Wow … we are really getting slammed with snow this year.  In normal years here in Maryland, we don’t get a great amount of snow in the part that I live in.  Sometimes hardly a storm at all and other times a few inches here or there.  Every 5 or 10 years though, we get hit with a 1 to 3 foot snowfall.  This year, we are about to get it a second time!  The week before Christmas, we had close to 2 FEET of snow one Friday/Saturday.  We’ve had a few smaller storms since then.  I think there were a couple of 4 inch ones and then we had an 8 inch one last weekend.  Now tomorrow into Saturday we are supposed to get 1 to 2 FEET again.  This just might be the most snow we have ever gotten around here … at least as far back as I was living here and remember.

The grocery store was super fun today.  *eyeroll*  Do you guys get the “panic” around you when it snows too?  It seems anytime snow is mentioned, even if it’s only flurries or a dusting, EVERYONE has to run to the grocery store.  The bread isle was 50% empty today when I was there … the chip aisle was super hard hit and probably only had about 25% left although there was a guy stocking when I was there.  At least Safeway planned ahead this time and had every register open.  Last time we had the 2 footer, it was not as smooth and you had long waits to check out.

Time for bed.  Just had to come vent about the snow.

go to the grocery store for me? LOL I tell ya, for some reason, I just hate to make that journey anymore. I didn’t used to mind it, but lately it just seems like more and more of a chore. I HAVE to do it today though because we need some things, so I guess I will make my way over after while. I think I’ll procrastinate until late afternoon though.

Is anyone else tired of all the reruns on TV? We had about 4 to 6 weeks of them while all of the holiday shows were on, then finally we got some new shows a couple of weeks ago and ALREADY we are back in reruns? What is up with that??? I’ll be happy when some of the late seasons start … like Survivor which is next month and Army Wives which is in April.

I got a new laptop last week. I’m still trying to get everything set up properly on it. It’s amazing how many little things you don’t think about until you go to use it.

Gotta go have some lunch. Have a great day everyone!

I ran across this awesome little to-do last year and had a blast entering all of the giveaways and chatting with lots of new people.  This year’s Giveaway has started as of today, so I decided to enter this year and give away a few goodies of my own! :)  I gathered up a few of my favorite things to share with the lucky winner as you will see below:

For my favorite color, there is a Purple Key Fob.  For my favorite craft, there is a Counted Cross Stitch carousel sampler.  For my favorite past time of reading, there are some magnetic bookmarks.  And for a few other favorites, there is a Pink Avon Breast Cancer Awareness water bottle, a box of Yankee Candle Gel car fresheners, a box of Glade Dewberry scented oil refills, and a mint sachet.  I might think of a few more goodies to add in by the time I ship it next month. :)  ** Nothing is handmade, just things I love! **

If you would like to enter my giveaway, simply leave me a comment including a link to your blog if you have one, or an email address to contact you at if you don’t.  I will be accepting entries until midnight on February 14th EST, and then will randomly choose a winner who will be announced on February 15th.

If you would like to participate in the Giveaway yourself, just click on the tag at the top of my post and it will lead you directly to Lisa’s site.  She started this event up 4 years ago and puts in a ton of work every year for all of our enjoyment.  Thanks Lisa!

And for all for all of my new blog friends visiting me for the first time, here is a little about me:

I’m Lynn and I’m 36.  I live in Crofton, Maryland (US) now … grew up in Buckhannon, West Virginia.  I’m married to my wonderful husband Dave who I met on AOL 12 years ago.  We’ve been married for almost 5 1/2 years now.  We are the proud parents of 5 cats.  Jasper, Lucy, Ginger, Bubba and Missy.  I love to read (mostly Harlequin/Silhouette romances, Danielle Steel and the occassional celebrity bio.)  I also love to cross stitch and I occasionally get out the yarn to crochet a little.  I’m a big fan of pogo.com games and have also become addicted to a bunch of the farm and cafe games on Facebook.  If you play, feel free to friend me to be your neighbor! (RLR888@aol.com)  I’m a big Starbucks Cafe Mocha addict … although I’m restricting myself to one a week now because I’m trying to lose some weight.  I’m having withdrawal, but I’ll live! *grin*  Tell me about you!

I am vowing to blog much more in 2010 … I know I’m getting off to a late start, but bear with me.  LOL  I will do better and will get my blog built up to be the something special like I want this year!!

Can you believe we are almost a full month into the year already?  Wasn’t it just Christmas a couple of days ago?  In all honesty, I don’t even have my Christmas tree taken down yet.  LOL  I really need to do that this week.  I hope you all had great holidays and are off to a wonderful new year so far.  I am doing pretty well.

Dave and I are on a mission to eat healthier and get in better shape this year.  We decided instead of buying each other presents for Christmas this year, we were going to combine and buy one big present for both of us.  A treadmill!  It was delivered and installed just after the first of the year, so we are off to a start on our diet/fitness plan.  It is going well so far.  It’s alot of hard work, but we are determined to lose some weight and be healthier.  Our plan came at an opportune time I guess … just after Christmas I was called by my Dr’s office after they received my routine bloodwork results and told that my Dr would like to see me to go over it.  I received a shocker that day … Diabetes.  I really should not have been shocked because it runs rampant in my family, but I just was not expecting to hear it, so it really threw me for a loop.  Luckily it is relatively mild so far, so I am just starting to take 1/2 a pill twice a day.  I hope to avoid the daily insulin injections if at all possible by really taking my health seriously.  I am down 7 lbs so far and am looking forward to getting alot more off.  I’m reading up around the net trying to find good eating habits for a diabetic and hope to learn alot that will help me regulate the spikes alot.  If anyone is familiar with any useful sites, please pass it on and I’ll add it to my list to research.

The kitties are doing well.  Jasper is still purring along.  He has good days where he is yelling for food every few minutes and he has bad days where I have to really encourage him to eat.  I need to take him to the vet again soon just for another check up.  He still takes his thyroid medication and is doing pretty good at holding his own.  He’s missing the nice sunny days where he gets to hang out ont he deck as much as he wants.  They all will be happy to see Spring come.

I need to go do some updating, but I’ll be back around to chat later.  Have a great day!

I have to catch up on all the things going on since I talked last …

Missy escaped a couple of days ago!  I’ve always told you guys that I have to watch her on the rare occasion that I let her out because she has climbed the fence before.  Well she had been behaving really well on the times that I was going out with her, so I started letting her out last week with the other cats into the fenced in back yard and was just going to check on her every 10 or 15 minutes.  She was loving it and was being so good.  I continued to do the same this week and she decided to ruin it for herself by climbing the fence.  She had come to the door checking in with me about 10 minutes earlier and then I heard a noise outside and just went to the patio door to look in on all of the cats and she was nowhere to be found.  I went down in the grass and was looking all around the shed and under the deck and calling her and she was nowhere.  I started to get nervous and went back into the house to make sure she hadn’t come back in and I just overlooked her.  She wasn’t there.  I went back into the backyard and looked out each of the two gates calling her and she wasn’t there.  By this point I’m starting to panic.  I’m very attached to her because she was Mom’s cat and when Mom got sick, she told me to take care of her baby and I would always call her and let Missy hear her talking to her while she was in the hospital and everything.  I came back in and changed shoes and went out the front door of the house and was calling for her.  I went to the one side of the house and she wasn’t there, then I went around the garage side of the house and there she was!  She was sitting under a pine tree smelling it.  By this time I had been looking for her for at least 20 minutes.  When I approached her, she started playing games with me and going deeper under the tree and laying down so I couldn’t reach her.  I’d go to the other side and she’s switch over to the other.  It took me about 10 minutes to finally get her back into the yard and then in the house.  I came back into the house and I was just so worked up and upset.  I was practically hyperventilating and just broke down sobbing.  I was so afraid I had lost Mom’s baby. :(  She will never step foot outside the house again!

Our cable went out the other day and was out for almost an hour and a half.  I was so mad because it just HAD to be right when Young and the Restless was on.  Why couldn’t it have happened during Dr. Phil???  LOL

To make matters worse, the whole Missy panic hurt my foot too.  I guess I wasn’t favoring it enough when I was running up and down stairs on the deck and to the front door and stuff.  I have a bone spur my right heel and it flares up sometimes.  It often feels very tight and stiff along the back on my heel when I get up and start to walk.  It started to feel worse throughout the day that she got out and by that night, I could barely climb the stairs to go to bed.  The next morning, I couldn’t dream of stepping down on it to go downstairs, so I just spent the day upstairs that day and iced the thing all day long.  It’s finally feeling better today.

Dave’s brother is coming tomorrow from NC.  He and Dave are going to a Classic Car Show up in Hershey, PA on Friday/Saturday.  I chose not to go because I couldn’t care less about old cars if you paid me to (LOL), so I’m going to be a single gal Friday and Friday night.  They will be leaving here probably around noon on Friday and won’t be home until probably dinnertime on Saturday.  I’m going to veg out and do absolutely NOTHING.  Well, unless I decide to go shopping.  LOL  The only downside is that I had to clean the house again.

There’s probably more I was going to blab about, but I can’t remember.  I’m awake with my insomnia problems again.  It’s now 1:30 AM and I’m finally starting to feel tired.  I’ll probably let it ride for a few more minutes and head to bed around 2 when I’ll be tired enough to fall asleep.  It’s chilly here tonight.  Dave and I went out to the hot tub a few hours ago and it was really nice.  I love when it’s nippy out.

Talk to you all soon!  Be sure to remember to Think Pink this month and encourage all your loved ones to do their monthly breast exams!

It hasn’t been raining today, but it has been pretty overcast most of the day.  One of those days where you want to curl back up in bed and sleep or read a good book.

I’m having trouble getting Jasper to eat very well these days.  He has his thyroid medication upped again about a month ago and ever since then he hasn’t been eating as well as he was before that.  He seems to only be getting worse.  For months now he’s only been eating wet cat food and now it seems all he will eat is dry.  I try to give him the wet and he acts like he wants it but will only eat it for a second before turning away from it.  I don’t mind feeding him whatever he wants, I’m just worried he’s not eating enough of anything right now.  He still lost more weight since he was at the vet last time.  He’s down to 12 1/2 lbs now.  I know he’s old and he’s been having these thyroid issues for a couple of years now, but he’s still my sweet baby and I’m trying to keep him as healthy as I possibly can.

Not sure what’s on the agenda for this weekend.  Dave has been working alot lately and has been extremely stressed.  I sympathize, but it’s also not very pleasant to be around him most times right now.  He always has his mind on work and doesn’t even hear what I say to him alot of times when he’s home and I’m trying to chit chat with him. 

Hope you all have a great weekend.

I got an e-mail from one of my best friends from West Virginia yesterday telling me that she’s pregnant.  I’m very happy for her.  Lora and her husband Tim tried for years to have a baby and went through various fertility treatments and disappointments and finally they were lucky enough to adopt one little girl and her infant brother about 10 years ago and then adopted another infant boy a few years later and then by some miracle were able to get pregnant about 5 years ago with a beautiful baby boy.  Now they are pregnant again.  They currently have this adorable family of a big sister and her 3 little brothers and now have another on the way.  Lora’s hands are already full, but she will be so happy to add another to her brood. :)  I teased her that I will be hoping for a little girl so they can even up the mix in that house a little bit.  There are currently 4 males and only 2 females in that family.  LOL

I was catching up on blog reading today and stumbled across a Posting over at Terry’s that made me very sad.  I don’t know if any of you know Terry from the graphics world or not, but she had Terry’s Treasures for years of adorable little graphics and after she closed up shop, she and I became blog buddies to keep in touch.  Her blog is always a pleasure to read as she shares tons of pics and projects she’s working on all the time.  A couple of days ago, her husband, John, had an accident at work where a bulldozer rolled over on him and pinned his leg.  John is doing fairly well at this point, but they had to amputate his leg below the knee.  He’s had a couple of operations and things are looking good for his healing, but he will probably be brought out of the sedation tomorrow and will be told that he lost his leg.  This must just be a horrible time for Terry and their kids and will be a nightmare for John when he becomes aware of what has happened.  My heart goes out to all of them.  I hope John will have the strength to accept what has happened and will thrive in his healing, and that Terry will be able to stay strong and not let herself get too stressed and exhausted.  Keep your chin up gal.  I’m always here if you need a friendly ear!

http://web.me.com/thedizzydaizy/The_Dizzy_Daizy/Shop_Talk/Entries/2009/9/24_Grand_Opening!!!.html 

http://my-fabric-obsession.blogspot.com/2009/09/introducingflannel-queen-online-fabric.html

http://craftlady-searchfamilies.blogspot.com/2009/09/im-having-give-away.html

Came across this lovely giveaway today over at Embrodery Treasures:

http://embtreasures.com/blog/monday-giveaway/

Visit and leave a comment to get yourself entered!

Hugs, Lynn