We had a nice dinner on Saturday, talked and played Taboo...

We'll be putting up the tree and other decorations tomorrow, while watching the Nick and Jessica Christmas Special.... I don't think many people will admit to watching it, but I liked the last one because it reminded me of the old Sonny and Cher program....

I was supposed to babysit tonight, but I always call first before going over because once I got there and they didn't need me, and two other times I have called and they didn't need me.... and obviously I was needed tonight.
Communication people... it's the key to everything!

We decided to put Baby Kitty to sleep last week... we decided we just couldn't deal with it, I was constantly watching him thinking he would be going into a seizure, and he's always been a puker so the insulin wasn't working as well as it could have been. It's very sad and of course we'll always question if we should have done it, plus the guilt.... but....

Thought of the Day: Communication.

The dining room is almost complete... we have to put up, and paint the pieces of trim around the paneled wall.... hang up the photos that Spyros took, and put the Grandfather clock back into the corner.... and refinish the wood floor, but that won't be for some time.

We tore the carpet out, and pried up all the staples and nails. After vacuuming the years of dirt that previous vacuuming attempts missed, we now have a more allergy free room!!!

We went over to our neighbors for drinks last night around 10pm and didn't get home until 1:30am... good thing we just had to cross the alley. Jamie (neighbor) has his son, Todd, and daughter-in-law, Laura visiting... along with their three kids. Todd and Laura are around our age, so we had delightful conversations and yummy deer sausage.

I'm excited that I get to start on the porch tomorrow. We'll need to bring the rest of the office supplies and bookcases downstairs. Then we can bring in the other bookcase and our books... along with the pedestals and whatever else will be going in there.

Baby Kitty puked tonight... which is nothing too new for him... he'll drink a lot then eat fast and it comes back up... but the vet said if he pukes to contact them. So I have to watch him and if he does it one more time then only give him half of his dose of insulin.... but if he seems to be okay I can give him the whole thing.
I don't have as gentle of a hand when it comes to giving shots as Spyros because the last two times Baby jumped when I gave it to him.... I feel even more horrible then.... I'm afraid it won't go in so I must be pushing to hard/deep.... must try to be more gentle.

Thought of the Day: If you have divorced parents, it doesn't get any easier when you're an adult... my mom was upset because my dad is coming over to our house for turkey.... but my mom is cooking us a turkey dinner (although we'll be doing Christmas at our house...) so I threw in that if they wouldn't have gotten divorced then it wouldn't make it hard for us every year to juggle visiting.... she stopped complaining.... now I don't advocate guilt.... I was just pointing out that it doesn't get any easier with time!!!

We've had a couple of days of emotional trauma... Baby Kitty has diabetes. He was acting weird like his body wouldn't work, so we took him to the vet.... So $400 and learning how to give shots later, and getting peed on when my Mom drove us home from the vet yesterday, we now have a healthier cat.
For some reason Spyros found it hilarious that he peed on me.... hmmm....
We'll need to do about 4 more vet visits to regulate his insulin, but after that as long as things go good we'll just need to buy the expensive diabetic cat food, insulin and needles with the 6 month or so vet visit thrown in.
We had talked about putting him down, but I just couldn't do it. Good thing we don't have kids or else they would have to live on Roman noodles so we could afford the cat's necessities : - )

Luckily Spyros is getting his bonus soon so we can pay for it all.... We won't be going to North Carolina like we had planned for January, because of expenses and Baby Kitty needs his shots twice a day and I want us to be the ones to do it for awhile. I am a bit sad because we never had a honeymoon or have taken a trip out of state for the six years we've been married....

The dining room is coming along nicely... We have to paint one of the walls again and then we should be done. The kitchen is finally finished too (we had one wall left to paint), and Spyros did another coat on the ceiling since the paint smudgies we got on it didn't blend in.... we also had to do that to the dining room ceiling for the same reasone.... but an extra coat of paint won't hurt it, especially since we have to cover 20 years or so of smoking....
Tomorrow we should be able to put up the paneling and then I can primer and paint it... After that the carpet will get torn up, then the furniture can come back in, we can hand the pictures, and we should be good to go!!!

Thought of the Day: Make sure to exercise and eat healthier so you don't get diabetes.

We got rid of another ton of so of garbage today.... we took our minivan that is close to death to the junk yard, and now we're $10 richer.... woohoo..., but at least it's out of the garage.

We also cleaned out our one car garage because our neighbor asked if he could store his Mustang in it for the winter... so we'll be $30 richer each month from him. The garage wasn't bad, just needed to move a few things over and sweep it out.

We were going to take the washer and dehumidifier to the recycling place but they charge $20 for the washer and $30 for the dehumidifier becasue of the freeon... and in Madison it's only $10 per item... so we'll wait until we take a trip down there.

Mudded more in the dining room, we should be able to sand tomorrow and then I can start painting after we get a gallon of primer. We need the primer for the one wall with all the mud because we're using semi-gloss paint and you can see mud spots under that type of paint in certain lighting...
We should have the dining room and one wall left that needs to be painted in the kitchen done by next Monday.... and then that gives me until Friday to clean up and rearrange everything... plenty of time!

We finally started on the dining room... since we may be having company over for Thanksgiving, I wanted to get it done.

I imagine there are a lot of people who do the same thing... Oh Honey, the Holidays are coming up... let's make it even more difficult by starting a home remodeling project!!!

It shouldn't be too bad though... We had to sand one wall since it had wallpaper glue and fix the corner which had a really bad mud job done (and then was covered by the wallpaper).
We'll have to sand the bad corner again and remud.
The other walls are already washed, so after we sand and remud (and sand again) we'll just need to wipe down the walls from the dust and then I can start painting... the ceiling is already done.
On the fourth wall we're putting paneling up since it originally had paneling on it (which we tore down due to 20 some years of smoking in the house). We were going to drywall it, but our walls are made with the old fashioned slates, so it will just be easier to repanel.
That wall will be painted dark green (the rest white), and some of Spyros black and white, nature pictures will go on the green wall in a floating frame, so some of the green shows behind the picutre.
Should look good!

We have a long table in front of the window in the dining room that Little Girl likes to lay on, and yesterday she just kept starring up at the window with a sad look upon her face....

I'm going to go through some of my cookbooks and look for some recipes for Thanksgiving... I'm thinking of making the stuffing in muffin tins so I can put it around the Turkey. And I may make cranberry muffins instead of rolls since they're a bit more healthy.

So what are you making for Thanksgiving?

I'm liking this mystery shop thing even more... I was able to see two movies this weekend and get paid for it.... and get a free pizza!
Next week will see a free oil change (along with getting paid for it), and a small purchase (along with getting Paid!)

Now I just need to organize myself better, so the process can work more smoothly...

We brought our desks downstairs for the winter, since the windows in our porch are really bad we're going to close it off. Spyros's office will stay downstairs, but mine will eventually go upstairs whenever we get the floor done.

I want to really get the house clean... finally put away misc. stuff that has been laying around since the move.... dust, vaccum, etc...

So I better get going.

Frugal/Simple Thought of the Day: Organization and creativity are a frugal person's best weapons.

The kids started coming around 4:30... maybe candy time was betwenn 4 and 6pm? Had about 20... very dissapointed in some of the older kids, just wearing their everyday clothes with a bit more makeup.... at least I hope it was more then they ususally wear!

DH and I finally made the rest of the tie-backs for the curtains Mom gave us. There is 10 curtains and only 3 tiebacks (don't know where she put the others?).... but we had two valances which we cut up to make the ties.... now I just need to get some small plastic rings so they latch around the curtains.

Make sure to get out and vote today!!!! We'll be going when DH gets back from the photo shoot... sometime this afternoon.

The crock-pot is going with some pork chops, yellow peppers and salsa in it.... I want to go more vegetarian, so if anyone has any wonderful recipes I would love to get them.

Took down the Halloween decorations yeterday... put up a scarecrow and flipped around the three pumpkins Mom made (one side has faces for Halloween and the other side is plan for Thanksgiving.... what a smart Mommy)
No Christmas decorations for us until the first weekend in December.... (I won't rant about my annoyance with decorations in November!)

Frugal Thought of the Day: Make sure to go online and search for any codes before purchasing items on the internet. Just type in name of store and codes to see what pops up.
I ordered some items and found a 10% off code and everything in clearance was half off on Halloween! My total came to $10.45, but the shipping was $6.75.... What a rip!