Kitten goes psychotic

They say animals know when a natural disaster is coming, If so, it must have happened while Silly was cleaning, eating or out and someone just forgot to notify her to pull her off alert. For some reason, unknown to the humans who live here, she has had ants in her pants all day long. I mean, this cat, who normally sleeps 6-8 hours during the day, has not sat still 5 minutes. She has paced, looked startled, and gone in and out of the cockpit about 10 times an hour since early this morning. She has wanted to go in the bilge, behind the drawers, behind the cushions ..... What ever she is looking for she can’t find. What ever she hears, no one else hears. We thought at first the pile driver working across the way in the housing development was upsetting her. It stopped at noon, and she still is checking for boogers at midnight. She has not had a cap nap, or even a mini cap nap all day.

So, what have the rest of us done today? I can say, proudly, I have finished two pairs of socks. Not one, but two! DH now has a spare, significant now that the temperatures are moving beyond sock weather. At least he will be ready for next winter!! He played on the computer, picked up mail, and let the cat in and out of the door 500 times. The cat paced. I knit. Then, I went out in the sunshine. Then I went to yoga! It was all in all a fine day, inspite of psychotic kittens.

Happy Easter to Everyone!

Happy Easter to Everyone! Here's a picture of Zack and Maddie sent to me this morning by Tom and Becky. Sorry I have't gotten one of Skyler yet, but expect I will before the day is out!

Mom is 85 Today

Let me be the first to say, Happy Happy Happy Birthday Mom!! Since it's 12:13 am I should be the first! Of course I know you'll be asleep right now, but you can't say I didn't try! I do hope you are going to have a wonderful day and have good things to eat! I only wish I could be there with all of you to celebrate and enjoy all the fun of watching you open your gifts. I know it will be a great day.



Here's the scarf unwrapped, so if the presents haven't been opened yet, don't let mom read this! (LOL) Anyhow, I enjoyed this project alot, and think I'd really like to do it again sometime.

Monday, Monday

Things are moving along here, it actually seems like Spring has decided to head in our direction. The sun was shinning brightly when I came up to the office today to work on the blogs. Anyhow, I don’t see any sun now, a few hours later, so I hope it is not cold out there when I head back to the boat.

Eric and I received the hard copy of our home contract in the mail, so I guess it is official. We also got an information letter telling us about selection. We have received an appointment, for April 4, at 1:30 in the afternoon. So, we’ll head to Richmond and pick out all the fun things, like carpet, paint, flooring, fixtures, counters, tile, etc, etc.!

Zack turns 3 on the 3rd, so we are thinking we might go up to Richmond then and spend the night in a motel, as Beck’s house will be full with Tom’s parents. They are flying in this Friday (25th) and staying until the 6th of April. I think this will be the first time they have not driven up. Tom will take the week off while they are visiting, so much fun should be had. He will get a break and the kids will have lots of entertainment.

Not too much happening here, as the weather warms up we will begin working on the boat again, scheduling the repairs that have to be made and trying to outfox the weather as we plan to take the boat to the yard. We are also thinking we might make a trip up to Baltimore to visit with Mary, maybe at the end of this week.

Erin-Go-Brah

Well Erin Go Brah to all of you Irish out there .... This fellow may really be flipping that coin to see if winter is over here as advertized today on the news.

The noon TV news today, St. Patrick’s Day, retired the “snowflake” the weathermen wear on their coats during newscasts to show they are predicting snow. I’d say not a day too soon, spring is coming this weekend some say. The news anchor said, “we have seen the last snow until next December”. Well, I don’t want to go crazy here, but that would be a nice change! We have had really ugly weather the last two days, and a change would be nice. Although we only saw a few flakes, the area has been getting on and off snow for two days because of very cold high altitude temperatures. Hampton Roads has been about 17 degrees below normal for weeks and weeks. A very long winter. Not ugly, but long.

Water – frozen snow, right? Well in this case I am referring to running water. Yes!!! We now have water to the boat again. Since January 11th, we have had water 4 days. Both those times it was turned on briefly to allow people to fill their tanks. I figure that is about 60 days without water this year alone. Oh boy, maybe this is the last time to be without water!

Other news of note, in case you didn’t notice, there is a link now in my main blog for the new house news. I thought I’d separate it too, as how exciting is a house to some people. Anyhow, the link is in the sidebar .... Just a click away.

Mom and Dad, I know you’ll be excited to be at Mike’s house. I say, next year, we all meet in Richmond! Maybe in April, we can celebrate Mom and Dad’s birthdays together.

New Blog for New Home

Here's the promised blog about the new house.

Confucius Says . . .

I’ve always been one to eat the cookie and read the fortune after a Chinese meal. I’ll even take the one's left behind if others don’t want theirs. I like the cookies, but always get a laugh from the fortunes. Even the funny joke of always adding “in Bed” to the end of the fortune verse cracks me up. I guess the fortune’s are fun because they are all so generic – it seems like they always applies somehow. Of course, if they are closely on target, that makes it even better and keeps the fun alive. And then you wonder, could this be true?

Yesterday we went to Richmond to CrossRidge to sign the contract for our new house. Right outside the gate to the development we stopped at the local Chinese Take- out for me to get some hot and sour soup. I thought (hoped) the soup would open up my head and calm my throat, as they were still bothering me. I ate the soup as we drove over to take a look at the lot again. We wanted to calm those jitters you always get after you’ve made a big decision, and then doubt yourself. Anyhow, the lot looked fine, actually better than we remembered. We were excited! I climbed back in the truck and picked up the trash from my lunch and saw in the bottom of the bag the fortune cookie. So this was my fortune:



I guess the big question I have now is, “how long is the statute of limitations on a fortune?

Crazy Crazy Weather

When we drove to Richmond on Saturday it was snowing, enough to stick to the ground, but the roads were clear. Zach already had a snowman made, which was waiting at the curb. By afternoon it was sunny and most of all the snow was gone. Sunday, Rebecca and I took the kids to Maymont, a park, zoo, garden and more in downtown Richmond. It was chilly, but the sun was shinning. Monday the temperatures were close to 70. Beautiful day! Tuesday we drove home in more snow, and the closer to home the heavier it got. The wind blew up to50 MPH, and even blew down a hanger in the red-iron stage of construction – obviously a tornado. As we got out of the car we heard multiple claps of thunder, as this as it snowed like crazy. By mid afternoon the snow was gone and we were in the 50’s. Crazy crazy weather.



Monday, as we were getting ready to pack the car and drive home I decided to made a call to CrossRidge and our agent said, “when can you come pick a lot?” As you can imagine, I said, “when do you want us to be there?” So at 2:30 we were out in that beautiful sun, looking at our choices. We were fortunate in that only one lot away from out first choice, we were able to pick one that was in the first phase of construction. As it turned out, Phase 1 contained 10 spec homes and only 2 free lots. Phase II and Phase III had the majority of lots. The base price of the homes went up $7,000 from Phase I, to II and again to III. You can imagine we were very pleased to take advantage of being in the first Phase. So lot 21 is ours and we go in the morning to Richmond again to sign a contract.


I won’t bore you too much with lot details, how exciting is a piece of dirt anyhow? But, (LOL) our lot will back to an existing neighborhood with 1950-60 era brick homes on big deep lots. Between our neighborhoods is a buffer of woods and a protected area that is watershed. To my understanding, it has to be maintained and CrossRidge even has to do more plantings behind us . We feel like this will be a better view out the back of our house where the living areas are. Had we picked across the street we would also have been backed by a neighborhood, but of multistory homes, with a fence and rather sparse trees between us. These existing homes look right down into the back yards of the new homes. So, we hope our home site will have more privacy, and afford some wildlife because of the woods, water and protective vegetation. Time will tell.

Tomorrow we go back to Richmond and sign on the dotted line. Whew, lots to think of and Eric (bless his soul) has been crunching numbers and we have compiled lists of choices, questions, etc. I think we will both feel better when we get past tomorrow. The final selections (colors of carpet, walls, counters, hardware, etc....) is April 15. The projected closing date is the first week in September. Of course all this is subjective, and depends on you know what, crazy crazy weather!

Trip to Wal-Mart

It’s Wednesday and Yoga night again. The wind today is still fierce, the wind chill was about 28 degrees this morning. The only good thing is that usually the wind dies down as the sun sets. The weather men are not being optimistic, they say it could be two weeks before we warm up. Jerry is contemplating turning on the water tomorrow for a few hours, I guess some of the other boaters are getting pretty low. We have only used half of our tank. Anyhow, if he turns it on, we can fill the tank and take showers onboard. What a concept!

Today was uneventful, though we did go to Office Depot to pick up a few disc’s that were on sale. Since we were near Wal-Mart we chose to go there for groceries. While DH looked for Aspirin (only 50 kinds with 40 prices he said) I picked up groceries. Mom and dad, for your information, the Pillsbury Biscuits I mentioned the other night were there, and at a much reduced price to the ones in our store nearby. Check out ended up being more than it needed to be. It turned out that the lane we chose had a change over in checkers. We got the fresh checker .... First she ran up my tomatoes with the wrong code. Not a huge deal, but I refused to pay for Vine ripened tomatoes when all I got was Roma tomatoes. She couldn’t get them to void, you know the drill, called for help, etc. etc. Finally got that cleared up and I paid. Meanwhile Eric looks at the receipt and found she had scanned the Fritos twice during the tomato confusion. SO she had to call for help again, and we had to wait for a refund. You know, everything is coded, you only pass things through once, how hard can it be?

No news from Eagle construction. No comment.

Tonight we are going to watch GIGI, the old movie with Maurice Chevalier. I remember going to a theater and seeing it, I think. I know it is something I saw a long time ago! We finally finished up the Winds of War, and now have requested that the library get War and Remembrance, the sequel.

Quilted Birds

Another colorful quilt. These birds with sunglasses were pretty funny. I think this quilter had a great sense of humor, and I loved her colors. This looked like fused applique, but I won't swear to it. It was very neatly done and would be great as artwork in a child's room.

The Quilt Show revisited!

Best-Machine
Originally uploaded by Joanna Root.

I went back to the quilt show today after church. It was not at all crowded, and most of the vendors seemed to be winding down and had time to chat! I found more things to buy, fabric mostly. One of the shops I visited were ladies from Dayton Ohio. I'm anxious to check with Sally to see if it was one of the shops she and I visited while I was there for Mike's retirment.

I have posted several pictrues from the show to the Flickr site, so if you's like to see highlights of the best quilts there, just click on one of the quilt pictures, and you can start a slideshow at the Flickr site.

I talked with Russell and he reported that Skyler had quite a fun day for her first birthday. He said she wasn't much interested in the cake though! She added to her toy and clothing collection - I can only imagine what all she received! Anyway, they had a great day, wish I could have been there. I look forward to them posting pictures.

Getting cold here, a winter storm is coming our way.

Saturday, 2 AM!

Happy Birthday to Skyler, today she is one! I wish I could be there to join the festivities in Houston and give her a big hug and kiss. I know her mom and dad are sure proud of her, she is a blessing for them! Happy Birthday Skyer, your grandma in Virginia loves you!

I am wide awake, yes I am writing this at 2 a.m! I guess it comes from all the stimulation I got today being at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show here in downtown Hampton! I couldn't ask for a better location because it couldn’t be more convenient. The show actually opened on Thursday, but since our weather was beyond yucky that day, I stayed home. Friday was dreary, and great for being indoors, as it was cold and dark outside. Inside was the usual riot of colors and textures, enough to make anyone stay awake!

The Coliseum here in Hampton was a great place for this show which was previously held in Williamsburg. Everything was under one roof here (compared to 4 different hotels last year in Williamsburg) and so it seems to made more sense to move it here. The booths seemed roomier and the aisles were wide enough that you were not scrunched up trying to move around. Of course it is not nearly as large a show as Houston, but I think they do a good job and there is a good turnout of vendors.

Tomorrow I'll post a few pictures of some of the great quilts I saw. Several were really incredible, the amount of work in them leaves me tired just thinking about them.

Oh yes, the appointment for the lot selection has been put off again .... seems the entire main office of Eagle Construction has been hit with the flu. I knew it was too good to be true!

Smart Kitten Trick

It's a very chilly Sunday morning here, but there is sun. The weather Pixie says it is 36 degrees and wind only 3.5 mph and not out of the NORTH! I’ll be going out to church soon, but expect it won’t be too bad, as at least I do not hear the wind honking! I don’t have much to report as the weekend has mostly transpired without incident. A trip to the library yesterday and a visit to the grocery store and you have all the excitement we have going here. DH (you know who) had to reload the system on his computer last night, so that at least got his mind off the house and lot. Not that it made him happy!

I didn't update the LOT report in the blog, but our “lot pick” date was put off again. I won’t go into long boring details, but there are still problems with paperwork and numbers on their end, so they will not launch until they are completely set up to back up their data with hard figures. Can’t blame them, but then, why not just say so and not pretend things will be ready soon. We did hear there will be 40 lots, and 10 of them will be spec homes. We don’t know if all the spec houses will be in the first phase or if it will be a mix. The only difference this makes is that each phase involves a price increase, and we already know the base price increased $10,000. Since November when we first saw lots.

Most exciting, don’t hold your breath here – a new kitten trick. Last night we were watching "White Christmas", the old movie with Bing in it. Yea, we are weird. We know, it isn’t Christmas. But anyway, the cat was trying to get our attention. Darting around, running from front to back of the boat. She jumped up on the sofa and rolled over on the laptop (where the movie was playing) - and yep, somehow managed to pause the movie! Now wasn't that a neat trick???. She managed to step right on the mouse pad and click on pause. Didn’t I tell you how smart she was?

24 Hours

Twenty-four hours can be a long time. Just ask Rebecca, or me for that fact. On Friday night Maddie came down with a stomach virus and threw-up in the car on the way to a hockey game. Zack asked if they could take her home and then he and Mom go back to the game themselves! That was the only humourous moment of the next four days.Saturday night Zack caught the bug, in the middle of the night. Backy was still nursing sick Maddie, Tom got to take care of Zack. Sunday night it was Rebecca's turn to be sick. She called me on Monday morning to please come watch the babies. I went for the day while she stayed in bed. When Tom came home from work, I came back to the boat. Later that same night, Tom fell in line with the rest. It was like domino's falling. Every 24 hours a new person was sick.

Tuesday morning I went to the laundry, and then when back home about two o'clock, ate a meatloaf sandwich. Well, within an hour I was as violently sick as I can ever remember being. We decided it wasn't the 24 hour bug, as it had only been 12 hours since I had been in Richmond and it came over me immediately after eating. I don't think I will eat meatloaf again anytime soon. I may have escaped the real bug running around at Rebecca's, but I don't think it could have been any worse than the food posioning.

Everyone in Rebecca's house is well again! I am fine! All is well!

Found At Last!

I’m certainly glad Mike is not losing his mind. If he was, then I would be in trouble too. Especially since he is youngest of us! I think he can probably roast the pistachios slowly in the oven and get a crunch back in his nuts .... If he hasn’t already eaten them all in celebration of finding them! It’s funny how things get misplaced isn’t it? I don’t think he can blame the cat either.

Our week has been slow. I went out one day and mailed off the packages I had ready. I had fixed the buttons on Maddie’s sweater and also had all of Skyler’s birthday presents wrapped up. So, I went and purchased paper and cards and got all that taken care of. A short trip to the library netted a new book to read (that I have read one page of so far) and nothing else new. We still have not watched the DVD of Apollo 13, so it is scheduled for tonight.

We heard from the agent in Richmond yesterday and our appointment for picking a lot has been moved from Tuesday to Friday. Seems there is some hang up getting all the options for the new house plans priced out and printed. So, we will now go to Richmond on Thursday instead of Monday as we planned. We have been discussing options every evening; since this floor plan is new and different, it obviously presents some different elements. I wish I could visualize better, as one of the main issues we are presented with is deciding if we want carpet or what (wood, tile) in the living room and the adjoining sunroom, that is not really a separate space visually. One room runs into the other. Since there are no houses built that are exactly like this one, seeing a model will not help. Any ideas? We have found out that the lots being offered are near the center of the area they are opening, not up on the hill under the ugly power lines, nor down near the main road. We don’t know if the one lot we have seen and liked is in this release group or not. Time will tell.

I guess Brian and Christine should be getting excited as they have her sonogram on the 15th! So soon we will all know if we should be thinking pink or blue. I am excited. I like making things more when I can visualize the gender! I have collected a few things for them and will be sending them off once I can add something the right color!

As a last note, two pictures from the newest members of the Bruce Springstein Band - in a one time performance last weekend.


Maddie on Tambourine and improvised horn!


Zack on Bongs and Duck Call!


You wouldn't believe the sound these two can make!

On the Home Front

After another visit to the development on Saturday morning we are back on track again! We actually have an appointment to pick out a lot! Isn’t that exciting? So on February 15, the day after Valentine’s Day, we will finally, finally get this show on the road. The scuttle butt at Crossridge (the development) is that there will be 40 lots released, so we should get a good chance at trees or a view of water, albeit not like a forest or a lake. Of course, since I put it in writing, something will probably change. Our agent said she will advise us of everything she finds out in the next 10 days. Let that phone ring!!!

While at Crossridge we also saw the plans for the newest home, which they call the Fisher. and we have decided it will suit our needs. The architects added a 3rd bedroom downstairs, and the upstairs is now available as either a guest suite, or as a large unfinished area. We want the area for DH’s train layout, so we hope we can convince them to finish it (not as a suite) but as a heated and cooled (and electrified of course) open space. Worse case scenario is we will have to contract the sheetrock, etc. ourselves and add it after we move in. If we can just get them to wire and heat and cool there, which seems simple enough, we will be set. There is also an additional storage area up stairs that will work great as an office.

We had a nice visit with the grandchildren, (and Backy and Tom) and kept very busy. Rebecca had appointments for a variety of reasons (preschool for Zack, dentist, etc.) and we watched one or both of the babies several times for her to accomplish them all. Zachary is still a busy little person. His energy level is always on high. I love it when you ask him if he’d like to do such and such and he says, “That’s a good idea Nana, come on!” Maddie is right on his trail, learning all the tricks. She calls Zack and her dad, DA DA, though it seems like one is DA DA, and one Dah, Dah, you got that difference? She also says mama, and Nana, but the latter is like a fluke. She is fascinated by Silly and tries to get his attention by making little kissing sounds with her mouth. I’m posting new pictures, at Flickr and will tag them February 2005.

Maddie also thinks blowing raspberries is funny, consequently I think DH and I both picked up baby germs while we were there, though we are both better today. Baby sniffles. It’s hard to not pick up something when you are being kissed and hugged all the time.

We arrived back to the boat anticipating water. HA HA. I guess this last freeze did major damage in several areas, some of the ones that were just newly constructed after the last big freeze. So, we had a dribble of pressure and we were able to fill our tanks, but dreams of unlimited water directly on the boat were dashed. Bah! There is a pretty wicked North wind going too, so we know nothing will be done about repairs in the very near future.

Cookie Alert - Be Aware!

Things are pretty slow here! Mike and Anne - I challenge you to come up with your own personal error mesasges! Click on heading for the link to this funny site.

Things That Go Bump In The Night

Occasionally we hear strange things in the night. Like the otters in the spring – they come swimming along and bang right into our keel. Island Packets have a very long and deep keel, and the water here is not very clear. So, from time to time, while diving and swimming between boats they misjudge the depth and whack themselves. It is a very thud-like noise, like dropping a shoe on the floor.

In Florida we heard popping noises, something like clicking. It would go on and on for hours. It turns out that was the sound shrimp make when mating. We got used to it, but it was always predictable that the first night after boat owners would stay aboard their new boats they would always ask about the noise. Some would run to the office and report something terrible was wrong and they just knew their boat was going to sink because the hull was popping. Some would spend the night with a flash light peering into the bilge, trying to find the source of the sounds. Amusing.

This winter we now have a new mystery noise. It sounds like bubbles, coming up from the deep and hitting the bottom of the boat. It is not the waves lapping, which sounds like little slaps and ripples – swimming pool sounds. This is like glugs of water or air hitting the hull. It starts about 9:30 pm and lasts about 2 hours .... Or maybe I am just falling asleep and don’t hear it end. It has been every night for the last week. It’s fairly steady, and the sounds are pretty uniform in loudness, though there is some variation.

Could it have something to do with the tide changing? Something to do with the ice itself? Perhaps there is some monster of the Salt Pond trapped under the ice, trying to escape? Or has the bottom of our hull become like a HAPPY HOUR bar in New Orleans at Mardi Gras with free hor d’oeuvres – and all the nocturnal fish are snacking Chez Auana Ke Kai? It’s a mystery, and I guarantee you, that this Cajun isn’t going out after dark to see what is out there lurking in the deep!

Nothing new under the sun

Mike says all is quiet on his front. I guess I can say the same thing. There is nothing new under the sun here. It is cold, same story, about 20 at night, barely 32 in day. Fortunately, the two new heaters we purchased on Monday to replace the one that died of old age are working very well! No more complaints from “you know who” about the temperatures inside the boat. In spite of today's lows and the wind, we were both in short sleeves inside. Granted, I didn’t go outside. But, we are snug down below.

Other non-news, the generator still continues to stymie best efforts at repair. It is sucking air somewhere – we just can’t figure out where. Note, I say we, I mean, he can’t figure out where. I only sympathize. We didn’t work on it today at all, 6 hours crawling around yesterday was enough fun for a few days. Maybe tomorrow we will work up the enthusiasm.

Zachary called me this morning at 8, just as I was getting up. We actually had a very nice conversation and I could understand most everything he had to report. He said Maddie was better, but still had a fever. Becky reports they are stir crazy from not being able to get out and about, especially Zach who needs to get rid of excess energy! She’ll be glad for a break in the weather. She invited us to come up next week, probably on Tuesday. She needs to take Maddie back to the allergist on Wednesday and also wants to go and visit the pre-schoolshe is checking on for Zack for next fall. So, we will go and help her. We are also going to go to look at the house again and also check out another area we have heard about.

What wrong here?

What wrong here?
Originally uploaded by Joanna Root.

Here I am sitting in the boat salon. I have on sock liners, wool socks, winter boots, long underwear bottoms, thin yoga pants, cotton dockers, long sleeve turtleneck, flannel pajama top, wool sweater, polar fleece hat, wool scarf, and wool mitens. I am still COLD!!! I am covered by triple layer cotton lap cover and have a Silly cat glued to me. Could it be because we could see out breath inside the boat this morning?

Yesterday we started the day with snow, then came sleet, then rain. Around 9:45pm the 4o knot winds began, and we heard a giant clap of thunder and a flash of lightening. We both commented on how unusual that was for winter. No less than 10 minutes later we heard a giant boom, the lights went out, and the sky light up like the Fourth of July .... only the crackle and pop kept up for nearly 5 minutes. We saw brilliant white light, blue light, yellow light and the sound of crispy crackling. Then the sound of fire trucks, police, etc. We could see steam coming up over the housetops between us and the power station that is less than a mile and a half from us.

You bet your life, could this winter's saga get any better? Say it isn't snow!!! HA HA ... We were without heat 13 and a half hours. Not one minute too long in my estimation. Did you know you can make coffee with a tupperware strainer (the yellow one), a coffee filter and two pans! Yahoo - how can we be having so much fun? Finally got heat about noon, cat has unglued herself from us and the heaters are still working like little trojans to make up the difference. That house is just not going to get here soon enough!

Oh did I forget to say the generator who gave us so much grief last year, would not start .... so that added to the adventure too. Not sure if it is too cold, fuel is clogged or what. I refused to let Eric go outside in the cockpit to open the locker where the generator lives to try to bleed the line. After all, enough if enough.