to the Tasha (see side panel) bag my Secret Pal enabled me to make. They are currently blocking/drying and should be assembled shortly. In the meantime, not being one to have idle hands, I have started a sweater. I know, I know, I've always said I shouldn't make sweaters because I doubt I'd finish them, but given my recent success at socks (yes, I made TWO!) I thought I'd give it a try.

Happy Thanksgiving to our Neighbors in the Great White North! Which reminds me I should jot a note to Mad and John.

Later Days!

Python: 1 Alligator: 1 in Overtime

Check out this news piece from the Everglades. Python vs. Alligator! I'm SO very glad I don't live in Florida. Hannah I just don't know how you deal with the creatures down there.

My nieces

Jane sleeping, be very quiet....


















Mary originally called this one "Lucy with drool." Strangely accurate.

















One day Lucy will hate Jane for this picture, for no apparent reason. Hannah hates me for really random pictures of when we were this age.













Oh my gosh! She's swallowed her bottom lip! Okay, but she's still cute.