Home is where your story begins ,,,,,,

Well, it's a new year. So far so good, my main resolution is to keep things in perspective. Weed the garden so to speak, lose the friends that see me as a checkbook and cherish those that see me as a friend.

My youngest daughter Ashleigh is due to have her first baby anytime soon. Thats exciting and so is she and her hubby Dan. They dont know the gender of the baby yet and thats really cool in my book. We (Judy and I) always asked and found out. It was nice knowing but the surprise was gone, but then everything you had was the "correct" gender based color. I dont neccesarily agree with that. When my girls were small I bought them cars, and trucks as much as dolls. Wanna know a secret? Gotta promise not to tell. ok? I remember my 6th birthday (HA!, and my kids say my memory sux. My 6th birthday was like a millineum ago) anyway, on my 6th birthday I had a cake with a big fish on top made purely of sugar. I ate the heck out of that thing and probably bounced off the walls the rest of the day. Anyway the secret is I received paper dolls from my Mom. Not sure if it was because I was the oldest and she wanted a girl or if she , like me, didnt go for the gender biased gifts etc. True girls wear dresses, and boys wear,,,, ummm ,,,,,, well everything but dresses and girls wear it all. So, girls were easier to buy for because they would/could wear anything.

It's nice that Jessica can be here as she missed out on Amandas kids so she is equally excited and Amanda wishes she could be here. Thier Mom will be here staying at Jessicas so it will be a busy couple of weeks for them.

For me, I have a weeks refresher training for work, then going to Montana for Taylors 2nd birthday, then back. So, I will be busy enjoying myself in other venues. Its a good thing as well. Gonna be kind of crowded and "busy" the first few weeks and I can see the little one all I want after it settles down.

Spoke to Tammy and Carri the other day which was really nice. I dont get to talk to them that often so amd trying to actually schedule at least a monthly call to each of them, my brother, and my Mom. That way I dont lose touch and when I call am informed that so-and-so just had thier 4th birthday and i thought they were still two. That didnt actually happen but you know what I mean. Need to try and get a longer vacation this summer and get out and visit everyone from Chicago, to Arizona and Washington to Texas.

I live in a dump, notice I said IN not AT. LOL  It is a lot less a dump than when I bought it. Have actually done quite a bit. The living room was taken out to the studs last winter and rebuilt completely. Jessica was a big help after she moved here, i hired some and did a lot myself. I built a two-car garage with a large shop on the rear so i could work on stuff in the winter. Of course between kids cars, motorcycles, etc it is a large storage room for the winter. So a couple months ago i built a decent size storage room so now there is actually room to work on stuff (around Jessica's Mustang, my vette, and Dans two motorcycles LOL) but still much better than last winter. My winter project this year is the kitchen / dining room, or the second bedroon / hallway, or the bathroom, or ,,,,  see why I tend to run out of winter before the winter project is done.8) The water heater went out the other day, it is accessed from the outside so it was a cold repair in 4 degree weather. It didnt want to drain so I got wet 1/2 way through so the last half was even colder. Couldnt wait for it to heat up so I could take a HOT shower. LOL

We finally got Dan's new engine in his truck a couple weeks ago. It runs really good, but took 4 months to do accomplish. But that was because I was not familiar with Toyota engines thus hesitant to just jump in there. So, Jeremy came over and we (Dan, Jeremy, and I) got it in. We, of course, had the obligatory pizza and Dan and i won at 8 slices each. After we got it in there was a major oil leak between the head and front timing chain cover. None of us were happy and I was less happy because i already felt bad re; the 4 month thing. Well, luckily I had paid attention so I tore it down the next day, replaced the head gasket, and reassembled it all in one day. Even started it before bed time at 4pm. I felt mucho better, had got my "guy thing" back. LOL

Well, it's a new year. No regrets from 2010 and only one resolution for 2011. Sa far so good. I am optimistic. Love to ALL my family from the oldest Tammy to the youngest Ruby or Nazareth to be born anyday now. I love you all.

After work in the morning I need to give a friend a ride up to the court house for Grand Jury duty and it's mucho to cold to walk.  But even at 4 degrees and -30 degree windchill it is never to cold for a breakfast split. 8)