Sara tagged me to for an exercise of finding the 4th picture in the 4th folder on my computer. However, my orderly way of organizing pictures doesn’t make finding pictures in this manner possible. I have my pictures set up in folders by the year, then by month, then by the day of the month. Sometimes within in that day of the month I will also have categories if more than one thing happened in that day. Yes, I have OCD. It’s already been stated before. I suppose I may need to seek professional help.

Anyway, I did the best I could for this homework assignment and just stuck with the “4th” theme and found the forth folder at the beginning of my pictures folder, then found the 4th folder within in that folder, then the 4th folder within that folder, then the 4th folder within that folder, and then the 4th picture in the folder. And can you believe the excitement in this picture? Apparently, I was going through an eBay phase of wanting to sell more of my stamp sets. This is a picture of “A Tree for All Seasons”. Enjoy!

Now I tag anyone who wants to participate in this fun exercise. Let me know if you do.

I’ve refused to do this in the past, but since family is involved I figured I better do it this time. My lovely sister-in-law Sara was tagged to list her quirks and, in turn, tagged me to list my quirks. Honestly, it took me a while to think of some things because I thought I was fairly easy-going and “normal”. Mike helped me with the first couple; you can probably figure that out.

1. According to Mike, I ask a lot of questions. For instance, if he’s calling someone, I will then ask who’s he’s calling and why. If he’s doing something that has not been given prior approval, then I will ask what he’s doing, why, how, when, where, what, who, etc. I don’t think I’m a controlling person or being jealous or anything like that. I just can’t stand not knowing what’s going on around me. This may be where Annie gets the same awful habit. I believe it’s called curiosity to the nth degree.

2. I tend to overly fuss and obsess over details. Whenever I take on any project it will usually take me forever to complete because I will notice minute elements that aren’t perfect and will work on them until I fix the problem(s). Although Mike says that I tend to fix what’s not broken. A lot.

3. Extending the quirk in #2 about obsessing, I will be consumed by a project or problem and cannot do much of anything else (eat, sleep, take care of my house or children, etc.) until it’s complete or solved. Is this a quirk, or should I just commit myself for having OCD? When I was in college in many of math courses I could rarely skip a problem to work on another. It would drive me insane to not solve a problem. I even started keeping a piece of paper and pen next to my bed in case I would dream about or wake up with the answer to that unanswered question. Nowadays I do this with my web design and craft projects sometimes staying up until all hours of the night until it’s at least nearly complete (shhh, don’t tell Mike about this…thank goodness he can sleep through anything).

4. Anytime I’m sitting/lying on the couch I must have a light blanket, an afghan, if you will, on me. It could be 95 degrees outside, and I will usually at least have my lower body covered. As you can imagine, this absolutely drives Mike insane.

5. This kind of contradicts #4 because I can’t stand to wear socks. I will go as long as I can into the cold season wearing shoes without socks or flip-flops/sandals. When I was younger it was actually a more serious problem. I would have to take my shoes and socks off (even at school). I honestly felt like I was being “suffocated” because I couldn’t move my toes around in my shoes. I am getting better about wearing socks especially around the house when my feet are turning blue from being too cold. I also have 2 pairs of lovely, knitted socks that my mother-in-law and sister-in-law made for me. {Thank you for those, and I swear that I have worn them on numerous occasions.}

6. All of a sudden I realized that a lot of things bother me or things I do, but I’m only allowed to pick 6 things. So I’ll list just one here. My eyes are sensitive to light which means I will usually be wearing sunglasses when outside (even on cloudy and sometimes rainy days), and I don’t like the lighting indoors to be too bright. I will get a headache if the brightness is too much for too long. Unfortunately, I foresee myself in the future as one of those elderly persons who have sunglasses on that cover the top half of their face.

Now it’s my turn to tag 6 (I think) people. Sneaky Sara already got most of my audience. So I choose Denise, Stacy, Maggie, Courtney, Sherdon/Lani, and Janet.

For a limited time you can pre-purchase our Halloween Soundtrack just in time for the spooky holiday at just $4.73. Below is just a preview of what’s in store.

Ok, I’m just kidding, there is no soundtrack for sale. However, I do think we have enough material around our home to make a c.d. full of scary sounds. The coyotes serenade us each evening with their howls. Sometimes they seem to be only a few yards away from the house, and they get so rowdy. That’s not all though. The wonderful carpenters who installed our bedroom/bathroom doors managed to improperly fit most of them into the doorways. When the door is about 6 inches from closing they make this sticky, creaking sound that can really spook someone in the middle of the night when the windows are opened and it’s breezy outside. The back of our house can also summon up quite a high-pitched whistle on windy days. Of course, we’ve got plenty of murderous screaming going on around here daily, too.

Before I leave you, did anyone notice Annie’s little comment at the end of the video? Something about spiders. Typical girl, huh?

Overheard several times a day in the Hawley home:

Mimi: “I have to go potty!!”
Mom: “Ok, go right ahead. You know what to do.”
Mimi: “I need hellllpppp!”
Mom: “All right, I’ll be there in a second.”
Mimi: (Upon Mom entering bathroom) “I don’t need any help!”
Mom: “Argh! You just said you needed help!”
Mimi: “I don’t need hellllpppp! Go away!”
Mom: (Usually scolding Mimi for that last statement.)
Mimi: (Coming out of the bathroom with her pants halfway up and rolled at the waist.) “I need helllpppp!”
Mom: “Argh!”

The week before the holiday I took the girls school clothes shopping. Upon exploring the mall to find the stores on our list we spied a merry-go-round. Of course, Annie and Mimi immediately started to beg me to ride it. I made them promise me that they would behave in every store we were planning to enter and that they had to eat their lunch in its entirety, and in return I would let them ride the carousel. With Mimi in tow, I knew that this would be a daunting task for them, but they “mostly” did well. So they got their ride.

Can you tell they were quite pleased?

And now for the new toy I’ve been mentioning over and over and not following through with pictures. People have been on me via comments here, voicemails for Mike, nasty emails to me about my delay in revealing what this toy is. {Okay, they weren’t “nasty” per se, but I did sense an urgency from a couple of people.}

Any guesses what it might could be?

Well, here it is in all its glory, a 2006 Dodge Ram 2500 Mega-Cab Turbo-Diesel. Sorry it’s not as sparkly and clean as the day we got it.

Look at the room in the back seat. There is more leg room than our mini-van by a long shot. And the girls get their own cup holders that they can actually reach.

We wouldn’t want the front seat to get jealous, so here’s a picture of it, too. That middle thingy can pop up to allow a 3 passengers in the front allowing for a total of 6. It also has several compartments for storage. I noticed that Mike already has all his essentials stocked in there such as glow sticks, lighters, and some other strange things.

The 1997 GMC Sonoma Mike has been driving since 2003 was on its last legs, and he has had his eye on huge, ginormous, diesel trucks for ages. We figured it was time for Mike to finally have his wish come true. I was actually the one who made him go for the newer model because I figured he would have this thing for a long time and would put it to good use. Mike’s plan is to convert fry grease from participating restaurants into bio-diesel instead of using diesel from the stations. I’m a little nervous about this undertaking, but we did meet a guy who actually does with success. He was the person who bought our orphan basketball hoop left by the previous owners. Wish Mike luck!