Still here... but not for long!

I know I've been quiet lately. It's just been a quiet week for me and I never quite got around to posting this week.

I'm not going to post much now because I'm leaving soon to visit family out of state. CutiePie and HandsomeBoy are so excited to see their cousins! We haven't seen them since Thanksgiving and it was August before that! Luckily, it looks as though the weather is going to cooperate!

I'll have more to say next week - I promise! I've already got a few thoughts stewing around in my head!

Have a great weekend!

80 years ago last month.......

my grandmother and the last of her family emigrated to the US! We've always had some sketchy details about when and how, but as of last night, I have the real information!

I'm a member of a few Jewish Genealogy listservs and last night I just happened to notice an email about the Port of Bremen's ship manifest information being available in an online database. I thought that was where my Grandmother had sailed from, so I clicked on the link, intending merely to bookmark the page. When I got to the page, there was a line to enter in a last name. I had a few moments, so I figured what the heck. Not two minutes later, I was staring at a passenger list that showed my grandmother, her parents, her sister and two brothers. They left the port of Bremen on January 12, 1927 and set out for America, leaving all they'd ever known behind. Of the 6 older children, 5 were already living in America, having been sent over with cousins, aunts and uncles. 1 of my grandmother's sisters stayed behind because she had married a Russian officer who would/could not leave. They never heard from her again after WWII.

When they arrived in America, they found that the older children were Americanized and had made full lives for themselves here, marrying and having children. In fact, the oldest siblings had never even met the two youngest brothers who came over with my Grandmother!

I find it interesting that my family has come full circle in many ways -- once again, a Russian child steps forward and leaves behind all they ever knew to step into new life in America, joining family they've never met and hoping for a better life. It all worked out pretty well last time around; I hope we are once again blessed with success.


ATTENTION - 12pm addition: Obviously I wrote this too early in the morning, before I'd had my coffee! We are NOT yet in the process for a daughter (although I'm still hoping to be) and I didn't mean to make it sound that way! I'll revise this post later when I have a chance. Sorry to excite everyone!

Works for Me Wednesday - Keys

Here's a really simple thing that has saved me untold grief over the years. In every place I've ever lived since I started college, I have affixed a cheap little sticky hook to the wall next to the main door and I hang my keys on it EVERY time I come in -- without fail! This way, I ALWAYS know where my keys are. I lose lots of things -- trust me, I do - but my keys aren't one!

I have found that I'm much more likely to use a storage idea or device if it makes sense and is easier than the alternative. Keeping my keys by the door works for me!

Now, between my husband and I and our various cars, truck, motorcycle, and spare keys, we actually have a row of pegs that hold all of our keys. When we have guests over, we ask them to hang their keys there also. That really helps in the late evening or early morning if one vehicle needs to be moved to let another one out of the driveway!

Works for me!

Wordless Wednesday - Brothers sharing nicely!

My accent (or lack thereof)

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland   "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
Philadelphia
The South
The Northeast
The Inland North
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I'm a lucky lady!

as of 3pm, there's an update at the bottom of this post!!!

Well, yeah ..... of course I am! I know that! I'm so very lucky in so many ways, but for the purposes of this post, I mean that I'm very lucky, as in, I'm having a streak of very good luck right now!

My latest little online addiction to do in my micromoments of spare time is entering contests and sweepstakes. I've got a list of them bookmarked on my computer and, while I'm waiting on hold or for a document to print, I'll go down my list and enter a contest or two. Some of the ones I enter are very small - for a DVD or song download -- and some are very big -- a new house in the Rocky Mountains AND $250,000 in cash -- but most are somewhere in between.

I started getting into it late last summer and since then, I've won various things of varying value, but I'm totally hooked! Some of the things I've won have been (the wins since last week are in bold):

Tickets:
* Movies
* Rodeo
* Family 4-pack tickets to a local amusement park
* Family 4-pack tickets to local aquarium
* Scooby Doo Show
* Season subscription to broadway series at nearby theatre
* Valentine's Day Concert at local symphony
* Family 4-pack to the Auto Show
* Tickets to see local childrens theatre performance

Items:
* DVDs
* CDs
* Song download
* Toiletry and makeup samples
* 96 lottery tickets

Gift Certificates
* Borders
* Restaurants
* Flower Nursery
* Ice cream

And my big prize:

* Grand Prize win - New Years Eve Weekend in NYC, including transportation and meals and tour of CBS studios on Game Day (but we took the cash option instead)

I try not to enter any contests in which I really don't want the prize being offered, so most of the stuff I've won, I've been very excited about! Even small little things can make you happy! The rodeo tickets are a great example -- I knew the rodeo was coming to town, but I wasn't interested in paying to take the family to see it. It was definitely NOT worth the money. I'm trying very hard to watch our budget right now and I couldn't justify that expense. However, I was THRILLED when I won the tickets -- "free" was just about the right price!!! LOL! We all had a great time and the boys still talk about it months later! CutiePie recently came across a rodeo on TV and was so excited!

So, get out there and enter something today! Maybe you can win, too!!!


UPDATE: Seriously, I'm not making this up! I just looked out on my front porch and noticed a box that had not been there earlier this morning. When I opened it, I discovered that I'd won a contest sponsored by a local radio station and I'd won tickets to the Dancing With the Stars Tour, a $50 restaurant gift certificate, a fleece pullover and a hat!!! Wow! This is my best week ever!!!

Finally Friday!!!!

Yay! It's Friday! I've been waiting all week for today! Now, Friday is always a good day (end of workweek, celebrating Shabbat at home with my family, starting weekend fun activities), but this week, I'm even more excited than usual!

Why, you ask? Because this weekend, I'm going away on my now-annual scrapbooking weekend with my FlyFriends! We're not going far, the "resort" isn't that luxurious, the food is plentiful but only adequate in quality and last year the showers only showered us with COLD water! BUT, I get the weekend away with fun friends and time to work on my albums!!! YAY!!! What more could a gal ask for? Well, sure, I COULD ask for a daily spa treatment, but let's keep it real!

So, what do I plan to do with this time this weekend? First of all, I want to work on my boys' albums. Through AdoptShoppe, I found a great "baby book" called The Story of Me, which is much more than a traditional baby book and is fully customizable to meet our particular needs! I purchased it with the adoption supplement and also the Jewish supplement! I've already started making notes on sticky notes and placing them in the book, but I believe that I can get a lot done this weekend! I've printed out a lot of photos that I want to use and am going to copy the boys' adoption documents at Kinko's this morning! I won't be able to totally complete it, but I will make a lot of progress!

The other big project I want to work on is to assemble a really neat album I bought from Lisa Bearnson's website that's called All About Me. I'm just not creative enough to create such a wonderful album on my own. Lately, I've been trying to limit my "scrapbooking" to projects like that. I take a lot of photos and I've found that I need to keep them in traditional photo albums. I also upload them to an online service where I can store and share them, which is great. I've started to create books on the online site rather than actually scrap the photos into an album. It's quicker, probably cheaper and much much easier!!! I like the end result better, too!

If I have time, I may also start an album for each boy that just contains their school photos, class photos and other portraits that we take outside of school. In just two and a half years, I have nearly 10 such photos for each boy, so I guess I better start now -- it's only going to get harder as the project gets bigger!

By the way, I have to do a quick shout-out to RockStar at this point. Not only is he fine with me hopping off for a weekend of girltime, he's going to be 100% responsible for the boy AND they've got two big activities at the synagogue this weekend that he will be taking them to. My former-altar-boy-who-still-corrects-priests-during-mass husband RockStar!!! Yay him!!! I haven't posted much about the challenges and joys of an interfaith family, and I'm not going to go into it in this post, but I wanted to say how much I love him and how great he is. So, while I'm enjoying the buffet at the resort tonight, RockStar will be eating Shabbat dinner at the synagogue with the boys, their classes and my parents. How cool is that?

Okay, gotta go finish packing now! I leave in less than 3 hours!! Woo-hoo!!!

Have a great weekend!