341 retailers strong!  No more headaches on Black Friday!!! Spend that time with your family.

Click for the info!

List of participating retailers grows longer every day.

Mike laughs at me because I get so excited when I get something new that is “domestic”.

I have had an Oreck vacuum cleaner for 10 years and this week it finally bit the dust.  While I’d love to have a new Oreck, we just don’t have the funds for one right now.  So off to L*wes we went to buy a cheapie, since I had a 10% off coupon for there.

The cheapest regular upright they had was $59.99.  It is a Eureka.  I figured, at that price, it would perform marginally, but better than nothing at all.

The one I got is the Eureka Maxima Bagless Upright. Well, I’ve never owned a bagless and wasn’t really thrilled at the thought, but in the lower price vacuums, that’s pretty much all you can find.

I was totally shocked last night when I vacuumed the house!! I had to empty the collection canister 4 times!!! My gosh, we are living with filthy carpet and I didn’t even have a clue! I am so thrilled!! Even Felicity is wanting to help vacuum today!

Here in our new place, we have problems in the yard with sticker burrs…ACK!!!  So we really should vacuum at least once a day, twice would be best.  Those yucky things come in on Margo and Bailey every time they go outside.  Petunia (our adoped Chihuahua from Katie) is the lucky one, they don’t get on her hair at all.

So….I’m having a love affair with my new vacuum and Mike thinks it is hysterical!

Have a great Saturday!

There’s a new crochet swap starting up!!!  “Formal” signups aren’t until February 1, but there is already 17 hookers signed up!  Come on over and take a look and join in!!  Chickens are not required

It’ll be a blast!  At least come on by and see what all the hoop-la is about!

A triplet was born to the twin chicks the next day.  The triplet was a double yolk egg, as well, but it’s shell mate didn’t make it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuJPNAfuG3s

Today, a fellow member of www.backyardchickens.com/forum successfully
hatched a double yolk egg….twin baby chicks.

Here’s her post at 9:23pm CST

“Here it is…
warning…it is a long video….I had to put it on youtube because
photobucket errored out on me…

Enjoy….DH says chickies are up walking around!!!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1ZeEY-kt7A

Here’s the thread if you would like the entire day’s worth of events.
http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=104245&p=1

This is just so amazing and she did such an awesome job “mid-wifing”
the chicks into the world. I just had to share.

We’re moved.  Still alot of unpacking/putting away to do. 

We re-homed the chickens with a guy that works with Mike (we got our Silkies from him).  We re-homed them about a month ago, once we decided to move back into “town”. 

He told Mike Sunday that those chickens are the absolutely most spoiled rotten chickens he’s ever had in his lifetime of having chickens.  He said they’re awesome birds…but rotten!  They follow he and his family around wanting to be held and hand fed. 

I miss them so much!!!  They truly are great therapy for my depression.  I would have never thought, but I’m a believer.

I’ll be back to posting on a (semi) regular basis soon.

I just had to share this!

http://www.skiptomylou.org/2008/10/29/mummy-treat-containers/

 I will definitely keep this idea in mind for next year.  Too late for this year.

We’re moving this weekend.  We’ve been crazy trying to get everything ready.

I’ll be back soon posting on the blog on a regular basis once we’re settled at the new house.

When we lived in the Houston area, one of Gregory’s therapists gave us this story (for lack of a better word).  It was soon after Gregory’s formal diagnosis of autism, and she knew we could use some inspiration.

“The Beauty of Holland” by Emily Perl Kingsley

“I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability—-to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this…

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip—to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David.  The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, ‘Welcome to Holland.’

‘Holland?!?’ you say. ‘What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.’

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you never would have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. Holland has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say ‘Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.’

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.”

We keep a copy of this on the refrigerator.  It’s our inspiration on bad days. A reminder that Gregory is, indeed, a very special child.

We haven’t seen the sun up here in the Texas Panhandle since Friday.

It has rained “cats and dogs” steadily for 4 days!  This is so unreal for here.  We are definitely not in a drought.  Last I heard, 2 nights ago, Amarillo had a 3 inch surplus of rain. 

We’ve had an early and WONDERFUL fall!  Mild temperatures, fantastic fall flowers and the foliage is starting to turn.

Now it’s cold!  For 2 days, it didn’t get out of the 40’s for daytime high temperatures.  That’s crazy in mid-October. Locals are saying that this winter’s going to be very wet, that we’ll be getting lots of snow.  Bring it on, baby!!!  I love the snow!

Snow is great…as long as it’s followed by sunshine!

The sun is shining warmly today and we’ll finally be getting out of the house!  YAY!!!