What are these people waiting for?

It's a Parade!

Thank you!

Today was the Halloween Parade at Crossridge! The kids had a great time, and made quite a haul! Don't click on read more - cause it would be a trick! There isn't any more!

Like I have nothing better to do today

I spent the morning looking up tree leaves and I finally narrowed the 2 maples in the back yard down to this - Acer Rubrum, shown in the picture above. My leaves look like the top two small leaves. According to the references I found (from Oregon State no less) my tree could also be some variation of this species. Apparantly there is a maple that is often a cross between the red maple and the silver maple (which I originally thought my trees were) which is called a Freeman maple. There are three kinds of Freeman Maples and my leaves also look like one of those: the Armstrong Maple, shown below.

The issue I have with my tenative identification is that my leaf is not as flat at the base where the stem attaches to the leaf as the first picture, and is very serrated on the edges.But hey, my leaves are turning red!!! So I am close.

Oops !

I managed (my fault entirely) to mess up my email program this morning and I have lost every email address, every phone number, every street address and yes every birthday for everyone I know ..... you got the drill. I am so upset with myself (not to mention how upset Eric is). So, anyone who stumbles upon this entry who is someone I contact, and has family or friends, children, or whom ever that I write too, please send me an email to rootjoanna@comcast.net. Please send any important information, like birthdays and anniversaries, work and cell numbers, etc!

Cat keeps eye on construction crews!

Cat Perch
Originally uploaded by Joanna Root.

We are having a neighborhood uproar about the construction trucks that are using our street to access the new homes being built in our area. To make a long story short, it won't change, and other than attempting to make them obey speed laws, there isn't much that is going to be different.

We personally, haven't found the noise or traffic to be annoying. Some people say their houses shake - maybe that might come about later, but I don't think so. Luckily we already have a buffer on both sides and all the houses on the other side of the street are mostly finished. Mostly we will just have to put up with the parade.

However, the constant stream of traffic does give Silly something to watch. She has no complaints.

Re-connected with the WWW

Today was a big day, the newspaper finally arrived and we were able to get connected to the internet again. I know this doesn't seem like a major thing, but it certainly turned out to be a trial by fire. Our first hurdle was the USPS. For over two weeks they did not have us in their national database. Now, this only seems strange because we were getting mail from them. Go figure ... they don't use their own database maybe? Because they didn't undate their database, Getconnected.com which is an internet company that is used to see what internet service is available was unable to validate that we were actually there. Once we finally showed up in the USPS, then we found out that not only Getconnected still didn't have us, but neither did Comcast. Go figure that one, since we already have cable TV from Comcast. Anyhow, someone higher up at Circuit City was finally able to get around all this .... and we are connected. And it is way cool to be connected at this speed! It's like driving a race car after being in a child's pedal car.