Lazy Afternoon of Swimming....

Liana

Liana and Ben

It was gorgeous out today, finally after such a rainy 4th of July. Carol, Neil, and Liana came over to Ottawa for a little swim, cookout, and skydiver watching. I think Liana was born to be a fish. She would probably still be in the pool if hunger hadn't called.

Janet

Happy Father's Day!!!

Here's to my husband-one of my favorite dads. You're so good with the kids, always have been, and they know they can always depend on you for advice, love, and a shoulder to lean on.

And I love you too!

Janet

P.S. Happy Father's Day to my Dad ;0)

Favorite Cousins.....

Caitlin surprised Liana with a birthday visit to Build-A-Bear. We all had lunch and enjoyed the day. Liana has grown up so much before our eyes. I love this picture!

Jan

My Kids Are Home!!!

Caitlin's dorm room remains....

Ben's dorm room remains...

So this is what happens when they both come home from school and unload everything!

Janet

Breast Cancer's Network of Strength Walk to Empower

I was kind of sad this year on Mother's Day-both of my kids were still at school taking finals and my husband was on call at the hospital having an extremely busy weekend. I longed for those days when I got homemade gifts from the kids-it all goes so fast! So my sister invited me to join her and her family in a 5K walk for breast cancer. We raised $600 between the two of us and had an unbelievably gorgeous Chicago morning. Here is Team Daughters In Pink posing with the skyline.

Liana did amazing and walked almost half the way. And she's right-we all look good in pink!!!

Here's a belated Mother's Day wish to my favorite moms: Mom, Mom Rosborough, Carol, Donna, Tricia, and Tammy. Hope you all had a great day!

Janet

Walk To Empower for Breast Cancer.....

Chicago's Skyline Turns Pink!

Chicago’s famous night skyline turns pink this weekend as buildings light up for Chicago's biggest fundraising event: the Walk to Empower on Mother's Day!

Participating buildings and landmarks include: The John Hancock Center, Navy Pier, the Wrigley
Building, Buckingham Fountain, One South Dearborn, the Sears Tower, 150 N. Michigan, the Chicago Board of Trade, CNA Plaza, Union Tower, 20 N. Michigan, BlueCross Blue Shield and more.

Carol and I will be walking tomorrow on Mother's Day to help raise money for breast cancer. So excited-we made it to $600. Stay tuned for pictures of us in hot pink!!

Here's to Daughters In Pink!!!!!!!!!!!

LOVE YOU TAMMY!

Janet

Family Room Update....

I've decided I still need one more quick coat of green paint to even out some roller strokes but I'm so excited about the way things are looking that I thought I'd post update pictures. So even though everything is still masked and my drop cloths (kids old bed sheets!) are still draped everywhere here is how things are looking......and I'm loving it!

Can't wait to see some eggplant color in the kitchen to go with this green! Gotta hurry up and finish because I've got lots of yard work calling my name.

Janet

Who Is That Girl In The Window????

We had family pictures taken recently and when I drove over to Utica to pick up the proofs guess who met me in the window of the studio?

Love you Liana!

Janet

Family Room Teaser......

I'm slowly working on repainting my family room and kitchen. There will be a total of 3 colors and I had lots of good input from my sister. Two walls in the family room are completely done. Two more walls have one coat on. And the kitchen is patiently waiting.

Here's just a teaser of what things are looking like :0)

And when you use sandstone paint you tend to get "grit" all over your hands when you roll!

Janet

My Green Eyed Babies.....

Muffin the Socially Inept Cat

Kate the Neurotic Dog

With my kids off at college and my husband busy at the hospital, these two are my constant companions!

Janet

1st Apartments.....

So do you remember your 1st apartment? I remember mine. It was the upstairs of a house that I lived in with a friend for a summer. I could only stand up straight on one side of my bedroom because the roof slanted down to the other side. There was no shower, only a bathtub, which again you could only stand up straight on one end because of that roof! I think we only had one closet in the entire apartment and that was in my friends bedroom. And she had a VERY NOISY parakeet in the living room. Needless to say, 3 months was my limit!

Caity is staying in Eau Claire this summer to work and take a couple summer classes and is moving into her 1st apartment! She will spend her next school year in the upstairs of this cute yellow house with roommates and friends Lucy and Magan. It brings back lots of memories for me and reminds me that my daughter really is 20!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just when I think there's no hope for my husband's romantic side he goes and does this......

I was off work on Friday so when the hospital supervisor called Friday night to beg me to work that night from 11pm to 7am Saturday morning I gave in and said yes. An occasional night doesn't bother me, I've always been kind of a night owl anyway, and I really like the night staff of nurses. So as my hubby was leaving the hospital finally at 11pm I was coming in. The night shift was okay, busy and steady but not hectic. So there I am at 7:15 the next morning knee deep in report and my wonderful husband walks into the conference room among all the nurses and hands me a large skinny vanilla latte from Starbucks, wishes me a Happy Valentines Day, and walks out---and if you can picture this---all the nurses going "Awwww". Now, who was he scoring points with??? Me or all the nurses??? ;0)

I really wanted to go home and sleep but my best friend was coming home from the hospital so I put a turkey breast in the crockpot, mashed potatoes with cream cheese in the crockpot, whipped up a batch of my mom's homemade Arkansas stuffing and went to work on homemade brownies (one of my sister's wonderful recipes). Mid-afternoon the doorbell rang which immediately sends my dog into a barking frenzy and it's a flower delivery! For Me! From darling husband!

Needless to say he really scored points this weekend. If he only knew that he could have stopped at the latte-because I know what it took for him to walk through a room of unforgiving, gossiping nurses and wish me a happy valentines!

Love you Honey...

Janet

A Nice Update....

Just saw my best friend at the hospital tonight and she is doing wonderfully. I can't tell you what a relief it was to see she actually looked herself just a little rough around the edges. And in need of a good shampoo but most of us can't go a day without one!

Gee, she made it to her room about 7:30pm after surgery and at 2am this morning they had her sitting on the side of the bed and by 8am had her in a chair. Guess I'm not the only mean nurse out there! Don't you know they teach us that in nursing school, just like they teach doctors to write illegibly!

So glad you're feeling better, can't wait to hear about your excursion in the hallway tomorrow! I guess you were definately determined this time because Friday looks like a really good day to come home.

Janet

Lazy Sunday...

To Do List:
*Pay bills
*Fold laundry
*Make dinner
*Shake rugs and wash the kitchen floor
*Iron scrubs for work this week
*Clean the downstairs bathroom
*For that matter clean my own bathroom

So what am I doing instead? Surfing the web, drinking my 3rd cup of coffee, reading the Trib, and putting off everything else!

65 degrees here yesterday! It was 7 on Tuesday. What is up with that??? No sunshine today so it's kind of depressing.

My friend has surgery tomorrow so that's really all that's on my mind today. I think it hit her Friday that this was really going to happen. Tomorrow will be a long day for all involved. I don't envy her husband having to sit around pretty much all day and wait. Love you T-my prayers are with you.

Here's hoping for an early spring-yesterday was a teaser. I really don't care if the groundhog saw his shadow this week. If he'd been diligent on his diet and exercise it would be sunny and warm again today ;0)

Happy New Year & welcome to my blog...

My Recurrent New Year's Resolutions:
1. Lose weight
2. Be more organized

My 2009 New Year's Resolutions Revamped:
1. Eat smart and exercise regularly to achieve a healthy weight
2. Slowly and thoroughly declutter closet by closet and drawer by drawer
3. Put myself first more often


I spent New Year's Eve with Brian and wonderful friends and rang in the new year. January 1st I pinned my hopes on 2009. I hope this will be the year I actually achieve my resolutions. I hope this will be the year my children realize their true passion in life. I hope this will be the year Brian and I can take a week and relax and enjoy being together. I hope this will be the year I can take advantage of all life has to offer and share it with my husband, family, and good friends. Wow, those are really high expectations I know.

It's the middle of January and I'm already struggling. I miss my daughter who's back at school already and enjoying the frigid temperatures in northwestern Wisconsin. I'm sad at the thought that my son leaves Sunday for a new dorm, a new roommate, and a new semester. Work has been difficult-my patients and their families seem unhappy in general. And my best friend is facing an uphill battle against a serious medical problem.

Hmm, I'm not sure where this year is leading me. So I'm trying to embrace the good things: my daughter is happy and content; my son seems excited; I still love what I do for a living; and my best friend has a wonderful husband and children and me.

Life is what we make of it...

Janet

So we learned a few things at our Christmas celebration this weekend: Caitlin's sense of direction is a little bit better than it used to be, she is also obsessed with iFart; Ben is quite adept with connectagons, and loves to tell jokes about bears and rabbits and shit oh my; Brian and David still act like little children and wrote condoms on their sister's grocery list; and I'm not too good at blogging-4 people are assisting me with this post and we're still struggling!

Happy 2009 to everyone. We finally get to celebrate with my parents, and sister's family tomorrow. The several inches of snow we got today helped getting everyone in the holiday mood again.

Happy New Year!

Janet