Cheer Contest today.

This is a picture of Ethan doing a handstand.




This is a picture of Kayden in a stunt stance. He's the one on top.








These are pictures of my great nephews at a cheerleading contest today. They do really, really well. I am so proud of them. They both got gold medals and trophies. Sorry that the pictures are dark. That's the best I could do.

Taxes, Taxes, Taxes

Why is it that when you work overtime you end up not getting as much money as what you should? I worked 7 hours of overtime last pay weeks and that totaled $240. I was hoping to about $200 extra thinking $40 is a lot to take in taxes. But alas, they ended up taking $65 out in taxes. I guess I have to pay for the defecit somehow. But it makes me wonder, I wake up an hour early every day for what reason?

I am hoping to work on my 2009 taxes this weekend. Still have about 8 months of bookkeeping on Ebay before I start figuring if I can claim my parents again this year.

I am working on my budget for $2010. I have to change my budget because my net income dropped by $40. Thanks to increased health insurance premium and no raise.

Why do I spend money when it is in my purse?

Last week I went out to eat with some friends and took enough money to make sure I had enough. I ended up with $15 left over which I left in my purse. I have noticed in the last week that it has been easy to spend that when it is in my purse. If I don't have it in my purse I don't spend it. Why is that? It just seems that because the money is in my purse, I can buy all kinds of things because I have extra money in my purse. Does that make sense? Why can I deny myself when I don't have extra money and not deny myself when I do? I am a great saver as long as I don't carry extra money in my purse.

One more day until the start of the X-games. I am excited about watching that. But why do they have it on so late at night? It does not start until 9:00.

Tonight I want to watch the President's speech. He is to talk on more support for people who care for elderly parents. That's me. So I am interested in hearing what kind of support that might be.

Training for a new job

Yesterday and today I have been in training for a different kind of a job where I work. This training is how to process an appeal request. An appeal comes in when someone does not agree with a decision on their benefits. So the last two days we have learned how to investigate a case action. I think I will like the job. Tomorrow I will learn the part of the job that I will be doing the most. Putting hearing packets together.

I am excited about seeing my great nephews this weekend at a cheerleader contest in Fort Wayne. I know they will be AWESOME!

I am excited that the Colts are in the Superbowl. I can't believe how expensive the tickets are. Not that I would go. But just hearing a sky box is $3500. To rich for my blood. So I will watch on tv.

Sports day

This afternoon I am watching lots of sports. Colts play at 3:00, IU basketball plays at 6. But today is not the only day I will watch sports. Starting Thurs. is the X-treme games. There are certain things I like to watch in X games and some I do not. I like to watch snowboarding, I love to watch downhill snowboard racing. In the summer X games I like to watch motorcycle high jump.

Then in February starts the Winter Olympics. I love watching the Olympics. My favorite in winter is tobogganing (always root for Jamaica and US), ice skating and speed skating.

I went to Burlington Coat Factory yesterday and got a new winter coat. I wore it today at church and found someone had the same coat. Only hers did not have the inside coat piece to make hers a winter jacket. And when I put the jacket on this morning I found out it was the same green that was in my Vera Bradley purse. I didn't see that before.

I gave my poodle dog a bath today. He is pretty good when it comes to bathing. At least he does not try to jump out of the tub. He just stands there.

Great day today

I had a great day today. It started out by going to a brunch with my mother at her church. Great funny speaker. Laughed so hard. Then to the grocery store. Then shopping and got a new winter coat. Then bowling and then out to eat at a new Mexican restaurant in Huntington. Yum Yum.

I bowled a 127, 109 and 134. I was very pleased with that.

Strange things I have done

I have nothing to write tonight so I will list a few strange things that I have done in my life:

1. Went parasailing and after getting up in the air the boat motor died and I went floating down into the ocean.

2. During a J-term at college I was surrounded by cross dressers in jail and asked the guard if they mix men with women. (My class was just visiting by the way I was not in jail)

3. At the county fair, on my 2nd date with this guy just out of high school I asked him what the different was between a cow and a bull and then changed it to steer and a bull.

4. Stayed in a hotel with a hot tub in my room without a swimsuit. So I went out and bought an excercise suit because the stores did not have swimsuits for sale and went in the hot tub with that on.

What crazy things have you done?

Dinner with friends.

Ate dinner tonight with 3 of my favorite people. Had a wonderful time. Lots of laughs. And great to catch up with everyone. Had chips and salsa and a taco. That's enough for me. I just like the chips and salsa. I could easily fill up on that.

My niece had a procedure done today and it sounds pretty hopeful for her. Pretty excited for her.

Going to watch the rest of the IU basketball game.

My job is changing

I found out today that I will no longer be working Constituent Care. I have been moved to hearing and appeals. I will still be in the same office just working in a different department and with a different boss. I do not mind working in hearings and appeals. It is very close to the same thing I am doing now. What I do mind is that now I will have a boss in the building that I work in. So now I cannot get away with a lot of things I could get away with before. There may be a lot of pressure on me if she doesn't like my work. Where my former boss was very lax. I really liked that. But I am trying to keep an open mind.

My dad forgot to take his medicine last night before he went to bed. So today his blood pressure went up to 222 over 122. He had a nose bleed. Luckily it stopped. Right now is it down to 191 over 96 so it is coming down.

Tomorrow I am meeting 3 friends for dinner. Am pretty excited about that. We are eating at Carlos O'Kelly's. That's Mexican for those that don't know.

I have been thinking a lot about retirement preparation lately. The market has been doing a lot better so I think I may start moving things around again in my retirement savings at work. I would like to retire at 55 but still not sure I am going to be able to pull it off. I'd like to have $100000 saved up but the problem is that most of it is going to be in work accounts that I can't get at until 62 without paying a penalty. I don't want to lose a lot that I have earned. So I have got to start being a little more aggressive elsewhere.

Did you know I was a "cougar"?

I found out tonight that I am considered a "cougar". According to the Yahoo webpage article on the Royal Carribian ships that are stopping in Haiti that they are also planning a "cougar cruise" for older single women. I guess I never thought of myself as a cougar before. Can't say that I have a lot of snaral or scratch left in me. I just got a great laugh out of that.

I totally understand why people are up in the air about Royal Carribien porting at a cove off of Haiti when all the distruction is going on. I would feel horrible if I were crusing and we stopped there. They can tell me all they want that my money is needed in Haiti to help them recover, but getting off of a luxurious cruise ship is not the way to help. And I can tell you I would be sick to my stomach the rest of the trip home.

I was considering my next cruise to be on Royal Carribien but I am not sure now. Maybe as time goes by I will forget.

I just heard on the news that 90 Haiti children were flown to PA from an orphanage that were in the process of adoption. Their adopting parents were called and told to come to PA and pick them up. They set up a makeshift court in the hospital and granted adoptions on the spot. Why is it that I am always a day late. They did say there are about 900 Hatian kids that are spoken for by people in the US.

My Mother's doctor visit

I took my mother to a follow-up doctors appointment today.  It was with her diabetic doctor.  He is very nice and I think he is helping.  He assured her today that she is not doing anything wrong but her body within her is not functioning correctly.  She is not producing much insuln.  He decreased the number of units she takes of the long acting and increased the number of units of the short acting.  He said her blood work looked really good.  Her liver is good, her kidney's are good and her electralights are good.  But her vit D is low.  He at least is trying to allow her to eat what she wants to eat and just counteract that by taking more insulin.  That made her happy. 

Then we went to eat at Crackel Barrel.  There is nothing like Crackel Barrel's sweet ice tea.  If I had to choose between McDonald's sweet tea and Crackel Barrel's I would have to say Crackel Barrel hands down.  I ordered my favorite meal:  mac and cheese and green beans.  For those of you that don't know me, I don't like eating meat.  I am not apposed to it, it is just not my favorite.  I do eat it so I cannot call me a vegatarian so I call myself "like a vegatarian." 

Then this afternoon I started working on my taxes.  I have an Ebay business and I have all my income and expenses in an envelope but I have not put those on paper.  So today I started that.  I am also like a procrastanator.  I completed up to April.  Yahoo.

Tonight I have sign class.  It has been since the beginning of Dec. since we have met.  I have forgotten alot.  Then back to work tomorrow.  3 day weekends go way to fast.

My random thoughts

Lots of thoughts going through my head today. Not sure why. And of course no answers. So I decided to share them with you.

Last night I opened the closet to get a band aid and noticed we have 3 boxes of band aids. I thought that was not right for me to have 3 boxes of band aids and Haiti to have none. It was not a good feeling.

I have another thought running through my head. Although I have not thought it all the way through, it is just a pondering thought. I hate leftovers. I only want to enjoy something 1 time. I do not want to enjoy it the next day. But I also hate throwing food away. Then I started thinking about those people who are trying to cut back to survive financially. And I got the idea of passing left overs on to other people. Now I know because of health reasons the Health Dept. would look down on this. But if it happened on a small scale maybe just between 5 families maybe it would work. If people took their left overs and put them in containers and gave them to another family, that is like getting a meal, not leftovers. And if I got food from someone else I don't think I would think of it as left overs because I did not enjoy it the day before. And I think it would cut down on grocery bills for everyone. OK am I crazy?

My weekend

I am excited about my weekend. I have a 3 day weekend thanks to Martin Luther King or should I say his parents for having him.

To day I went grocery shopping and was only $2 over my budget. That is very good. Considering my calculator went off in the middle of grocery shopping because I took too long looking at labels and I had to guess how much was on it before it went off.

My mom is looking for some snack items that she can eat that are Carbohydrates free. That is very hard to find. I spent a long time at the store today looking for snack items. I did find a beef stick that was a honey ham stick. I bought one for her to try to see if she liked it. It was 2 carbs. I bought her a salmon pack (like tuna) that she can put on crackers but crackers are a high carb. I bought her some olives that are zero. I bought her pork rinds that are zero. She takes after her father who was diabetic and couldn't stay out of the food. The sad thing is that one day I will be just like her. So far I have had the same things as she has had so I am taking more after her than my dad. People will not believe me in 20 years when I am 190 lbs.

I have a Colts sweatshirt on. I went to Wal-Mart today and saw lots of Colts clothing on people. It is going to be a great game tonight.

Today's retirement party

We had a lady retire at work today. She is my age but has had many strokes in the last few years so she had to retire. She has not had much money most of her life. So the office went all out on her party. We rented a Limo to pick her up after work and it drove her to Red Lobster where she had dinner. It was Awesome. It was a huge limo. Fun to watch and made you feel really good.

I am not expecting anything like that for my retirement party. Cake and punch will be fine. And of course my former workers there to celebrate.

Hatti

I feel so sad about all the devastation in Hatti. My heart really goes out to them. They need so much help. And I feel so helpless.

I think my personally is that I care about people who are needy. And I feel torn because there are so many people that need help here in the States, and far away lands. I just feel so overwhelmed. Oh I know it is not my responsibility to help everyone, but this thing inside me wants to. Even though I financially can't. And there are just so many that need help.

There is a lady at work that just had a fire
There are people at my church who are out of a job
There are newly married couples that are struggling to make it

I think my whole personality was developed as a child when I saw all the Church people always giving to us (the pastor's family) They would give us food every Christmas and cash..... guess it just engraved in my personality how cool that was.

I have friends who do not understand how I can give my money away and not spend it on me. It's kinda hard to explain what's in your heart.

When something like this happens I just want to jump up and say OK, lets get started raising money. And my mind just runs and runs. How crazy is that. I never said I was normal!!!

So I will pray for God to give what is needed to those that are hurting.

My work

Well what a day today. My boss told me a few days ago that I was working too fast and processing more cases than the other workers and I needed to slow down. I slowed down today and she called me at 4:00 and said I was still working to fast. I said you're kidding, I spent half an hour looking at House Bill to terminate privatization. I went to the bathroom 2 more times than I normally do. I daydreamed a little. And still am working to fast. I am not sure what else I can do. But I told her I would try tomorrow to go slower.

We were originally told when you work for a private company they give bonuses for people who do good work. Well I have worked circles around all the people in my group for the last 2 years and still no bonus. But they have been very very good to me.

Found out today that my House representative voted against House bill 1003 which is a bill to do away with privatization of the welfare program. It was only in committee when he voted no. And he was outbid. So not it goes to the whole House. Fingers Crossed.

Oh NO Stop the BUBBLES!!!

Our timeshare had a hot tub. One day I decided the girls would love getting in and feeling the jets and taking a bubble bath. I had brought some really old bubble bath liquid with me. A little bigger than a travel size. I think it was about 5 years old. I put in one capfull as the water started going in but there were not very many bubbles. I thought maybe because it was so old it may have lost it's bubbleness so I put in another capfull. Still no bubbles. I repeated about 2 more times. The water finally made it past the jets so I turned on the jets. The kids hopped in and boy did they like it. Untill all of a sudden the tub was full of bubbles and starting to overflow. I had to shut the jets down or the whole bathroom would have been full. My sister-in-law Kathy was thinking we were all going to be consumed by bubbles and she would never find her grandchildren again. Well I guess the kids didn't mind. Here's their picture below.

I guess that is the last time they let their great aunt Dona start a bubble bath.

pictures from Florida

Florida Vacation

It was too late last night to write anything when I put the pictures on so I will tell you about my vacation to Florida.

I took my oldest brother and his family. There were 13 of us all together. We stayed in 2 timeshares. When I first made the reservation at the first one they did not have another room so it took me 3 months to find a second one. According to the addresses and Map quest they were about 25 minutes away from each other. We really did not like that idea but it was the best I could do.

We left Christmas afternoon, stayed in a motel in GA. that night and left early the next morning. We made it to the first timeshare at Midnight. We were all very tired. Got everyone checked into that one and headed to ours. I had given my nephew the address and he put it into his GPS. After 5 minutes of traveling he pulls into this timeshare. I said Cory, this can't be right it's suppose to be 25 minutes away. So I walked in expecting it not to be it..... and lo and behold it was. That was AWESOME.

Did I happen to mention my nephew in law lost his ring on the way down. They hunted and hunted at the hotel but it could not be found. That is not a good start to a vacation. He had helped me pack my trunk before leaving and about 3 days into the trip, my great niece and I found the ring in my trunk. Woot Woot.

We all went to Silver Springs and saw lots of alligators and about 3 glass bottom boats. Great weather and lots of God's animals to see. Pictures below if I can figure it out.

Then of course Disney World. I did the tea cups cause I do spinning rides but not up and down rides. And saw lots of shows. Left the park to pick up my brother who needed to sleep in a little only to find out the park was closed due to maxing out on people there. They were turning everyone away. (They had warned me that could happen if I leave) When I got to the parking ticket booth I showed them my ticket from earlier that day and he said "you are the lucky one, go on in." Everyone else they were making turn around.

Loved the lazy river at our timeshare. And did I mention that the pool was heated? It wasn't heated at the other timeshare.

I have to tell you about my little great niece. I just loved watching you. Her mom does pinkie promises with her. I just loved it. So I tried it one morning. She wanted to go upstairs and I did not want her to wake her sister up so I said promise you will not wake your sister up. She smiled. I said pinkie promise? She came downstairs and stuck her pinkie out and we pinkie shook. Oh to be able to do that with adults.....

OK I will stop now. I could go on and on.

Disney Pictures of family

Getting by in this age

I talked with a women at church this morning whose husband is unemployed. And it made me start thinking again..... I love thinking about finance and how to survive in this world. I have heard several radio programs on finance these days and agree that all of us have got to develop home businesses in order to survive. In face one program I heard said you should have 2 or 3 small businesses. So when one of you lose a job you can fall back on the small business.

There are so many things that a person can do to start a small business. I'll only name a few
make jewelry
make scrapbook pages
make pinatas
make desserts
drive older people around
sell cups with items in them with themes like break, sports, work, snack,


I have often thought about getting several people to go in for a craft sale at the local park. The building rents for $300 for the day. If I had 30 people who would take a table at $20 and sell their craft items I would make $600 minus $300 for the building I would still make $300. And everyone else gets to keep what they make at their table minus the $20 cost of the table.

I just don't know how people are getting by these days without a home business.

What other ideas do you have for self employment businesses?

Sunday all is not well

Well this is day 5 and dad is still coughing and just doesn't feel well. He is not a good sick person. But then most men are not. Any ideas out there?

Going to church this morning. I am learning sign language, but classes are on hold right now until we can come up with a date to meet. It is a slow process to learn and remember for this old woman. But I like being able to go to church and sign a word here and there to the songs. It gives me a different form of worship that I can appreciate as a visual person.

Bowling tonight

Well I did not do as good as I wanted to do in bowling tonight. I just could not make those pins fall. I would hit the pocket but would leave 1 standing. We were on lanes 1 and 2. Maybe that is why things did not go my way. I bowled a 112, 126 and 103.

The only thing I hate is coming home smelling like smoke.

I need to buy some bowling shoes. I pay $1.25 a week for shoes at the alley. I should have bought them at the beginning of the season. Guess I will go on a hunt for some.

I think after taking 2 weeks off from bowling due to vacation, I need my niece "the massager" to come give me a treatment. I am getting old.....

DLynn's activities for the day

Here is my first blog. Thought I would just jump in and start. I am always the last one to do anything like this so here we go. I bet I have finally done something that my 30 something nieces have not done. I love it when I bet them at something new.

Today I went to Wal-Mart for groceries. I spent $80 some dollars and only came home with about 6 bags. That is crazy. I need to find another place to shop.

This afternoon I am working 3 hours of overtime. For those that do not know me, I work for the Welfare Dept. I used to be a state worker but the Governor privatized Indiana state welfare so now I work for the private company called ACS (Affiliated Computer Services). With the overtime money I am planning on a trip to Calf. to visit my nephew, his wife and their baby. I am hoping to go in March or April. I want to spend time with each of my nieces and nephews this year. That is my goal anyways.

Tonight I will go bowling. I am on a league and am enjoying it. I do not have a great average about 120's but I am getting better and better every week. And it is good exercise for someone who does not exercise. Mostly I think I am just intrigued with the bowling ball that I use that has 3 finger holes. I found it at the ally.