Any Similar Revival

The afternoon is the worst part of the day for me, which is why I love my job watching the kids three-four afternoons a week. On the days I don’t work, though, I tend to get very aimless during the hours between 1 and 5. I wander around the house feeling overwhelmed by unfinished projects, I snack and snack and snack, I check my email incessantly, I sometimes turn on the tv and see what is on cable (the ultimate in desperation, I think), I stare out the window waiting for the UPS man to come and deliver something wonderful on my doorstep. Basically, I kill time. And I hate killing time, because time is so precious.

I try to have a plan for the afternoons I know I’ll be home. I make sure I have a pot of tea, a book to read, a project to work on. But somedays, I just peter out before I can get to the planning stage. If I were a napper, and I’m not, but if I were a napper, I would sleep every afternoon.

What do you do with your worst part of the day?

Does anyone have a suggestion for me? Or two? Or three??

Around New Years, Chad decided that he wanted to lose weight, because he was tired of being tired and looking tubby. He also decided that Joe  needed to lose weight, so Chad proposed a little friendly competition: whoever lost the largest percentage of weight would be the winner! We finally had the weigh-in last night, but first! The Before Shots:

Sad Sap Chad:

Joe:

They both have been extremely disciplined over the past 8 or so weeks. I have been absolutely amazed by Chad’s will-power. He looks really, really good, but he hadn’t weighed himself at all until Sunday night.

The moment of truth:

Chad lost 22 pounds!!! WOO HOO!! He went from 201 to 179!!

Joe lost 19 pounds! Yay for JOE!!!  He went from 179 to 160!!!

I am SOO impressed by their results!

(Chad won by a margin of 0.3%, which is so close they practically tied. But in my opinion, they both won–they lost 41 pounds!!!)

And now Chad looks totally hawt in his jeans, especially from behind.

Look at this little guy! He is so much bigger and happier these days. We were lucky enough to hang out with Billy and Julie and Billy the Kid tonight, and I got some adorable shots.

I know it’s a bit blurry, but check out the drool!

Have you seen this email going around lately?

> The Game is on!
> And you’re IT!
> Describe ME in one word — just one single word.
> Send it to me and to me only.
> Then send this message to all your friends and see how many strange & interesting things they say about you. This is really fun.
> Here’s how to play:
>     1. Hit the reply key and send me my one word.
>     2. Then return to this message, and forward it to your friends (including me) and see what people say about you when limited to one word!!!

I recently received this email, and I sent my word to Jill M., who had sent it to me, with the word "real" to describe her. Then I sent it out to my friends, just to see, because I think we like to know what our friends think of us. I’ve gotten back some great replies, and all of them were nice. This is not to say that I expected my friends to say mean things about me, but I was relieved that nobody responded with "irritable," "self-absorbed," and "looking-tubby-since-winter-came."

Jill said I was "visionary" which was very pleasing, though I’m not sure what she meant.

Julie said, "supercalafragalisticxpaladocious" which made me smile!

Heidi said "fun". I think I can agree with that one.

Meredith said "compassionate"

Hannah’s made me laugh, because she used two words, made one of them up, and gave explanations:

"I would say either snarkypoo  (because you

The FIRST time today, and it’s after 10:00 PM. Craziness!

We have a snow day tomorrow too: church has been cancelled. Weird! I feel exactly the same way I used to feel when I was a kid and knew that school was called for the next day.

It’s hard to take good pictures when the wind is gusting in your face and sprinkling tiny snowflakes all over your lens. You can see, though, that the snow is up to Myles’ hairy belly. When he bounds through the snow (and bounds is the only word for it!), he almost looks like he’s swimming. He is jubilant this morning–he loves snow more than anything! I woke up early-ish and after taking a look out the window, headed for my coat and snowpants with nothing short of childish glee. SNOW DAY! He and I raced outside, Myles bounding, me falling on my knees to see how deep it would go. Myles decided to be a Mexican jumping bean out there, springing straight up into the air, usually spinning 360 degrees.

My Boots in the Snow. Man, it’s DEEP.

This is the view from the middle of my street. You can hardly see the intersection that is only about 2/10s of a mile away:

Hallooo!

I think that being snowed in is one of the coziest, loveliest things around, if all of the following criteria is met:

1. i don’t have to drive anywhere

2. Chad doesn’t have to drive anywhere

3. We have enough food in the house to make something scrumptious without having to contemplate driving anywhere.

4. I’m not missing something I really wanted to do

5. I’m not sick

And today meets all five of those! YAY!

Members of the Voller household were relieved when all Saturday activities were cancelled due to inclement weather.

"Well," said the industrious-on-the-outside-but-lazy-on-the-inside Allyson Voller, "I’m just glad I don’t have to drive anywhere tomorrow," when she found out her Stampin’ Up workshop in Kent was off. Secretly, she was elated. "Squee!" she thought to herself. "Now I can spend the day stamping for myself!" Chad Voller was also excited at the news. "It’s a Snow Day!" he cried gleefully into the phone as he spoke to his wife.

The snow has continued all day, with no signs of letting up soon. Northeastern Ohio expects to issue blizzard warnings during the wee hours of the night. When asked what she plans to do with her snowy evening, Allyson Voller replied, "I plan to surf on the webernet, drinking tea, and running to the window to check out how deep the snow has gotten!"

Stay tuned for further breaking news on The Great Snow Storm of 2008.

(with my apologies to William. . .and Feste)

It actually is quite lovely today out there, despite the cold snowiness. All of the branches are coated with a thin layer of ice, thanks to yesterday’s freezing rain episode, and now, all the snow is sticking to it like frosting. We like to fool ourselves here in Northeastern Ohio that March = Spring. And that is a wicked, wicked lie, because spring NEVER begins in March. Some years, it hardly begins in April! This is very hard on those of us who a.) like to ride their bikes on clear, dry pavement, and b.) like to dig around in dirt and plant things. Boo. I hate it when all my blog posts turn into big whines about the weather, but March does that to me.

The back of my neck has been cold since getting all the hair chopped off, but it’s a small price to pay for happy hair. That’s why God invented scarves.

I have missed you so much! I don’t know what I’ve been thinking, keeping all that shaggy, long, horsey hair around for years. Blech! I’m glad it’s gone! I love you because you let me feel air on the back of my neck, you don’t get in my eyes or my mouth or my tea, and you more closely embody my inner ornery-ness.

I love you so much that I did what I have never done before: I scheduled my next hair cut before I left the salon! I want to keep you for a long, long time, so I am not taking any chances. April 15th, hair cut day.

Look! It’s my NECK!

So thank you, Short Hair, for not abandoning me even though I strayed from your sleek sassiness. I think we’re going to be together for a long, long time.

Much love,

Allyson

We went to Kohl’s last night with the express purpose of finding me some new spring/summer shoes, because they were BOGO free. Skinny Chad, who has lost a LOT of weight in the past two months, but "wasn’t in the mood to try on clothes," decided to swing by the men’s department on our way to the shoe dept, and lo and behold! THere were BOGOs there too! And now that he’s skinny, he needs pants that don’t look like baggy, saggy drawers. We finally, many many minutes later, made it to the shoes. Unfortunately, all of the shoes out this season are ugly. I tried and I tried, but I couldn’t fall in love with any of them. THEN I went over to the 70% off clearance stuff, and my heart leapt.

$8.49

$3.49

Skinny Chad. He picked out the pink. Really, he did! I had NOTHING to do with it!

AND he found these sunglasses and thinks he’s Joe Cool now.

We played out in the deep, wettish snow today, trying to make snowmen and pull the sled around the yard.

Before Ben threw snow on my face.

After Ben threw snow on my face:

Look how rosy Liv is!

Then, when Kristen came home, we had soup and sandwiches for dinner. I stayed, because Chad has been working nights lately, and boy, that gets lonely. . .

But it’s not a new one, so, not so exciting.

I so love Alison Krauss, even though she spells our name wrong.

I got my CDs today, all five of them, but I’ve only had time to really listen to the Alison album so far. And I know it’s really dorky, the whole BMG thing, but hey! I got five CDs in the mail today, and that’s a happy thing!

Today, we had "family stamping day" here at my house. My two aunties, their cousin, and my cousin all came over to make cards. We try to do this once a month, and we LOVE seeing each other so regularly! Today had the added bonus of being during the same week as Cynthia’s birthday, so my cousin Liz brought a fabulous lunch and this super-yummy toffee cake for dessert. Because Cynthia is now so very, very old, we had a lot of candles. They were sparkler candles, which means that as Liz and I were trying to light them (which took quite some time. as I have said, there were MANY MANY candles), they kept sending out sparks. It was Quite Exciting!

And, because they are so pretty:

That’s me. I am somehow a "member" of BMG music club, though I don’t remember when I signed up, or why. Every month, they send these "Featured Selection" newsletters to my inbox, usually offering 5000 free CDs with the purchase of my featured selection and payment of shipping and handling. I am very, very good at resisting the temptation, especially since the featured selection is usually nothing I am interested in, and the other music I want is too obscure to show up at BMG.

However.

This month, the featured selection is Norah Jones’ latest CD. I really, really like Norah Jones, and I don’t have this album yet. AND wait! There’s more! Order this featured selection and choose FOUR MORE CDS FREE! Wow! Who could resist that? So I look, and Alison Kraus has a new album out, with, get this: duets with James Taylor and Sting! Those of you who know me well already know that I signed up for this fantabulous deal. So I get AK free, and a Diana Krall compilation, and Cat Stevens, because Heidi won’t stop talking about him and I figure I would like him too, and Frank Sinatra, because, and this is shocking, I don’t have any Frankie CDs of my own.

All in all, it was only about $30 for all five CDs.

And now I’m impatiently awaiting their arrival. It’s weird to actually get a CD anymore, since I’m used to buying downloads over the webernet. Jewel cases are SO clutter. We don’t keep them anymore, stuffing all of our discs into fat, overflowing, and somewhat organized binders.

I’ll let you know how it all sounds soon!