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Today Kristen asked Paul and I if we would help her pick out a vacuum cleaner at Sears (far be it from me to stifle any type of emerging cleaning genes). This is Paul and Kris looking at the different models. Here's to keeping clean floors at the Gonsalves!

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Monday night at Borders. We almost always have tea (sometimes goodies, but not tonight). I love the paperback books Images of America series. Tonight I read Holyoke, and Feeding Hills Revisited.

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This was the finished product of our egg dyeing. Those who worked on the eggs were Marley, Janelle, her sister Amy, Mark and Toby (Kristen was busy knitting a project for a deadline at Webbs). You can go to Debbie's Blog to see pictures of the process (as soon as I get them ready).

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Getting ready to dye eggs tomorrow!

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Marley got some Lincoln Logs for Christmas this year. Tonight she created this little "village." Left to right - the farmhouse, the mansion with six rooms, the Indian camp, and the meeting room (have I mentioned lately how much I love this kid!)

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As many of you know, I love Nancy Drew books (see Debbie's Blog, Sept. 9, 2008). So, tonight we went grocery shopping and Paul spotted a bin with old books for sale (proceeds to go to the Jimmy Fund), including many old Nancy Drew books. Well, of course, I didn't remember which ones I already had, so Paul kept on grocery shopping while I went home to make a list of my ND books. I ended up getting nine new books. When I got home I "googled" Nancy Drew books check list, and found out that there were 101 of them written. Now, I'm on the hunt!

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Could the Easter bunny have arrived? I know some people don't like bunnies in their yards because they eat in their gardens, but I still get excited every time I see one in my yard. Isn't nature wonderful? Look how he just blends in with the landscape!

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Today Izzy helped Paul do taxes. She knows she not supposed to be on the kitchen table, but she also knows Paul is not as strict as me!

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Is this really Spring weather? It's been below freezing all day! I was thinking that I need to change my header picture to a Spring picture, but now I'm not so sure.

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Today Janelle's mom and sister came to visit and we had dinner at Kris and Toby's house.

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Today (after work) Paul and I drove to S. Windsor, CT to LL Bean. To me, this store is a tease to the store in Freeport, but I really needed sneakers and I wanted to get them at LL Bean. The last time I bought sneakers was 9 years ago. They didn't have the same kind I got last time (they said they only had them at the Maine store) so I got a new type. They are Merrell Siren Sport, a light hiker/walking shoe(grey/lime). They are very comfortable. It's almost light enough outside for me to start walking in the morning again (my yoga is not working out so well).

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First sign of Spring. These are day lillies growing in my yard.

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Yesterday downtown Springfield had a huge water main break. According to the Springfield paper "More than 5.5 million gallons of water spewed on to city streets early Wednesday when a major water main broke at Main and Carew streets." It "...created traffic problems, forced schools to close, disrupted water service and affected the water supplies of at least two communities." We took a ride by the scene tonight.

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I'm not sure how it started but for a couple of years now, every time the TV show 24 is on, I have to have a grapefruit. It usually takes me most of the hour to eat it - I eat the membranes and all. Tonight after I got home from Prims I remembered that I hadn't taken my picture of the day yet. I spotted the grapefruit and decided to take a picture and then eat it!

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Today's picture was supposed to be my Christmas cactus that was in bloom, but Izzy just looked so cute beneath it that I had to get her in the picture too!

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Guess what has hit our house? Yep, the stomach flu bug. Paul woke up with it yesterday. Tonight he is starting to feel a little bit better; at least he has a partial appetite. I just hope that bug doesn't bite me!

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We had dinner at Kris and Toby's today. I had planned a corned beef and cabbage dinner at my house, but plans got changed when Paul woke up with the stomach flu:(

Janelle is 28 weeks' pregnant, baby about 2 1/2 to 3 lbs. I think she looks so cute!

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We went for a ride to Vermont again today via Easthampton (Paul's new favorite hot dog stand). I wanted to see if we could find our friends Danny and Joanie's first house in Easthampton. I was surprised that we still remembered how to get there. I think they bought this house around 1972. When they lived there the house was red with striped cloth awnings, perfect grass and cement walks in the back yard. We had a lot of fun times in that house.

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This is my friend Leslee from work. We had a rather historic happening this afternoon. We have always had pre-printed logos on the paper we use to print our reports (at least in the almost 12 years I have been there). We are soon (hopefully) going to a new system where we will be using plain paper and the logo will be part of the report template. So, this afternoon we got rather sentimental when Leslee said, "This is our last box of printed paper that I am putting in the printer." I said that I should take a picture to remember it. She agreed and posed with the paper. It was definitely a silly Friday afternoon!

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These are hydrangea cuttings that I have been rooting since last September. Paul, Marley and I went to the Cape to visit Paul's aunt and uncle. His Aunt Judy has the most beautiful purple hydrangea plants along one side of her house. She gave me some cuttings, wrapped in wet paper towels, to bring home. She said they were real "easy" to root. I bought some vermiculite and put them in pots near a window in an unused upstairs bedroom (it was the only place I could put them away from Izzy). The only problem is that we don't have the heat on in that bedroom. In the beginning I kept them "misted" every day. But as the winter went on, and it was cold in that room, I wasn't as faithful. I'm not sure if they are still alive or not. I guess I'll know when I go to plant them, if they have any roots. I'll keep you posted.

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My son-in-law asked me to e-mail him this recipe for corned beef. It's a different way of cooking it, baking as opposed to boiling it. My family loves it!

P.S. Click on the picture to enlarge it

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I think Paul's nose can sniff out a hot dog stand....anywhere. He spotted this on one of his trips up to Eastampton to help Caroline (the lady we moved last week) find some of her things in the "millions" of boxes in the cellar of her new home. Today, on our way to the scrapbook store in Vermont, we went by way of Easthampton. I have to say, those hot dogs were pretty good!

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Tonight we ate at the 99 Restaurant at the Mall (before going to Borders). It is only the second time we have ever been there. The first time, we were surprised to see that they served popcorn before the meal. Tonight, by the time I got done trying to get a decent picture of Paul (I was too close in the booth and too lazy to get up and get further away) he had eaten all the popcorn!

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Today was Marley's last basketball game, actually a makeup game. She is the one (the only one) with her arms up. She really does have that down pat; the rest of the game?....time will tell.

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Today I went to a scrapbooking crop at my friend Janice's house. This is a picture of her grandson Nick. Three of her grandchildren live nearby and they usually stop in sometime during the day when she has her all day crop. Nick, especially, seems to enjoy hanging out with us "old ladies." Here he is arranging some of Carole's scrapbook "stuff." When he is around, he is usually helping out in some way. Tonight he was vacuuming up after us, putting away tables, going to get food, etc. We love having you around Nick!!

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Last year we bought an 18 movie DVD set of Shirley Temple movies. They are wonderful. Marley, the Babas and I have been watching them on Friday nights. We've watched most of them once, now we are watching them in numerical order.

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Spending the evening getting ready for the crop on Saturday.

P.S. Izzy was less than helpful!

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On Wednesday nights I team-teach Prims at my church. Prims is a club for girls in first and second grades. Tonight we had 14 girls, and also 7 Daisies (kindergarten girls) because the Daisy teacher wasn't there. 21 girls ages 5, 6, and 7. Yikes! I'm exhausted.

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Kristen and Marley were here for dinner tonight. We had homemade waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. Yummy!

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At least it's March. Spring can't be very far away......can it?

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Today we moved Caroline, a lady that I used to work with. She has been through a lot lately and needed help with her move to a different home. It was a tough day; she had a whole lifetime packed into a 3 room apartment.
I was very proud of my family today!