rachel's continued ramblings

so, my dad has been v e r y  s l o w l y going though boxes in his garage, getting rid of stuff, etc. a lot of it is my mom's stuff that he has no use for or doesn't think he will use. protocol is that he shows it to me before he gives it away, in case it's something I want or could use. today's box was full of candles. back when we lived in ohio, my mom and I went to a couple of partylite parties, and she even hosted one. all of my partylite candles have long since been burnt up, but she apparently still had a bunch, and my doesn't seem to think that scented candles need to be a part of his life. win for me. so i'm sorting though this box to see what there is. aside from a bunch of partylite tealights and an awesome 3 wick brick candle, there were some candle holders, and then a bunch of assorted stuff and a big ziplock of the cheapy tealights we use in jack-o-lanterns and not much else. I already have my own big ziplock of those, so those will probably fin

our thanksgiving was a little bit non-traditional this year. shane had left on Wednesday to spend the weekend in California with gramma laurie, helping with the community center thanksgiving dinner they have put on for the last 21 years. so he was absent at home. also, dave was sick, and spent most of the day like this:   note the Kleenex box...   but, that didn't stop us from cooking and baking, watching the parade and the dog show, having a yummy meal, playing scattergories, watching football, finishing up with coffee and pie, OR being thankful.   Layla helped with the apple pie. slicing the apples, and crimping the edges of the crust is her favorite part. finished product. got to try out my fancy snowflake pie crust cutters that I got from a student last year. so pretty! I should really make more pies.  we always look forward to the rockettes during the macy's parade. it starts with an onion and a whole stick of butter. can't go wrong!

making me feel kind of stupid. so, dave is sick. yesterday was thanksgiving. all sorts of things making this not normal and not really a big deal, but I found it almost comical, how many times my sleep could be interrupted last night, without having sick kids or a newborn. we sent the kids to bed around 9:30, watched an episode of Gilmore girls, and then I noticed dave was sleeping in the recliner. I wasn't really ready for bed, so I turned on some mindless episodes of friends on Netflix and cuddled up with my blanket on the couch. of course, I fell asleep. around 2:30, I woke up, put the dog in his crate, and turned out the lights. Dave was still snoozing away in the recliner, and I figured it was best to leave him alone. so I went to bed. and couldn't sleep. I was finally settling in when HIS ALARM WENT OFF at 3:15! in the morning! apparently this was still set from Wednesday when he had to get shane to the airport at stupid o'clock. so I went back to sleep and the

Because why not a pic of food?

Will it crash?

I've got this nifty new/old thing going on with my meal plans. I was seriously lacking in motivation in that department, so I decided to consolidate all of my go-to meals in one place where I can cycle though them in a somewhat orderly fashion so we don't get sick of stuff or neglect to have stuff we really like, but forgot about. so now I have all of my meals on 3x5 cards, along with a list of major ingredients I need for them and what I generally serve them with. I hole punched the corner of the cards and put them on a binder ring. I am also back to keeping the blank calendar page on the fridge and writing out my plans on that. so far, it's working well, and I feel much less overwhelmed by it all. I hate cooking and shopping much less when I have a coherent plan. Monday: fried chicken; oven fries; salad Tuesday: pizza; green beans Wednesday: taco casserole Thursday: thanksgiving dinner Friday: turkey rerun (how the smallbecks refer to leftover thanksgiving dinner)

and now I've discovered that, since the latest iPhone update, the blogger app does nothing but crash when you try to use it. apparently a much needed update to the app is late in coming. will wait and see. so, here I am, on my computer, like I used to be. I'm sick right now. I've been fighting this weird cold situation since over a week ago. it didn't get bad until about Thursday. I wound up taking Friday off of work, but I didn't feel too awful (just sounded like someone you didn't want your kid around) and spent the day getting caught up on laundry and general tidying around the house. I didn't really feel terrible until evening, when I sat in a daze at gymnastics, trying not to breathe on anyone. yesterday was much the same. I attempted a little productivity, which took me to about 3, when I went to take a nap. and pretty much stayed in bed (minus coming down to have some soup) until this morning at 9:30. today, i'm skipping church, but will have

so, i'm kinda frustrated. yes, I realize this is stupid, since keeping this blog up to date has not exactly been a priority of late, but still. I spent a lot of time getting my stuff configured how I wanted it and how it would function best and how to insert pictures easily and all that, and now it won't work. ive always used windows live writer for my posts, and now, that is apparently dead, and it won't communicate with blogger and allow me to post. so I can post here, right in blogger, but the picture configuring is heinous and I hate it. or I can post via the app, but again, the picture configuring is heinous and I hate it. so. I can just not post, which has pretty much been protocol for the last year or so. or I can deal with my less than stellar options, and do my best. I miss blogging. I kind of feel like social media stole it. no need to post pictures and updates, because I can do it immediately from my phone, the second it happens. but I like the record o