Nothing but Fun.....?!

Okay, try this schedule on for size...
1. 6:30 am-up and moving the girls along to school
2. 7:15am-make large batch of banana-blueberry bread out of aging bananas on the counter
3. 8am- wake up Danny and give him his assignments
4. 8:30am -meet Roseanne for coffee talk at Panera
5. 9:20am-go to the library with Roseanne to be in the staff picture for Good Morning Brighton
6. 10:00am-arrive home and take long walk with Danny and Grandy the dog
7. Make Spinach tortellini soup and cheddar bacon cornbread for my luncheon
8. 12:00pm-Nancy and Marian arrive, and I serve tea on the sun porch
9. 1pm-Danny joins us for lunch and we show our Greece/SO videos
10. 2:30pm-the luncheon ends
11. 2:45-get a call that the realtor has the truck we can borrow to move the furniture-NOW!
12. 3pm-5:30- go get truck at office, drive to condo, bust a couple of mad moves as Jer and I load 2 box springs,1 super heavy mattress, chairs,dressers,patio set, and a couch and loveseat. Drive to condo, unload it all, feed kids dinner, jer drive kids to soccer, me return truck.
13. 6pm-home, clean kitchen, empty dishwasher,wash pots,etc and have dinner myself.
7:15pm- take Grandy for a 2 miles walk(flashlight in hand to illuminate the little treats for me to pick up!)
14. 8pm- Jerry and the kids arrive home, and we do evening routines,
15. 8pm.-Laundry continues.....
16. 9:30pm-I decide to lay in bed to write this so I can fall right asleep!

How's that for a day??!!

Piano Lessons at Last! Wednesday 9/21/11

I am happy to report that Danny finally started piano lessons, after cancelling 2x's! Mrs. Evans is a former elementary music teacher who is older, and quite no nonsense. This is my idea of a good teacher. She told Danny she would teach him to read music and give him a firm background to move forward from. They worked together for about 40 minutes on music, playing, and where he is at. She lent us a book to work from and when she decides which book she thinks he is at, she let us buy one.  He practiced when he got home, and eagerly played for Jerry(who finally arrived home from Chicago around 8pm). I downloaded some musical note/learning apps onto the Ipad to further move things along. Danny also went to Taekwando, and Charlotte and Molly and I had back to school night for Charlotte at the high school. I am happy with the program she is in and I am cautiously optimistic...!

Capitol Day, Lansing Tuesday 9/20/11

Free breakfast? Yay!

passed the security screening, cleared to lobby!

on the 14th floor of the house of representatives office building, capitol in the background

great view

Capitol Building

Delivering our folders full of info to all the lawmakers

state capitol tradition, lay on the glass floor

I ran up to the 4th florr to get the shot!

the view from the floor!

Representative Bill Rogers with our group
me,Danny, AD MaryJane, Becca, Molly,Charlotte, and Kylee

Danny loved this guys name!

A beautiful day spent lobbying for a good cause

The day began in Lansing at 7:45 am, with breakfast and briefings. Then all the Special Olympics athletes,coaches and family members fanned out around the capitol to lobby the senators and house reps to support bill 381-382. This bill would allow Special Olympics to have a check-off box on the state tax return, and allow folks to designate $5/$10 from their return to benefit SO. This would be a great thing and help the funding of the programs statewide. We had a great time talking to everyone. The 4 of us would go in, Molly would say, "Good Morning, we are here from Special Olympics", Charlotte would say nothing! Danny would pass the folder and explain what bill 381-382 was, and I would add pertinent comments. I think it was a good experience for them and they got to see politics in action. The day was warm and sunny and we ate a lunch on the capitol lawn and watched sports demonstrations by SO Athletes.
Finished up, shot home by 3pm, made dinner, fed dinner, hosted book club! Whew!!! Busy day!

I'm on it! GO ME!

Okay! That's what I'm talking about. I made a list at 6am and I did it all! And alot of it was stuff I had let go-so I feel quite happy and proud of  myself. Danny had a good school work day, and I banked,gassed,Rx'd,moved more stuff out of the condo, picked up Charlotte at school, walked the dog in the rain, had the piano tuned, took girls to the DR. for their shots,and watched Danny do 1:45 minutes of Taekwando (long story, first 45min  was a kids class and Master Kil told him he was too old/good to be in it, and he should do the next class too! he was one sweaty fella!) Then made dinner, gathered medals,hats and SO outfits for the Capitol Day rally tomorrow. At 6:30am we will depart for Lansing !!

Wind down the weekend, wind up for a new week!

Mass at 8am, together, so Jerry can head to the airport for his late morning flight to Chicago. Add a FreePress and a coffeecake from Kroger and the morning turns very relaxing. The kids worked out and I "chored" my new favourite verb! Then Danny and Charlotte and I took a long walk with the dog. It was a beautiful day!

Then we baked a peach cake to bring to Loaves and Fishes Dinner. I think it shows the folks who come for this free meal that we care about them. We headed to church to set up and serve the meal. Ron Garrison played his guitar and sang '70's songs which really made the evening enjoyable. We ended the night with a couple of I Love Lucy episodes, perfect!

Furniture for the Condo-Thanks Lucy....

A sad thing happened, our friend Sue Koza's Mom died suddenly and couple of months ago of medical error. What a hard thing to deal with. Grandma Lucy's condo has been sold, and Sue generously offered to let us have furniture from it that her kids didn't want. We have 2 beds, which is excellent and will allow the girls to spend nights at the condo. We are also taking a couple of couches--not super stylin, but you know what? They can sit on them, and at some point if they get replaced we can donate them on. So Grandma Lucy, Thanks to you the girls are moving forward, and we know how much you liked them.
We spent alot of today moving things, and Danny got back to Taekwando. We also had a pizza picnic and took a walk at the metro park, watched some football(go blue, oops on the chips and buckeyes)
and I did loads of laundry! Jer off to Chicago tomorrow, so I helped him back for his big meetings.

pizza picnic!!

My Thursday write-up, delayed!

Well with all the excitement of the baby coming I never got to write-up our field trip. We got the news from Jake while we were on the subway in fact!  So let me fill you in...
Susan, Danny and I headed off to NYC on the PATH train from Harrison around 8am. We stepped out into the ground zero area, and saw the freedom tower rsing up. It is awe inspiring. As we walked along the building fence, we saw one of the original Missing posters tacked on it, with flowers wedged in around the smiling face. What a poignant reminder of all the people lost  and families affected.  We walked over to the Lower East Side Tenament Museum and fabulous find that Donnie told us about.

A historian and social activist, Ruth Abram wanted to build a museum that honored America's immigrants.
New York's tenements were the perfect place for her museum: these humble, multiple family buildings were the first American homes for thousands of immigrants.

97 Orchard's initial appeal was an available storefront: Jacobsen and Abram considered renting the space to run tours of the Lower East Side. While inspecting the storefront, Jacobsen went to the hallway to look for a bathroom.
She saw sheet-metal ceilings, turn-of-the-century toilets and an aging wood banister.

"It was as though people had just picked up and left", Jacobson recalled. It was a little time capsule...I called Ruth and said 'We have got to have this building.' It was perfect."

Shuttered for over 50 years, 97 Orchard's apartments were in ruin. It would take time to transform the tenement into a museum.
Undaunted, researchers scavenged through 97 Orchard and combed through archives, compiling evidence about tenants and tenement life.

After several years of research, the Museum began the difficult task of restoring apartments that had been left vacant for so long. In 1992, the Museum opened its first restored apartment, the 1878 home of the German-Jewish Gumpertz family.
Over the past 20 years, the Tenement Museum has blossomed from an idea into a thriving institution.

.  We've carefully restored 6 apartments, including our newest one: the home of the Moores, Irish immigrants who lived at 97 Orchard in 1869.
We went on the tour they call getting by, which talked about two families who experienced hard times, one in 1873, the other in 1932.
Our tour guide was fantastic and there were only 10 people on the tour! Lots of time to ask questions and learn. I told Danny that this is the kind of background both our families came from, Polish and Irish immigrants.
We met Donnie for lunch at Katz's Deli, since 1888, they filmed that restaurant scene from
When Harry Met Sally at this spot. Danny had an egg cream and potato latkes, real Jewish food on the lower east side! We took a walk around the area, visited a Jewish center, and St. Mary's Catholic Church, where we were able to light candles for Jake and Cammy.
It was a great day! With lots of learning and a baby!

Visit the homes of German-Jewish & Italian Catholic families surviving the Panic of 1873 and the Great Depression.

Freedom Tower going up

Danny masters the NYC subway system

on the steps of the tenament at 97 Orchard St.

the famous BabyCakes cupcake store!

an awesome chinese grocery store in Chinatown(reminded us of HK)

facade

latkes and egg cream at Katz's

saying a prayer at Saint Mary's

I Love New York!