Happy Early Valentine's Day! We mostly celebrated over the weekend. Tom and I had the opportunity to have a late lunch together on Friday afternoon. I volunteered to work 4 hours in the morning(from 8-12) since the dishwasher repair man was supposed to come in the afternoon. Finally. Instead, Tom called me at work to let me know the repairman showed up in the morning. So Tom ended up staying home from work. He was due for a day off since he spent the previous Friday presenting the science fair info to Scott's school. Here I thought our dishwasher problem would finally be taken care of since it has been over a month waiting for the new motherboard for the dishwasher. Tom said the repairman started the diagnostic all over again(turning off the power, pushing buttons). Tom reminded him that he did that over a month ago and nothing had changed. Then the guy changed the part and discovered that he needed more parts and was going to have to order them. Thank goodness we are not paying for all of this, but I told Tom we may want to call Bosch and ask them for a whole new dishwasher! The repair guy thought we may need to go back to Best Buy. Guess we should have known the whole deal was going to go bad for us from the start when they couldn't even pull up the order on their computer system. I did check for other Bosch dishwashers at Sears and did not see much of a selection. Again, at least it is washing dishes. The only thing I asked Tom to make sure was that the guy reset the washer by turning off the annoying beeping sound when the dishwasher is done(that is what got us into this mess in the first place). Did they remember? No. And I can't get it to stop. Gotta love technology.

Speaking of technology-the girls in my office informed me that I had won a raffle at work! The company was pushing for everyone to get a flu shot so they had monthly raffles starting in October. Normally I don't do well with raffles, but this was the last one and I had won! A new laptop! I could barely contain my enthusiasm! Me of all people to win a computer system. Allison is currently very grateful for my prize-a $450.00 value- Gateway laptop. I had to pay taxes on the thing. I think I would have preferred the day off with pay. Anyhow, Tom says it is a nice laptop. Just my luck.

And speaking of more great luck, since I have been trying to help out more at work I have been running around campus dragging my work laptop everywhere I go(mostly uphill). And I blew my right knee out in the process. I have been wrapping it up in an ace bandage everyday. That really helps keep the pain and swelling down. Just when I thought it felt better I took Cookie for a walk without the bandage(big mistake). If I had time at work I would treat it, but I am usually too busy. We are having a survey this coming week and they want all our "paperwork" up to date and the clinic looking good. Now that I am helping in 3 different clinics I have 3xs the work.
I guess I can't complain about having too much work-it certainly pays well, especially after I put in my 4 days. I just read an article where OT was named one of the top 50 professions by US World and News until 2018 at least. Great, only 7 more years of work!(Yeah, right).

ONe of the bonuses at work is our quarterly flea market. When a resident moves in or out they often donate their items to the sale. The money made pays for continuiing care for residents and Christmas bonuses for staff and scholarships for the students working in the dining rooms. I enjoy picking up a few items here and there-books for the kids, dishes, holiday items, storage containers, gloves and scarves, umbrellas, everything and anything. I even got a coffee pot for work. And I usually don't spend more than 20 bucks. It is all for a good cause. I tried to buy a desk that matches Allison's bedroom set, but it sold first thing. The sale is also a great place to get caught up with other staff and former patients. I enjoy chatting with them, but not so much when I would rather be shopping! Especially when it is on my lunch hour!

Besides work there is scouts of course. I had a few of my girls over on Friday to work on a badge fundraiser that we are (hopefully) going to hold for Junior SCouts in March. WE also practiced making lanyards since they are monitoring that station at the Up all Night at the Mall program the first weekend in March.
I also took Scott to another boy scout meeting this past week. There was another Open house going on and SCott was in the mood to attend a meeting. I would have preferred that Tom would have gone, but he was working late(liquid meeting). I certainly enjoyed the troop and everyone's enthusiasm. They reported having "graduated" 24 Eagle scouts in 6 years. Pretty impressive. It was a rather small troop of 25 boys compared to some troops with over 100. But Tom and SCott have made their choice on a troop already and a representative from his new troop will be there next SAturday when SCott bridges to boy scout.

So it is that time of year again! The Blue and Gold banquet and that means cake contest! This year's theme is football and tailgating and Scott wants to make a stadium cake. We will see how it goes. WE both spent time this past week shopping for cake mix, brownie mix and frosting(good deals at the dollar store!), along with extras for decoration. Everything on the cake must be edible.

He wanted to start baking this weekend, but I did not want it to go stale. Besides, we were busy making Valentine treats. I saw a lollipop recipe in my FAmily Fun magazine a few months back and decided to give it a try. YOu first make a heart out of two small candycanes. I had picked up some tiny candy canes just after Christmas for this project. You were supposed to heat them a bit in the oven on a low temp and then pinch them onto the lollipop stick but it did not work. Instead they started to break. So the next step is to melt white chocolate and add it to the center. Tom thought the melted chocolate would hold it all together and by george it did! So I poured in the chocolate(we had colored chocolate including white and red). SCott did the decorating with sprinkles, M&Ms and his favorite, red hots. We then wrapped them in lollipop bags that came with the sticks and SCott attached all his VAlentine cards. And then he ate one and said it was delicious. He also spent a lot of time designing a monster eating Valentine box! (They are having a contest of course).

As I said we started VAlentine's day over the weekend. Allison took advantage of the love birds going on date nights and had a babysitting job for the new neighbors across the street. She really likes their kids. And SCott wanted to attend a night at the gymnastics center where he takes classes with his friend Sammy who used to live across the street. SAmmy's parents were off for a fun weekend in New York City and had left Grandma to watch their 3 kids. Grandma was happy to pass one of the kids onto us, and we kept Sammy for a sleepover. Meanwhile, Tom and I had a choice between dinner or a movie SAturday night while everyone was busy, but we did not have time for both. We opted for a movie since most of the restaurants here in our area fill up on SAturday nights anyway, unless you can make reservations. And we had not thought that far in advance. So we finally got to see the Green Hornet. Unfortunately it was in 3D and it was the only movie short enough that we could see and pick up the boys on time. But it was fun. I laughed a lot, but I thought it was a bit too violent for kids. And there were kids in the audience. Tom mostly enjoyed the fact that he and our kids had watched the Myth Busters Green Hornet segment where they try to prove or disprove certain myths or beliefs. They tried to reproduce the special effects from the Green Hornet movie(we knew how things should have turned out). Like the exploding front loader should have disintegrated rather than fly through the air and squash the bad guy in his car. Anyhow, it was fun and I got my free popcorn refill.

I am sending a photo of SCott's cub scout troop at the Klondike Derby. The weather has been getting warmer so the snow and ice has been busy melting. There are lots of broken tree branches and trees everywhere. All you hear is the sound of wood chippers and chain saws. I just have a lot of birch branches to pick up. I only hope my Michigan cedar trees will stand up tall again! They were bent over from the weight of the snow and ice and still have not recovered. Big difference this year from last year's snow at this time! Kathleen