One month down 11 more to go

It is hard to believe that we are closing the book on January 2010 already!

Happy birthday to all the January birth dates, I know Angelica will be celebrating her special day on Sunday, Happy Birthday Angelica!

January was just plain full of activities.

I graduated from my Certified Public Manager's course on January 15, 2010.  We gave our final presentations at a conference at Drake on that day.  Caroline came down the night before and a bunch of our classmates went out to dinner with spouses and had a good time.

Our group did a presentation on container gardens and providing accessibility to fresh produce, and providing a booklet for distribution at workforce development centers for people to pick up and learn about this growing trend.

Stephen spent a weekend at the Winnebago Scout camp where we went sledding, cross country skiing and doing crafts and sleeping overnight in a cabin

Philomena is doing well in her dance,  and I took her to see the Broadway show ANNIE right before Christmas. 

Daniel performed in the Corn Belt conference honor band last Thursday, he did well at that.

Caroline, Daniel and I joined a fitness center this month.  It is called AnyTime Fitness.  They just opened up in Clear Lake, but they have fitness centers all over.  They give you  a FOB to allow access into the facility and it is open 24 hours. So you can go in and exercise on your time and schedule.  They have real nice equipment and good security.  They have cameras all around with a well lighted parking lot, and they have security necklaces that you can wear when you leave at night so if something is not right you press the button and 911 is activated.  No one gets in without a FOB and no one can tailgate behind a person because of a counter and camera on the door.  It beeps when two people go through the door, so when the door is open and two people walk through the open door the counter catches that and the camera records it, flags it, and the owners checks all those occurrences. Your FOB has your info on it so it records who opened the door. Everybody has to use their FOB to get in.  So I go in, the door shuts and then Caroline goes in.  You can utilize any of the other AnyTime facilities with your FOB.  But the best thing is! that all the treadmills, ellipticals, bicycles, stair machines have individual flat screen TV's on them.  So when your exercising you can plug your head phones in to watch and listen to your favorite cable TV Show. Yes, they do have EWTN. Spending an hour on the Elliptical machine watching the "Bourne Ultimatum" made my 60 minute cardio exercise go by pretty fast. We are enjoying this activity and I was surprised that my blood pressure has dropped even lower in the short week we have started.  You can google AnyTime Fitness and find a location near you,  they are in Iowa City and Burlington.  I can say for Clear Lake there are people of all ages and levels of fitness utilizing this facility.  The owner of this place wants to have people feel comfortable exercising there and not feel intimidated exercising next to someone that may be more or less fit than you.   I would recommend to check this fitness center out, or at least some health program, or at least think about your health, or at least contemplate what you plan on doing with it.  All I know is that I was getting more sluggish as the years progressed.  Enough said on that issue.

This week we had to replace the starter motors in both vehicles the Ford and Trailblazer.  Actually we had to replace the starter in the Trailblazer twice in less than a 24 hour period.  The Ford was having difficulty starting like the battery was dead, but we put a brand new battery in it before Christmas.  They hooked the Ford up to a tester and replicated the problem and found a weak starter.

The Trailblazer was different, it would not start at all.  so it had to be towed, since we have an extended warranty on the Trailblazer it went to the Chevy garage, where it was diagnosed as a bad starter motor, and the extended warranty covered that replacement so it did not cost us a dime to get that one fixed.  So we picked up the Trailblazer Friday morning at 10:30 AM,  By 10:30 PM that night when Caroline climbed in to go home from Perkins the Trailblazer did not start.  So the Trailblazer spent the night at Perkins and Saturday morning it got towed back to the Chevy Dealership, where it was diagnosed as a second bad starter motor.  That did not cost us a dime either.  Hopefully this organ transplant will hold and not be rejected.

I started my next class for my masters program last Friday.  It is called research analysis. We get to learn and understand all these research surveys, etc.  like all these Gallup polls, etc.

Philomena is selling Girl Scout Cookies if any one is interested in some.

Happy birthday to all the upcoming February birthdays!

This post is getting rather long so I will sign off.

Well I hope everybody is staying warm, but enjoying the winter weather.

posted by Randy

A New Year

It's a new year, and all I can say is BOY! ...it is cold outside, and it will be colder tonight! BRrrrr!

So far with the new year the world has not ended, and nobody fell off the face of the earth so the year is going really good at the moment.

Daniel and I struck out down at the '80 for deer,  having the area flooded did not help matters.  We did see a nice flock of Turkeys which we may try hunting those in the spring.

We had a nice visit with all the nieces and nephews while down there.  Everybody has grown-up since I last saw them.

Is it just my brain or does this happen to everybody?

That is, when the last time you see someone, that is the picture you have of them left in your brain memory. So time passes and the next time you see them they look different and your brain is reset to the new picture of them.   So what happens if you do not see them for a few years, and your brain is locked into a picture of them way back when they were little.  Like still riding a tricycle, or just still being in middle school?  Now all of a sudden they are going to college, driving and helping me fertilize my farm on Farmville!  There are a lot of pictures to reset inside my brain. Photographs do not really work in reseting the brain photo in you brain memory.  Does anyone else have that problem?

I guess it is part of the process of being old. I guess turning things around and looking through the eyes of my younger nieces and nephews they probably have a last picture of me of some old looking uncle.  And then when they see me again years later the picture is probably the same old picture, but just a newer older version of the old picture, which for them is no big deal since all old people look alike.

This brings me to the other topic.  It is amazing on how people will come up to me and say, "you look just like your dad"  .....Great!.....I always wanted to look like I am almost 74 years old at my age!  Who am I going to look like when I make it to 74?  My Great Great Grandfather?  I know it is supposed to be a compliment, but think about it!

Our mailman Steve, who is a friend of ours told us this story.  Steve waved at Daniel before Christmas as Daniel was driving to school.  Steve said Daniel waved just like his dad while driving.  Now Daniel is trying to picture himself with a bald head in the not so near future.

I am guilty of saying the same phrase.  At thanksgiving time I told Megan that she looked just like her mom.  Boy, with what I know now, if I was Megan once I heard that statement I would have grabbed the keys to the car and started driving around town.  If I look like mom, I might as well drive like mom.

Stephen says my time is up on the computer, I wonder where he got that from?  I will be checking for his bald spot.

Have a great year everyone and try not to get too old too fast

Posted by Randy

Happy New Year 2010

Just a short note to wish everyone a Happy and Blessed New Year.

Posted by Randy

Post Christmas message

I hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas.

We had a super wet snow over Christmas eve and Christmas it was unbelievable the amount of heavy slushy snow we had.  we received a good four inches of good snow on Thursday and then Friday it was rain on top of it.  Then a snow rain mix, and when the snow plow came by on Friday the plow left large huge boulders of snow in front of our driveway. 

Daniel and Matthew tackled that job with the snow-thrower and shovels to clear the drive way and entrance away before it froze hard.

And froze hard it did,  this morning it turned cold again and everything is as hard as a rock.  Wherever the snow is, that is where it will be, it will take a jackhammer to move it.

Our Christmas meal went well, the food was all good.  Sarah wants me to make ham and bean soup, so I will make that this week after Daniel and I get back from deer hunting.

I came across this picture. Take a gander at it and see if you can name the person in the photo.

That is all for now

posted by Randy

Birthday Wishes

Well it appears we have a string of birthdays this week

Happy Birthday wishes go out to John, Joachim and Maria and Catherine and to Marie

I hope everybody is enjoying the last week of the Advent season, Christmas is in just a few days.

Last Sunday Night Philomena and I went to see the Broadway show Annie at the NIACC Center.  Annie is on tour again and they performed in Mason City at NIACC.  It was very good, and enjoyable, that is one of my favorite Broadway shows.  I saw it in London back in 1979, Des Moines in 1981, and now in Mason City.  they had a good cast of people.  Philomena had a front row seat I had row three.  We could see the conductor and the musicians in the orchestra pit playing.  They were actually playing and not using a CD!  I had Sarah fooled for a minute when we saw the Phantom of the opera a couple years ago.  I told her they were using a CD and everybody was just lip syncing the songs!

We have snow, we had another 2" drop on us last night and we are expected to get another 2 to 4 inches tonight and tomorrow.

I have decided on cheesy broccoli/cauliflower ham soup and oyster soup for Christmas eve dinner.

Daniel and I have late-muzzle-loader deer licenses and we are planning to hunt down at the 80 on December 28 - 30  we will probably come down Sunday and get things set up down there. I hope we shoot a deer.

Sarah will be coming home today weather permitting if not it will be tomorrow. 

Our house will be back to capacity

I will need to add back a leaf in the dining table.

I hope everybody has an enjoyable Christmas and take a moment to thank God for all the blessings we have had throughout the year.

Posted by Randy
Hey! I just found the spell-check button on the google bar, I am back in business for checking for spelling errors!

New Post...Finally!

My Accounting class is finally over and I do believe I survived it.  I turned in my final report last Saturday and now I just have to wait for the final grade. I did good on my tests and quizzes so I think I will do fine for the final grade.

I am glad that class is behind me.  All I could do during that time was study for that class.  It consumed every available minute of my time.

Now I can watch TV with a blank stare and mouth open with no worries!

During the time of the last major post we visited Burlington and saw everybody down there, and over thanksgiving we went to Iowa City to visit everybody there.  With the exception of Doug and Nancy and family they were in Texas.  Daniel and I scouted the 80 for deer.  We located some so we are going to spend a few days after Christmas to muzzleloader hunt down there, and John has given us an option of locating some farmers down in Burlington also.

Greg and Val were kind enough to open their kitchen to making cinnamon rolls.  With the help of a bunch of young chefs we made about 7 dozen cinnamon rolls.  Thanks to Val for distributing them to each family member for their Sunday breakfast.  Here are some pictures of the operation

making the dough

rolling the dough, putting down lots of melted butter before the cinnamon and sugar goes in and then it is rolled into a tube to cut into individual rolls

The final product and some of the helpers who had a hand in making all of these cinnamon rolls

Greg suggested about sterilizing the countertop everytime we layed down the dough.....we quickly kicked him out of the kitchen and out of the operation :-)

If you received a pan of cinnamon rolls, please return the pan to Val, since the pan belongs to Val.

Marie and Clare are good bakers and they can probably make up another batch for everybody for Christmas, and they can teach Katie and Anna on the operation, just keep Greg away from the kitchen along with his sterilizing solution :-)

It is cold up here, our snowthrower broke on the day of the big blizzard, picked up a part a few days later and we are back in operation.

Philomena and Daniel had their Christmas Band concerts last night they did very well

Upcoming birthdays!  Well I see on the calendar, Noelle has one coming up this Thursday, Happy birthday to Noelle.

Well I hope everybody is enjoying the Advent season and are looking forward to an enjoyable Christmas.

I am still deciding what soup to make this year for Christmas eve.  I make the standard Oyster Soup and do one other.  I made vegetable beef last year,  I am debating on making a Broccoli/Cauliflower cheesey bacon soup this year.  Any other ideas or preferences?

Happy Birthday Gabriel!

Happy belated birthday Gabriel!

I finally had the chance to see the cute little tyke for the first time at Mass today.

I hope everybody is enjoying thanksgiving day today.

Daniel and I after lunch will head down to the 80 to scope out the deer down there.

then tomorrow we will take Tom along with Crazy Daisy down to the 80 to let her run some of her energy off.

Matthew made it off on his road trip of spelunking over the holiday.  I was amazed he could actually wake up that early.

have a happy day everybody

posted by Randy