KARMA KARMA!!!

So this morning, Christmas morning, I got up got cleaned up and spend my few minutes left at home before going to work (yes, I was schedule to work on Christmas day, and YES it did SUCK), anyway… I spend my few last minutes watching my kids opening their gift with OHs and Ahs! What a joy to see those Hooray& "I love it" moments.
And of course Rafael who asked for a “real” camera (and got it) toss the box at me because it wasn’t a REAL one!?? What, It is too?? No it isn’t! Well sure, get me some battery!! NO you ARE LYING!! You are!!! ;-( big tears going down the cheeks. So I showed him that it was a real one and everything was great afterthat! Pffff!!!
So, I am off to work, already kinda running late with no minutes to spare. Go to the garage, open the garage. Go grab the key of the “new” minivan!! No keys?? WTH?? Where are the keys?
-Don’t know answered Matt. I thought you had them in your purse!

-No I never put them in my purse I always hang them on the hook, cause this way it is easier to go!!

-I don’t know then. Let me check my pockets!

-Me!!! :-/ RAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

-No not in my pockets!!!

-Me: 2XRAAAAAHHHHH!!!! Me calling down the stairs to the basement where my kids are enjoying the installation of the new Guitar Hero game!!

-Where the heck did you put the keys of the van?

-Damien: What keys?

-Morgane: ?? Don’t know?? Why??
-Me: RRRRRAHHHHHHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Fine, I’ll go with the “old” van (who sometime decides not to start specially with the cold weather!
So I go!! I am PISSED… I am like!! What did I do with the keys? I swear I put them on the hook! Where did I put them? I empty my purse arriving at work just for good measure! Nope, no keys!
Lunch time: I drive home, and eat. The "old"van has now a light that say “check engine” in bright red color!! OH CRAP!!! I eat and OH goodie, I found the keys that I lost, and that I apparently had hidden under my daughter’s winter hat and gloves!! Oh yeah!! Bad me!! So I am like!! PISSED of PISSED OFF!!
Get out, get in the van (Cause I am running late AGAIN) and start driving! Well… guess what, I didn’t see the BIG HUGE pile of snow at the corner of my neighbor’s driveway… and I feel a BANG… Sliding and nothing… can’t go nowhere? WTH!!! Got out, checked and off course I did that: (see pictures)
It took us, Matt, John (our neighbor) and I over 45 mn to get the van out!!

Can I say triple RRRRAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Matt says it was my Karma trying to get me!!!!
So tonight I need to relax and just think positive thoughts!

And a MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS TO ME!!!

Work, Health, Smile

Another issue that I have tried to deal with his that I didn’t know that by working in the “health” workforce your own health was going to weaken, I went to work on Wednesday with a HUGE headache, normally most of my headache goes as the day goes on and with my take of Ibuprofen pill… well not that one… It took me 4 days to actually recover from that headache. I discovered that the best thing for me is to try to get husband at home to make sure kids stay quiet and try to sleep as much as you can. That tends to help!!
I went back this morning… AH AH AH!! And I thought I could make it all day!! NOT!! I was ready to pass out at noon. My boss made me stay until 1pm since the “holiday” party was going on… I was like HELL I am going home.
I don’t think this job is a career move for me; I won’t be able to handle the “death toll” that this place has. Last month over 26 passed away. In the last few weeks. We had 5 hospitalized, 3 still at the hospital. Several of my friends have told me that the holiday season is always hard on elderly. I guess this is true, but I sure hope that when it is time for me to be WAY old, I will be in good enough of a health to be able to stay in my house until I die! I would hate to be in one of those place even if I believe the resident are treated with great respect, I just couldn’t handle the fact of being away from my love one. One can only imagine how hard it is on the resident to not be in a “familiar” environment! I don’t know if I could live like that!
I only started a small month away, and I am already ready to quit, and it isn’t because of the work load, not it is just because I can’t handle the fact that some of the resident don’t see their family, don’t receive letter, when they ask for something to their daughter or sons, they are not listened to because they are “dependent” adult! I hate it. I want to scream and call those people and tell them, that their mother or father took care of them when they were kids so now it is their turn to take care of them. But obviously I can’t do that, it won’t be “polite” so I take it home at night and pray that my kids will be nicer to me when I am in the same situation.
My mother always taught me to treat the people like I want to be treated, so I sure hope that my own kids will learn the same and do the same. I guess Life will tell me that when It come to the end!!
So for those of you who read that… if you have a parent, grandparents, grand uncle or aunt somewhere in a “dependent” care facility, take the time to send them a note, to visit them if you are close by, and just try to make them smile! What goes around come around! ;-)

Silence, Wedding etc...

For those of you who I haven't talked to since "forever" or those of you who are wondering what the H... is going on with me, here is the reason of my "silence"
As most of you know I am working part time now!! Well I never thought that working part time could make me getting behind in everything that I do at home or outside home! Needless to say that my laundry pile is growing, my to do list is getting longer and my blog update isn't getting updated! AH!!! I really really admire single mother who work full time and then get home, I really don't know how they are doing it!
Any tip? And please don't tell me to get organized and plan in advance, cause I am not organized and I can only plan 1 day in advance. My head is as messy as my laundry room is! ;-) So anyway... this is the Main reason why my blog hasn't been updated, the other reason was holiday, you know Thanksgiving. we went to Omaha, and less than a week after we drove again in Omaha to celebrate the union in marriage of my brother in law: Alex (the youngest in the family) and his fiancée: Alli: my new sister in law. It was a great time, even though super busy. I don't know how people do that with their own wedding.
Here is a little show about some Dancing going on there:

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Here is also a link of where you can access some more pictures of the wedding. I will try to update as much as I can every day!! : http://picasaweb.google.com/Nouvellesdeleure/AlliAlexWedding#
Called it what you want, because for me it was for sure a blessing, I was bless to have someone else deal with all the planning of my wedding. I came in the states in May was engaged in the end of June and was married in August, so even if I would have liked to help a little more with the planning, I wasn't able to, since my English at the time was a pathetic try of saying "sure" or "yes" or just try to get everyone to think that I understood! I didn't!!! I couldn’t pronounced my own "with this ring I be wed" sentence. I didn't understand what the heck the guy was making me repeat! He couldn’t have made me sign the soul of my first born that I wouldn’t have understood it! Pathetic eh?
So my future mother in law took it upon herself to deal with all the preparation of planning my wedding day! And even though people don’t always get along with their In law, I am thankful that she was there to do the job I couldn’t to! I had a beautiful wedding ceremony, celebration and party! I am still really impressed with how fast she planned the whole thing. A month and she did it beautifully. Anyway, I keep on talking about my own wedding because the last wedding reception was at the same place that our wedding was celebrated. So it was a sweet Memory!!
Here are some pictures that I took on that day or the day before during the “rehearsal” dinner!!

Moon, Venus & Jupiter

I have read an article about this last week, and I thought it was pretty cool, so read on and you will see the rest of my story down below:

From : http://www.earthsky.org/skywatching
Last Sunday, Venus and Jupiter were in conjunction. That means they were near each other and aligned north-to-south on the sky’s dome.
But these blazing beauties will appear almost as close together this evening. Be sure to catch them to the lower right of the waxing crescent moon at early evening, because Venus and Jupiter will set about 3 hours after sunset.
Venus and Jupiter aren’t really near one another at all, of course, but only happen to reside along the same line of sight now as seen from Earth. Jupiter lies almost 6 times farther away than Venus does. Venus, the 2nd planet outward from the sun, circles the sun inside of Earth’s orbit. Jupiter, the 5th planet outward from the sun, circles the sun outside of Earth’s orbit. If you find that tough to visualize when you gaze at these planets in the evening twilight, don’t worry. You’re not alone!
Now for some astronomical nomenclature. Mercury and Venus lie inside of the Earth’s orbit, so they’re referred to as inferior planets. The planets Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune reside outside of Earth’s orbit and are called superior planets. Yet, the term inferior planet is not synonymous with inner planet. Nor is superior planet synonymous with outer planet.
The inner planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars – are the 4 rocky worlds that reside in between the sun and the asteroid belt. The 4 outer planets beyond the asteroid belt are the much larger gas giant worlds Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Written by Bruce McClure , 2 December 08

Well, this afternoon after coming back from music class with the kids, I saw exactly what they were talking about on this article. Needless to say that I went as soon as I got inside on my patio set up my tripod and my camera and waited hoping to have a good picture!! I had a few, here they are! Enjoy!!

SHAME SHAME SHAME part2

I am sure some of you are wondering how my cleaning is going, well …
Not so good!
I have tried, and I won’t show pictures since there isn’t a lot of moving going on. I did empty part of my CDs collection that we haven’t used since forever, so at least one full “pillow” box which was full or half full of empty game boxes, is now completely full with game boxes and other CDs that I put in. So this is one step closer to the emptiness of my office.
However, the rest isn’t going too well.
I do have excuses (I am very good at finding excuses, you shall see if it is worse or not) 2 weeks ago when I put up that entry, I didn’t know that I would have an interview a few days later that ended up in with me being hire. So I am now proud employee of a local Nursing home where I am the “PT Assistant Director of Activities” but I am not proud to say that I haven’t done what I was wanted to do before the end of the month. There is always something coming up. I am part time, but I still work 3 days a week, and some weekends and holiday, since Nursing home is after all 24/7/352 so I haven’t been home in a while. I guess you could have guessed that since I haven’t posted for a while.
Anyway… so that is my excuse and believe me I am disappointed with myself. I guess my next day off will see me trying to keep up with the house chores and the organization of my office, and maybe a little sleep. I have forgotten how sleepy one gets by being on one’s feet all day! ;-) But I am happy. I love working with people, and if you really ignore the “urine” smell that you have in the morning. It is pretty fun. I think I am going to like it. I don’t know how difficult it is going to be for me when Matt is half way around the globe, but… I guess there are plenty of women who deal with being the “single” mother, so I am well not: prepare, but aware of the difficulty. I was looking for a seasonal job for at least helping with the Xmas shopping and to be able to give my husband a nice gift from ME and not from the money that he make, so I am looking forward receiving my first pay check, it won’t be too much since I just started last week, but it should be enough to pay for some gift. WHOHOO!!!

Organization etc...

So I am in the process of cleaning up and I found some articles that I thought were very interesting and that I will use the main idea to clean up my office and then.. the rest of the house but right now... one step at a time, one step per day! And hopefully I will get the office done by the 21st.
http://www.redbookmag.com/recipes-home/tips-advice/cleaning-organize/how-to-get-organized

you can also go on to : http://www.first30days.com/ and have tips for every aspect of your life!
Very interesting as well. Great tips and you can even dowload or listen to interview with expert.
Love it!!
Go check it out, you might fall in love and find cool stuff that might help you!

More later when I get something done tomorrow or at least I hope I will. ;-)
I hate it when there is a holiday in the week, cause it screw up my entire week, now I don't have 2 weeks of organizing my office I have not even 10 days!! Yacks!!!

Shame Shame Shame!!!

So yesterday I went down in the “CAVE” as I call it, my basement. My kids use it for their “playroom” but I also have an office with a brain new computer in. I haven’t even used it 10 times yet and it has been in the office for over 2 month now! SHAME!!

I took all my courage then because I have all my scrapbook supplies there, my beading supplies, my craft supplies, my painting supplies and of course my office crap! Anyway… I went down and I started assessing the damages. OH BOY!!! Diane, you know it, you’ve been down there, so it won’t be a surprise to you at looking at the pictures, and YES I did take pictures because she told me so!! Diane told me to do it and post it and then I won’t have any other excuse but to show the work in progress right? AH!! Work in progress it has been since we moved in!! 2003!! SHAME!!

For those of you who have ever seen “Clean House” well I think I NEED clean house to come… Mind you this is one of the only room that look so bad, but still… I AM ASHAMED!!
So here it is those SHAMEFUL pictures of my office. And I am going to clean it, no clean house, no 10 people’s team to come and help… just me and myself! L I told myself, I HAVE to clean it because if we do end up moving like they say all the way in Germany I have to not have that much stuff to take with me, mind you I WILL take most of my supplies, just for the fact that if I am stuck in Europe where the supplies are so expensive I will have to have stuff to feel creative… I will have to have supplies that I don’t feel like I am being ripped off my head to pay for; beside it is already paid for so it isn’t like I will spend money right. I have been good lately, no spending on scrapbooking since …. Gosh.. I think it was before the summer! Even when I go to the scrapbooking store to crop, I don’t buy (well I did have to buy some adhesive but it was because I run out)

So here, I hope I will be able to do it within the next crop which is the 21st of November. I will have everything that I want to keep in the room and the rest will be or given away to a school, craft supplies that is, and all the other goodies, will go to friends or on Freecycle.com or to goodwill. I think I can do it.. NO I HAVE to do it!!

From France

Well the election have passed, and since I am a French citizen and I can’t vote so it doesn’t really matter who I would or wouldn’t have voted for, I thought I would put some cartoon that I found online on the French web!! I’ll translate for those of you who don’t understand French.

"Obama, Obama, I am for Obama!

"So you are for a black president?" ... "oui, oui, oui..."

"...In America"

"With Obama, America is Communist, the russian evade Europe and the Gay have the right to abortion"
"My God, so like with Mitterrand here?!"

"Obama is going to be elected Mr President."

Then the Prince Charming woke up the beautiful America that a terrible sorcerer had bewitched for 8 years

Halloween and Germanglishizm

My friend Connie came over the weekend. It was so much fun. First I met Alec; he was just a little hope bump in his mother’s tummy when I last saw him! Now he is an almost 4 years old boy (in a few day) and very happy little boy.

I should mention that this is the first Halloween ever that I wasn’t wearing a winter coat, and believe me it was SO NICE! We went Trick or Treat together, we went to my friend Melody’s neighborhood in Coralville (cause we expected that since the houses down there were bigger the treat will be bigger too!!) Didn’t work like our logic, but who care, we had fun we did a 2 hours Treating chase. Or should I say monsters chase and we then got home had Pizza and were so worn out we went to bed by 10.

On Saturday we went to Kalona were we had the chance to have a guide who knew what he was talking about so it was very nice. We then went to the Bakery and the Cheese factory were we enjoyed a sandwich (our boys ate some cinnamon rolls as large as their head) and some

cheese curds for the mother at the end of the day! We talked and talked and talked some more and we went to bed early too!! But since we changed our time to the winter hour we were able to sleep in.

Connie left on Sunday around 10.30 I hope she had a nice drive back, I hope I can see her next year before we leave for Germany, but no matter what

since she is from Germany I know we will see each other within the next 2 years.

Something funny that you might not know about me. I can’t stand the German language, I think it is something that I have been carrying since my high school time from my dear German teacher (who couldn’t stand me and vice verse) and since that I have a very nagging sensitive issue with the language! Not so the German, cause we have a few GOOD friend originally from Germany or

still living there and we love them as much as any of our other friends.

Anyway, so since we are suppose to be going down in that

beautiful bark sounded language country, I thought I needed to refresh my skills. So Matt got me on the Rosetta Stone language web access that the military offer to the soldier and family.

So far 3 test in less than 30mn and a 99% score!! Whoohoo... I don’t suck that much, Now I can say that the black cat is under the airplane (don’t ask me why that stupid cat is under that plane, cause I sure am asking the same question!) ;-)

Morgane was making fun of my accent because it sound funny she said! OH YEAH I am going to be the worse German speaking person ever, I will probably end up doing some Germanglishizm cause I were putting ING at the end of the verbs. Matt was laughing at me too just for that!! Like for example: "Die Schwartze Katz ist Schlefening!" (try to understand that one and let me know if you got it!)

I knew I should I married an Italian guy; at least he would have spoken in a beautiful language when telling me that he loves me not “Ich Liebe Dich”! RAH!!! Hate it!!! But oh well, “Ich Liebe Dich auch” my hubby who love the German language. So hopefully by the time we arrive in 6 months, my german will be a bit better! As long as I can as where the bathroom is, I should be OK right? ;-)

Connie's gift

One of my very good friend from Kansas City (who happen to be German) is coming to visit this weekend, I am so excited to see her again. I haven’t seen her since she was pregnant with her son who will be turning 4 next week! That’s to tell you… it has been a while! Anyway, I was looking through the house for something personal to give her ( I always try to give something that will make my friend think of me when they see it!) and since she is taking the time to come all the way from KC to IC, I thought I would really get her something nice! ;-)
So I was looking around and found a little something that I made a while back on a long winter vacation in IC with my daughter. We went to a ceramic store in town and after choosing a little jar I spend oh about 2 hours painting it.

On the center it said “Des sous pour des rêves” meaning “some money for some dreams”, it is just a little jar that you could use for sugar or something very… useful like that. But I thought it would be cool to have something to put your spare change in.

So I decided that I will give it to her, before I do, I took pictures of it, because I never take any pictures of all the good stuff that I make and give away, and then I don’t remember what I did. And sometime I do pretty cute stuff!!!

Madeleine Recipe

For Diane who has been BUGGING me to put this one online.. She will hate me when her "derriere" is as big as mine just because she ate too much! ;-) Love ya Enjoy!!

(pronounced Madeline… sort off!!)

Make about 24 cake

2cup of Flour
1 1/2 cup of Sugar
1stick of butter
1tsp of baking powder
4 eggs
1 tsp of Vanilla extract or a lemon zest

Whip the eggs and the sugar together until completely soft. Add the flour/baking powder mix little by little. Add to the batter choice of vanilla extract or lemon zest and the melted butter.
Let it sit for 10 to 20mn. Butter your mold (Madeleine mold or muffin if you don’t have any)
Bake for 10 to 12 min or until golden brown at 375 Degrees.

You can find recipe for Madeleine all over the web, some even have fancy flavor like the one on this picture is with hazelnut powder. I also saw a recipe on MarthaSteward.com with orange blossom water for Wedding shower, I thought it was really really fancy! I bet you can also make some with Rose water! ;-) Yummy!

Far Breton Recipe

Another recipe from Brittany is the Far; it is a kind of Custard cake kind of like a Flan with dried Prunes in it. It is delicious (for those of you who like egg custard) I had several people asking for the recipe so here it is for you! ;-) Enjoy!!


Far Breton Recipe

1 liter of Milk
6 eggs
1 1/4 cup of flour
1 1/4 cup of sugar
Dried pitted prunes
Mix the flour, sugar and the eggs together, warm the mil for 2 minutes in the microwave and add it slowely to the mixture until you hava smooth batter.
Pour the batter in a pre-buttered pan. Add the pitted dried prunes so that it cover the bottom of the pan (you can put as many or as little as you wish (or none at all if you don’ t like the prune taste)
Bake for 40mn at 350F

Cutie Kitty

Today we got a call from our good friend Esther who invited us to come for a late lunch at her farm, she was wanted us to meet some of her friend that we never able to before. Leslie & Michael and Raquel & Gab. So since we didn’t have any plan and it was cold and breezy off we went to Mechanicsville. The trip there was great, I was able to speed up a little in those back roads of Iowa who remind me so much of France (mind you normally I am not very reckless) but for whatever reason I felt the urge of speeding!
I arrive before everyone else (and I was late). ;-) Anyway Matt followed with Rafael he was driving the bike for I think the last time of the year, and was saying that it was so windy that he was glad to have a side car cause he would have certainly be on the ground in the ditch somewhere! ;-)
Anyway, after a lovely lunch we talked and of course I went around taking some pics. Anyway, some are from the cute little kitten that they have, 2 of them but so cute and soft. Ignacio (Raquel’s dad) was there from Mexico City on a visit and he played with the kitty for some time. I wish I could speak Spanish because I would have loved to meet him properly, he seem such like a nice man! I put 2 pictures that Ma

tt took of me; enjoy them because you would probably never see a lot of pictures of me, since after all I am the photographer! ;-b
Also we learn that the wind blew away some of the rabbit cages and Matt and Michael went on a bunny hunt, here it show how many it take to catch a single bunny! ;-) Anyway we stayed for a long time talking and enjoying the company of nice people. Esther's has very good taste cause I really like her friend, I hope we'll stay friend with them and see them more often now that we were "introduced" properly! I had the best time with you all, thanks for this nice afternoon!

Amana Colonie

This afternoon while seating enjoying the quit of the house (on a Saturday afternoon, believe me this is a first) Matt asked me if I would like to go to the Amana colonies just West of where we live.

I said sure as long as we don’t take the kids, I am all for it! ;-) So after getting ready, we told the kids who were playing at our neighbor’s house Fable 2 (much more important than going to a walk with Mom and Dad!) Anyway… we drove there it was a beautiful sunny fall day, around 55 or so, breezy but Gorgeous!

For those of you who aren’t familiar to the Amana colonies, it is a bunch of historical villag

e founded by the German (still German speaking people down there) as most of the historical area in the US it is mainly a tourist attraction where people can buy lots of souv

enir and other knick knack and paying big money for it, but.. it is a very cute little village, and since Fall was in season, I thought It could be cool to take some pictures too! So here are some for you toenjoy.

That little sign is for you Diane, you know why right? ;-)

Matt posed for me as we were ready to go back to the car, and I thought it was a perfect picture of him!