Snowy Weather

It's been quite the weather week this week. On Monday it was 55 degrees, but so ridiculously windy and rainy and floody that our power was out for 10 long hours. Then it turned back cold again.

Yesterday morning was about 35 degrees and snowing pretty steadily.

In the afternoon it turned windy again, plus snow squally, so much so that when I looked out my window at work I couldn't see anything past the parking lot. Scary! I had Joe pick me up early from work because the roads were bad and I didn't want to wait for it to get dark before we hit the road.

So I guess Winter is really here. Today it's about 10 degrees, but with the wind chill it feels like 20 below. I wish Winter could just stay about 35 degrees all the way through, that would be fine with me!

The Trouble With Pictures - UPDATED!

Okay, so those lake pictures I wrote about last week? The ones I didn't know the location of? My brother and sister-in-law totally came through for me on this one! Quite frankly I'm surprised my brother could remember anything about this, especially since I described the pics to him.

Eli said, "Wasn't that when we went to the Finger Lakes?" Okay, this is still not ringing a bell for me. But since he could describe what my dad was wearing that day, who am I to argue. I checked back with Mom and she thought that sounded right. And then Krissy got on the case, which was finally solved after she worked her Google magic yesterday afternoon.

We were at Canandaigua Lake. Some of the other pictures are from Sonnenberg Gardens. Here is my picture:

And here is a pic of Sonnenberg Gardens:

See! It's nice to know not all of my childhood is a complete mystery, LOL! So thanks to Krissy and Eli for helping me pin this down. Of course, I still don't remember any of it. But it looks like I had fun!

Family Game Night - HP Style

It has been a good long while since the Brunos and the Steigmeiers got together for Family Game Night, and we made that happen this past Friday. Krissy made some awesome chicken and dumplings for dinner, and then we busted out Harry Potter Clue.

This was such a fun game to play! We did two rounds of it and laughed all the while. Eli won the first game, and no-one won the second because everyone who guessed was wrong. I was the last one standing, though, if that counts for anything!

For the second game we invited Carlyn to join us, which was possibly a mistake. By the time we'd finished the first game we were getting awfully silly and there were some inappropriate comments flying around the table. Yikes!

We left around 10pm, because Joe was feeling very much under the weather on Friday. We'd have probably called it a night about then anyway, because only Carlyn and Xander were still awake, and Xander was getting cranky.

It was such a fun time, I hope we have another game night soon!

The Trouble With Pictures

My life somtimes seems to be controlled by pictures. I'm forever taking them, and scrapbooking them. I have untold photo albums. I have boxes, ziploc bags and random drawers full of photos. It's a nightmare.

I was reminded of my love-hate relationship with pictures just this week. I want to scrap my grandparents' 40th wedding anniversary from back in '88. I knew I had a bunch of pictures, it was just a matter of finding them. Some were in my photo box, in the '80s bag. Others were inexplicably in the '91-'00 bag. A few others I tracked down in various other locations, and yet I knew I was still missing some pictures, including this one:

Seriously, I was losing sleep over this. My frustration knew no bounds. And where did I finally find the missing pictures? Tucked into a photo album with other random '80s pictures that I'd totally forgotten about. Grr.


Now that the matter of the anniversary party has been settled, I'm faced with another. A stack of pictures from 1987 that feature my brother, my mother and I in a park-like setting that has no name. Mom can't remember, nothing was jotted down. Come on! I tried Googling a park with a Buddah in it, like in this picture, but to no avail.


Still I slog on. I'll have to put in another call to my grandparents, who have been teasing me with their old pictures. They were going to bring them for me to have (albums, people, whole albums!) the last time they came to NY, but there wasn't room in the car. Say what?? And they keep telling me they'll go through them and send me some when they get a chance. Hello! Retirees! Nothing but time! Sigh.


And hey, if you have any pictures I might like, feel free to send them. I'll add them to one of my many piles or CDs or albums!

Xander in Wonderland

Xander has lately been on an Alice in Wonderland kick. He's been watching the movie we have, which is the 1980s TV miniseries full of people like Sammy Davis Jr., Martha Raye, and Lloyd Bridges. I asked him what he likes so much about the movie, and he says it's the Open Season preview that's on there. What a doof! It's a pretty long movie, and he watches it all. Even knows the songs at this point.

So when I showed him that I had the book, Xander was eager to start reading it. We're reading a chapter each night, and I'm wondering how long that will last because it's a very confusing read. And Xander keeps waiting for the parts from the movie, which aren't always there. Still, I'm glad to see him so interested in classical literature, even if it's mostly to watch the cheesy Jabberwocky! And just because I happen to know that poem, here it is for your classical education today - at no extra charge!

'Twas brillig and the slithy toves

did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

All mimsy were the borogoves,

and the mome raths outgrabe.

Beware the Jabberwock, my son

the jaws the bite, the claws that catch.

Beware the jub-jub bird and shun

the frumious bandersnatch.

So took he vorpol sword in hand.

Long time the manxom foe he sought.

So rested he by the tum-tum tree,

and stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood

the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

came wiffling through the tulgey wood

and burbled as it came.

One, two, one, two, and through and through

the vorpol blade went snicker snack.

He left it dead and with its head

he went galumphing back.

And hast though slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy.

Oh frabjous day, callou callay!

He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
and the mome raths outgrabe.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it. --Martin Luther King, Jr.

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

I am happy to share the good news of our newest family member!

Layla Negron was born yesterday, 1/13/10. She clocked in at a tiny 7lbs, 1oz and is 19 inches long.

Congrats to Destiny and Jeannine and the kids!

My Kid Is Miserable!

My poor boy is not doing well. He's been feeling sick in the tummy area for almost a week. I took him back to the doctor yesterday, and was told there's a bug going around and to give him Tums and yogurt. Yeah, okay. I picked him up some Pepto, his new favorite go-to medicine. He insisted I send it to school with him today so the nurse can give him some when he thinks he needs it.



The other thing making my boy miserable is werewolves. Yup. Werewolves. Against my better judgment, Xander begged to have another shot at watching Monster Squad last week. And since that ill-fated day, all I hear from him is the same question about a million times a day: "Are werewolves real?" No, no, and NO! Seriously, he was crying about this in the car yesterday.

What am I gonna do with this kid, I ask you?

Blind and Find

Xander is a big fan of hide and seek, even though there aren't too many good hiding places in our apartment. Plus, Xander can't stop making noise or giving hints, so he's pretty easy to find. That's why Joe devised a new game, called Blind and Find.

Essentially, we all take turns wearing the blindfold (actually a sleeve cut off one of Joe's sweatshirts) and then have to find the other two wherever they may be in the house. Again, you don't want to be dodging the finder when Xander is running loose, because his mouth never stops running and he'll be wherever you are. Makes for an easy find!

I think this will be better as a warm-weather outdoors game. We'll have to wait and see...our next batch of warm weather probably won't be here until June. :)

I've Become a Bill Bryson Groupie!

Last month, on a whim, I picked up my first Bill Bryson book from my local library. He'd been kind of on my radar since my old Story House days, but I'd never read anything he'd written. Now I have two books under my belt and I'll be adding more to my library queue. Here's why!

Bill Bryson primarily writes travel books (though I'm right now reading a book he wrote about his 1950s childhood in Iowa, and he's done other books on language), and since I can be almost preoccupied with all of the traveling I never get to do I guess it was only a matter of time before we hooked up, so to speak.

Now, these are not your average travel books, laying out specific destinations and telling you which are the better hotels. These are the ramblings of a man who is fortunate enough to get paid to travel the globe, and his stories of these trips are hilarious! I wish I'd found out about Bryson much earlier in my life so I could've been his traveling buddy.

I just finished In A Sunburned Country, about several trips he made to Australia. Bryson really gives you the flavor of the country and the people, particularly since it's one of his favorite destinations. There was a mixture of history, culture and science that really was fascinating and told me more about Australia than I ever knew. Plus this guy is just funny! I'd personally like to know more about his wife, who stays home with their children while he rams around Europe and Australia, sometimes gone for a month or more at a time.

Anyway, if you haven't read any Bill Bryson, you really should. This is good stuff, and now I must go and add more of his work to my library queue before I finish the next book!

Xander and His Many Movies

I will be the first one to admit that Xander watches too much television. But, honestly, is that a bad thing? When I was a kid that was all I pretty much did, besides reading. I can recall going to the video store with Mom and renting like six movies for the weekend. We were a TV family.


Xander's video and DVD library is getting unwieldy. (He spends a lot of time searching for movies, which is what he's doing in this picture.) Some of those movies are/were Joe's and mine - like the animated Hobbit and Labyrinth. Others were given to Xander, either on gift-giving occasions or when people like my grandmother were cleaning out their own collection.



I have to say this boy has some eclectic tastes in home movie viewing. This past week he's been watching a lot of He-man (not the lame 80s one, the updated 2003 version). His Scooby Doo library continues to grow, but he also likes watching Lord of the Rings, Star Trek (the new movie), Sleeping Beauty, and Laurel & Hardy's March of the Wooden Soldiers. About the only thing Xander won't watch is a "gray movie" aka one without color.


Do I worry that Xander watches too much TV? Sometimes. And I try to make sure he doesn't watch anything especially violent, gory and with inappropriate subject matter (he's been asking to watch Spaceballs). And most of the time his movies are just background noise while he plays. And hey...I watched endless hours of TV and I turned out okay!

Happy New Year!

A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL!


(When I was thinking of a picture to post here, this is the one that popped into my head. My cousin Andy! Took me almost a half hour to find it!)