~~ODNEAL FAMILY BLOG~~Port of Readlyn, Iowa

Tyler had another wrestling meet at Hudson yesterday. He wrestled well, but unfortunately didn't have a very good night. He lost his first match 2-3, his second match he lost 7-11, and his third match he lost 6-6 in double overtime. Bummer! But as I said he wrestled hard and tough and looked pretty good. Of course he doesn't think so! All of his kids were from W. Marshall so I don't think that they are his favorite school or team right now. The last meet for the year is next Thursday at Traer. Pretty soon track season will be here and at least that means spring! Hooray for that!!! Everyone have a great weekend. Heatwave tomorrow (upper 30's) or at least it will feel like one to us. Finally making it to another of Taylor's basketball games tonight, so should have some pictures to post from that on Monday. Both our boys and girls won last night against Tripoli. I think Kyle said Taylor had 16 points. Good job Taylor!

So, one of my bosses went to Jamaica for a week this past week and we had been saying that we needed to spruce up and paint the office. So we did it while he was gone. The walls in these pictures look yellow, but actually the hallways we did a light tan, and the front entryway is a darker tan. It definitely looks cleaner and brighter. And the messy office is where I spend my 8 hours a day "working". We only had to spend about 8-9 hours total to get it all painted with two of us working at it. I trimmed and Vicki rolled so it went pretty fast. And we had a much better time chatting and painting those two days than we would have doing actual "work stuff"! Now we need to get some decent pictures for the walls and we will have a new space to come to everyday. Yeah!

Tyler had a wrestling meet last night at New Hartford so snapped a few shots. I get too worked up to get any "great" ones-oh well. He did a great job. Lost his first match 3-7 but wrestled tough, and won his last match 5-0. I was looking at the score wrong the whole time and thought he had lost. Duh! Bruce threatened to send me to "wrestling rule school" whatever that is!!!!! Good job Ty!

Or is it supposed to be "cat out of the bag"? Give Gizmo & Gadget a shopping bag and they can have hours and days of fun. And the rest of us are definitely entertained watching them fight and play and hide in the bag. Cheap entertainment for sure!

Sometimes even when it is freezing cold outside a sight such as this can make us forget it for just a while. Took this picture Saturday afternoon when we ran to Fairbank. The ones from inside the truck didn't turn out so well! Don't mind the finger smudge in the middle. Oops!

Bruce went to Minneapolis Thursday to look at some machines for work. They had to leave at 4:45 am so he was out of the house by 4 I think. When he got home he was tired, and this is how he looked after supper in the living room. He is lucky my batteries died in the camera and this is the only one that I got. Notice the remote glued to his hand? I had to pry it out carefully to not wake him up to change the channel. Too funny!

I have been needing some jeans so ran to the mall yesterday after work. Well, Maurices had like everything on sale 75% off. So I went through all of the racks and tried on a bunch of stuff. When I was checking out I asked about winter coats (my zipper fell apart on the one I wear all the time) and they were 75% off also. So of course most of them were X Small, but I found one that I liked and it fit. It is white but I'll just have to wash it quite often. I'm not like the kids throwing my coat on the floor or wherever when I walk in the door. I actually hang mine up! So, everything I got if not on sale would have cost me $206.49 with tax. My total bill for the jeans, 3 shirts, one pair of leggings, and of course the coat was......are you ready? $74.90! Woohoo! Wish they would have had more stuff that I liked! Yeah Maurices-and I even got double punches on my card. I love that store!

So you know how I bragged about the Mighty Mend It after I found out that it really works? Well, it also came with a bottle of Gemit. So I told the boys I was going to get some gems and I could put them all over stuff. Like their cell phones, jean pockets, t-shirts, etc. Well.....yesterday I stopped at Hobby Lobby to get some scrapbooking supplies and just had to pick up a package of gemstones. Now the boys are very afraid! Maybe they won't leave stuff lay around the house as much now!

So we are finally going to do our bedroom since it is the last room in the house to be touched in the 10 years we've lived in this house, and I get emails from Macy's all the time advertising discounts. I found this 16 piece bed in a bag steal for $80. Yep, regular price was $350. I don't know anyone that would pay that kind of money for bedding but I thought it was a great buy. And I had planned on doing brown so now we will pick out paint and carpet to match the bedding. It even came with decorative pillows and valances! What a bargain shopper I am. Can't wait to get going on the room now!

It is supposed to be a heat wave Thursday-well, like upper 30's and maybe into the 40's so I'm thinking spring. Oh how I miss this scene on the weekends and cannot wait for April to be back on the houseboat! Only around 86 days until we open the Nuk N Futz again!

Well, not really if I'm typing some words, huh? Not much going on in my picture taking world so here is one I took a week or so ago of Kyle & Gizmo playing on the floor. I think she was chasing after his sweatshirt string even though it kind of looks like they are boxing!

May 2009 be one of many changes and hopefully all of them for the better for everyone!

So, not a weekend for picture taking obviously. Seriously though, these oranges were all out of the same package. I know they all say 4012 on them, but how strange that all of the stickers are different. They must just have a variety that they slap on them when packaging. Now my week will be complete since I got this off my chest. Yep, nothing else exciting to report on this Monday! Have a great week everyone. At least our weather seems to be looking up and warmer. That is a plus!

So over one of the holiday long weekend breaks I saw this Mighty Mend-It on TV and picked up the phone to order. Bruce came downstairs while I was on the line and was totally making fun of me and not believing that I was ordering that "crap" off of the TV. Well, it came the other day and guess what? He had a hole in his stocking cap he wears outside at work and asked me if it would work on the hat. I think he was actually challenging me and hoping it was a total flop so he could give me some more crap for "wasting my money". So, I fixed the hat, and then I had a picture frame that was messed up so that I had to have Cole & Ashley on their side. Well, guess what? It worked on the frame too and they are now sitting upright like they should be. And then guess what? Last night Bruce asked me to fix a hole on the inside of his hat, and the leather on the thumb of his glove. Ha! I think he realized this stuff is awesome. How dare him make fun of me for purchasing this...

These are some pictures taken last night as Gizmo stayed right under my feet by the heat vent in the kitchen most of the evening. I literally had to be careful where I stepped while doing dishes and such so that I didn't crush her with my feet. Can you tell who is the boss at our house? Heat sucker!!!!!!

Kyle applied for a Presidential Scholarship at Iowa and received in the mail today some great news. He for sure is receiving the Old Gold Scholarship which is worth $12,000 ($3,000 per year), and he is still in the running to be a Presidential Scholar. That one I believe is worth $13,000 per year which would be awesome! To apply he had to write a paper on a life event that happened that shaped who he is, and his paper was awesome. The Presidential Scholars will be contacted on March 6th by mail. Great job Kyle! You deserve it. Dad & I are so very proud of you!

My laundry room used to be an old porch off of my kitchen. Last night I threw a load of laundry in like usual and didn't think twice about it. Later when I went to switch out loads, I opened the lid and it was still full of freezing cold water and had not agitated or cycled. So I messed with the dial, and then went to the basement and found a circuit tripped. I thought I had solved the problem. But, no, it just kept trying to agitate and would kick off. So, I tell Bruce that the washing machine is broken and full of clothes. He of course is less than impressed as he had just gotten back from filling his car up out in the freezing cold and now he had to stick his hand in freezing cold wash water! Well, after much swearing, turning the drum, thinking, swearing some more, etc., we both realized that this had happened one other time when it was dangerously cold outdoors. So he took off the front cover and sure enough, the hoses were full of ice and that is why the machine coul...

Okay, on my way into work this morning my truck thermometer said (negative) -29 when I pulled out of the garage. How crazy! Inside the garage it only said +9. Wind chill must be like 40 below. Here are some pictures I took yesterday after we had received 8 more inches of snow overnight Tuesday. My neighbor couldn't go to work this morning as her car wouldn't start or jump, our crews at work won't have paychecks next week because they can't get any hours in this frigid cold, and my cats are going stir crazy because they cannot go outside for more than 3.3 seconds! Is it almost over? The 30's for highs next week will feel like a heat wave. Please hurry up and come Spring. Please...........pretty please.........

Tyler had a wrestling meet yesterday and I hadn't gotten any pictures yet of him doing this sport so thought I'd get a couple. He won his first match (these pics) 7-1, and then his second match was a bit tougher and he lost but he did a great job. Hard to believe he was a basketball player up until this year! Good job Ty!

This was the way the sun looked coming home from Waukon Sunday. It was really cool so just had to snap a picture of it. They didn't turn out too bad for taking them inside the truck doing 55 mph (yeah right, Bruce was driving!). How pretty!

I didn't go crazy taking pictures this year (was too busy filling my face I guess) so here are just a few we snapped at the brunch. Natalie of course gave her usual speech and a few awards. It must have been a pretty mellow summer last year because there weren't any smart ass awards given for stupid things!

So maybe we had just a little bit too much fun Saturday night. Here I caught Ann snoozing Sunday morning on the couch before we had to be ready to leave for the brunch. I know, not very nice to take sleeping people's pictures but I do it all the time to Bruce so couldn't resist! I don't think the nap did her very good though since she only drank Diet Pepsi at the brunch. Lightweight!