What a great IDEA!

My friend, Emeli, found this recipe.  What a great idea!  You use cookie cutters in the shape of leaves for cutting out cheese. It really looks neat.  Take a look at the pic.

http://www.cooksrecipes.com/appetizer/autumn_wreath_recipe.html

Build a Bear is adorable!!!

A quick note, if you haven't gone to see the latest Build A Bear stuff...oh my.  :)  I think that will be one of Irene's and my outtings.  They have a Reindeer (not Rudolph) as their mascot for the Christmas season. The antlers are adorned with christmas lights...and yes...they light up.  Guess what I am going to be doing!? :D

Jeeez...last post was Sept.  I need to update everyone. Next post.

First Day of School and days after

Well first day of kindergarten was as I thought.  She did great...waved us off at Kinderamp that morning - almost forgot to give me a kiss.  I thought this was ok given that I was expecting a crying fit soon afterwards but none came.  We walked out of the class room and headed across the school grounds to make it back to the car.  Marcus asked me about 1/2 way back to the car how I was doing.  I started to cry at that point.  It's amazing how I am the one not coping. Although I think Marcus was having a bit of a time too - but would admit no such thing.

We picked her up together that afternoon and she was so tired, she could hardly keep her eyes open.  NOTE: This is the first time she hasn't had a nap during school hours. Amazing huh? The rest of the week was hard but no crying fits on her part.  Just my getting over myself and being happy that she was happy.  The first week ended with a stuffed up nose and cold ensuing due to lack of sleep.  It wasn't bad the way colds go..but still made  her nap during the weekend.

Tuesday of this week was my day of getting over myself.  I got to volunteer in Irene's classroom for an hour at my lunch time.  I got there about 5 minutes early and got to listen to the singing from the room.  I found that Irene could be heard all the way down about 5 classrooms down! It was amazing. I laughed so hard.  Once I got into the classroom, I could see that she was very well integrated and happy with the kids around her and with her teacher.  Since partcipating that day, I have been content to drop her off with little to no trouble at all.  I know now that we made a good decision. She'll be fine.

Last day of Pre-School

Well today, we took Irene to see her Kindergarten Teacher for the first time (Mr. Kurley). He is terrific and Irene likes him. We got a boat-load of documentation to go through tonight (homework for parents before school starts! YAY!) :) Anyway I took pics. I'll try to post some tonight. She was thrilled to see the pretend room, and liked the library. She also LOVED the playground. She met a few of her classmates and seemed right at home.

I am realizing though, that tomorrow is going to be rough even so. She's been a drama queen the last couple of days and I expect tomorrow to be no different.

Hold on tight!!! Here we goooooooo!!! (name that TV show).

Counting down

Well I mark today as the last full day Irene will be at Quail Hollow Montessori. She's getting so excited while my heart gets heavier and heavier. I remember the day when Marcus said, "Let's check the school out and see if it is something we want to take Irene to." I can remember coming up with excuses ranging from "we're going back to paying about as much as we paid for full time day care for an infant" to "It's too far to drive. My mileage will sky-rocket" to "I just don't think she is ready". Well we did as much as I dug my heels in and wow! What a difference! The teachers have nurtured her and grown with her since she was 2 1/2. I wish I had a pic of her when she was first there. She was so small, she couldn't reach the faucet to turn on the water in the sink. She had to get a stool. It was adorable. Now, she not only can reach that, but she is mostly capable of turning on water at most adult sinks!

I mark this time because Tuesday is Brooke Knoll's Orientation. We found out her teacher's name is: Mr. Kerley. :) He's awesome. Marcus and I met him at the Parent Orientation back in April. He's a science guy. I suspect Irene will get a serious kick out of it. He's also very gentle and his room is great! I can't wait to see what she thinks! I can't remember if that particular room had computers or not. We'll find out tomorrow.

I'll post a picture of her first day on Wednesday since that is her official day. We won't actually be taking her into her class room that day as she doesn't have class until 11:55am. But will get one of her going into her Kindercamp class that the Parks & Rec has.

Now, if I only had something to make me stop worrying - no..shipping a product is not helping me at the moment.

My little one's graduation pic

I had to share. Irene's teacher took this and put it on her grad certificate.  This is now my new desktop background....I am in love!

An interesting article

So I am not sure who might find this interesting, but a few years ago, my honey (Marcus) introduced me to NPR (National Public Radio).  It's a great talk radio show with loads of different stuff. I listen to it on my way to work in the morning (Morning Edition) and then on my way to picking up Irene (All Things Considered).

About a week ago (maybe less) I got to listen to a section on Morning Edition having to do with recommendations for reading on an Airplane.  It was a combination of both adult and kids books.  It really sounded fascinating..but of course, since I was driving I couldn't write down the books.  So I went up to npr.org and searched.  Lo and behold, here are the recommendations.  I think I'll be picking up a few of these.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91364064

I did a small search.  Some of the books are on http://www.audible.com .

Gathering my thoughts

Well, this year has been a roller coaster. I don't get the feeling it's going to settle down any time soon. January began the era of Grandpa care. June entailed the end of an era with passing of Grandpa Kuchta. The estate is getting in order and as we go through his personal effects there are so many things that have been found. ID cards, and patches from 1919 for service. He was in the army at one point I believe. We've come across a bible that was written in czech. It's positively amazing to see the history.

Things coming:
Change in vehicles. With the gas prices we're getting rid of the Honda Odessey. We're going to a Toyota Prius if fate is kind to us. There is a 4 month waiting list on that one. *rolling eyes*. We'll see.
Estate closer. Fortunately I am an in-law so I am happily ignorant of the process of this for the time being.
Parents going to Scotland.
Getting the landscaping dealt with
Repairing the deck before winter
Re-sealing the deck before winter
Praying our retaining wall can last 1 more year so we can put together funds to deal with that. It's going to be expensive!
Our leaning fence in the front yard

whew..and I am sure i haven't listed it all. But listing helps. I really need to get my notebook check list. I think it will help my brain a lot.

Wii Fit here we come!

Well we were able to purchase a Wii Fit this weekend. :) YAY! that will teach me not to pre-order something that has had a serious amount of hype lately. :D. Got a tip that a shipment was coming in to Toys R Us on Sunday morning. Apparently they got a shipment of Wii's as well. There was a decent line outside when we got there at 9am (they open at 10). Marcus was first in line YAY!. We took it home, unpacked it and had a blast.

I have a Wii age: of 29 based on a fitness test. Still overweight..but when did we not know that one ;) I think my BMI was something like 28.++

Marcus had a Wii age of 44! But what's amazing...his BMI was 22.++!!! Really? Seriously? I am so happy at that. I haven't fattened him up tremendously in reality. His metabolism is really still helping him. We just have to get him moving (which he seemed to know for years). I had serious doubts. I thought for sure he was considered overweight given how I was. But nope!! Just needs to move some more! So we've taken on the Wii Challenge. We're going to exercise on the Wii Fit for 3 months - every day and see how the system works. I have to say it'll be interesting. You never really know your weight, but rather it's based on you BMI which is what is more imporant. It then charts your work so you can see your results as you go. The Wii Fit is actually pretty amazing.

Irene even loves it. We took video yesterday of her learning to hoola hoop! :D it was adorable. My favorite is the ski jump. Tonight is the Yoga. That was hard when I tried it yesterday! Talk about control. Am feeling it in my back. Other things we tried: We did tightrope walking, light jogging, doing headers with a soccer ball into the goal (while missing panda bears and kleats (sp?)). Yoga had a load of different poses that helps you to streagnthen and tone. Aerobics had dancing and many others. The Balance games were just all really inovative. We've unlocked maybe 4-6 extras (Irene having unlocked the most). Tonight I intend to that record holder ;). Unlocking more games and exercises has to do with the amount of time you spend with teh Wii Fit. Irene did 30 minutes. So it looks like for about every 5-8 minutes of work out you unlock something in the early part of the time. I expect that as you work out more, it will take longer to unlock some of the more choice games.

Oh! I believe I mentioned our Wii age above. Let me explain this a bit better: Wii Fit through a series of tests tell you how "old" you are based on your fitness level. It's not your real age it's trying to guess. It's tell you how old your body is based on how good or not so good your center of balance is and how quickly you can correct it. I am sure it is doing much more during the test (not sure what), but it is truly amazing how it works things out.

If you have a Wii, I highly recommend this. Never have I wanted to get off my duff more to do exercise than now. If you want an excuse for a Wii, never could I have imagined a better option for buying a video game system. Non-violent, group entertaining and most of all...just Fun.

In Rememberance

I say with great fondness that I will miss Frank J. Kuchta. He was born Oct 21, 1920 and passed away June 21, 2008. He was 88 years and 8 months to the mark. What a remarkable thing, huh? In case you don't know who this man is, Frank J. Kuchta was the Grandfather to my husband. He was the Great-Grandfather to my daughter Irene. Most of all, he was a man of strength and courage who lived by himself for 22 years after his wife died in rememberance of who she was and how much he loved her. He continued to drive himself around San Jose up until 2 months ago when his health got the better of him.

He's now in a better place, I believe with his wife and his daughter who preceded him. What a wonderful family I married into. I will miss him very much.

Spread the word - Firefox 3 download day

Well I have to say, this probably makes me the geekiest I have been since we decided to stay home for our anniversary and purchase the Wii on the our day. :) Firefox 3 comes out today (June 17) and they are trying to set a world record. :) I thought, "HEY!!! Why not?". So I pledged I would do it today. We're still waiting for the download. But I am looking forward to it. To the right I am going to try to put a button that will allow people to follow along in the geekiness, but if not, here is the link:

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/

It's been a while since I've been this geeky ;)

Ok.this was funny - The Sons of Kahn

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/05/26/embarcadero_buys_codegear/

Feeling like talking

You know, there comes a time in our lives where we are at a loss for words but want to talk about random stuff? Grandpa, issues, health , life, death, pain, annoyance, Irene happiness, walks, Fieldtrip, trees, HUGE, itty bitty, picnics, birthday parties, worries, sadness, loss, wonder, ways, time, talk, sounds, pretty

whew...that' whats' going through my mind today. Pretty random eh?

I cheer this news with happiness

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/us/15cnd-scene.html?ref=us

CodeGear has been bought :)

Well, the day finally happened. CodeGear ( a division of Borland Software) has been sold. :) to who? Embarcadero Technologies. Boy was that a mouthful to type. Yes I am happy about this. Yep, I am excited about this. Do I understand it all?? Of course not. But I am happy none-the-less. For those that need a refresh. I am a QA engineer for the Rad Studio development tool. It includes Delphi, C++Builder, Delphi for .NET and C#Builder in a single studio. I was doing genernal IDE testing for the last 5 years. This year I got moved to ActiveX/COM area. I have to say, it's fun!


Here are some posts for your perusal:
http://dn.codegear.com/article/38132

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080507/20080507005272.html?.v=1

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9937966-7.html?tag=newsmap

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/news/sections/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsLang=en&newsId=20080507005314

There are a ton more out there by the looks of it, but these were the ones I've read. So, I'll be working for Embarcadero Tech soon! I wonder if they'll change building entry way and stuff again? :D

Cross-Stitch Update

Well, I've been flitting between things these days having to do with projects. Of late I have been re-learning to scrapbook so that I can get our Disneyland trip documented. That's been so much fun. I've been ignoring everything else. I realize though that I have been deliberately ignoring my cross-stitch and I finally faced why yesterday. So I was originally going to do the following:

Spinning in the Wind

I found that when I first started the piece I was unhappy with it. I found out that I really hate 3/4 stitches and this project was made up of A LOT of 3/4 stitches. I thought originally that I could get over myself and finish it. Which I really believed. But then I got through the first row. And YUCK!! This pattern should never be done in 14 count cloth. *ugh*. For my tastes and needs, this needs to be done on an 18 count piece. I know that it would make the 3/4 stitches even more of a pain, but I am willing to do it if the piece doesn't look like you've used cheap floss to do a crappy pattern. I *really* love the pattern, but 14 count cloth does it no justice in my opinion. So there's that. I realized yesterday, hmm..well I am not planning on ordering 18count Black Aida cloth at this point in time and local stores don't carry it :( ...now what? Finish it with crappy stuff? *shudder* no way. Shelve the pattern for now. I'll come back to it. So..now what? Well... how about this piece?

Log Cabin

:) #1: This has no 3/4 stitches!!! YAY!
#2: I think have 14, 18, and 22 count cloth in my stash at home to do this.

So you can gues where I am headed tonight. Am leaving here in a bit and instead of going to my Kickboxing class I am picking up the little one and going to Beverley's (god I hope they're open till 6pm). Then we'll pick up dinner somewhere and go home. I will then play with my little one till bed time and then Dark Shadows and cross-stitch here I come.

Where's my honey bunny you ask? :) Where else? Stanley Cup playoffs at the "Shark Tank".

New Addition to my blog

Well, I have had a rediscovery of fun and so..had to share. To the right of this post at the top of the blog is a youtube of The Hampster Dance. This is soo much fun I had to share. I brings a smile to my face. I hope it will bring a giggle to your belly as well.

So much to think about as we go into Easter

I sit here waiting for a install to finish and I realized that I haven't blogged in ages. So much has happened and we're moving toward Easter!? Wow! We just finished Christmas, right? :) Well Between replacing our entire roof on our house, getting new gutters, removing all the dry rot and now attempting to grow our new plants from seedlings, I am happy to report that the world is fairly normal for now. We've been working more with Marcus' Grandfather in recent weeks as we work with him and doctors to control his congestive heart failure (which he's been living with for years- this is nothing new). I remember getting into my car on my way to work today at lunch and realized how beautiful the day is. I am wishing to go home and sit outside and work - at least I enjoy one thing while getting the other stuff done.

I am also rediscovering the joy of scrap booking. I know *groan* not another person into this!? Well I got re-sucked in. I got sucked in a while ago, but nothing really came of it until now. Last November we did a Disneyland trip (Irene's first along with her cousins). I took 300+ pics. I bought a photo book that I swore I was going to put together. Soo...here I am! I've finished 2 pages. I am working on all sorts of different ones. It's going to take me forever I think cause it takes me a page a day with about 5 pictures each page. That's 60 pages..so 60 days, right? *rolling eyes*...maybe. :) We'll see. I am having fun and Irene enjoys taking the photos I don't end up using and making her own little pages. I think I need to get her a scrap book with some child safe stuff and work from there. Not sure how..but I am sure I'll figure it out. She's getting pretty good with the safety scissors these days. :)

Sunday, I had the most glorious day. I scrap booked all morning, and then after Irene's nap, we took her to a Sharks Hockey game. Naturally (for once) I took the camera. So I have a load of fun pics.

OH!! BTW: I have to say yet again..the Canon Digital Elph series is just awesome. Spent $400 and bought the SD 850. Got great reviews no matter what web site I looked at. I can now see why. I'll never look back except to say "wow..those were crappy pics with that other camera". :)

Anyway..application is just about finished updating now so I should get back to it. Miss you all out there!!!

A really wonderful discovery

Well many of you know that I am Harry Potter fan. HUGE? Maybe..but probably not nearly as much as others. I am slowly collecting the audio cd's of the wonderful set of books, but it's slow to come - they're expensive!!!

Anyway, I just finished Book 5 on CD today and was discussing with a friend of mine many differences between the book and movie. I really didn't realize how many differences there were. Wow! And she remarked that J.K. Rowling actually hand wrote 7 copies of the Tales of Beetle the Bard (referenced in the Book 7 that Dumbledore had given to Hermoine). Below is the link about the fact that Amazon was actually able to purchase through an auction this wonderful book. The description is positively amazing as she hand wrote this book and hand illustrated it as well. Apparently the book went for something like $7,000 *gasp*. We can only hope that Rowling might allow someone to allow her work to be re-created like she did at some point for general distribution. Talk about a wonderful piece of work.

http://www.amazon.com/beedlebard

Enjoy!!!

So much to catch up on...but first New Sofa BED

Well I have so much to share from dry rot repair on our house to roof replacement to rains in the middle of rain replacement...but first!! first!! I have to share an exciting thing (no..new roofs are not exciting). We replaced our SofaBed!!! YAY! and it's awesome.

Here is the couch in it's regular position:



But the big deal is that when you pull it out, the bed mattress has a blow up top on it, in order to protect the "user" from aching back because of pipes on the bottom syndrome ;).

I have to say, I am so surprised about the color. But when I took the color swatches home today and put them on our old couch just to get an idea of what it might look like, I was shocked. It pulled the wine color out of my sewing chair. I never even knew I had a wine color in my sewing chair. It was positively amazing! Anyway, I had share. Below is a shot of another sofa bed pulled out. What this shows is the lower regular mattress then you'll see a seam and then you'll see the air mattress that has been blown up for showing off purposes. You'll see in the upper right corner of the pic the air compressor that is used to actually pump air into the bed. It's totally awesome. I hope this will make people feel more comfortable when they come to visit and stay over night.




Anyway, it comes in on Friday, the 22nd. :)

Setting up a new machine - what a blast!

So I got lucky enough to get a new 64-bit windows machine last week. I swear this is the most amazing thing! The silly screen is bigger than my 21" TV at home in the back bedroom! I was shocked! I so didn't expect anything like that nice!!! Wow. And I sit here setting this machine up and continue to be amazed. I have to say I *really* like this. It's fast (dual core 64-bit), beautiful monitor with so many card reading ports for digital cards I nearly fell over. 2 250 gig drives. It's positively amazing!

I sit here setting up the IM's and getting VMWare reinstalled and getting outlook setup and and and and and :D Can you tell I am having a blast? So something useful out of this blog? OK. What about tools? I am the tools freak of the world. These are Free BTW :)

7-Zip: open source zip extraction etc.

Trillian: IM that handles yahoo, IRC, ICQ, MSN, and AIM. I love this but doesn't have the bells and whistles of the original IM systems. But also not the memory hog like they are.

sync toy: a way to synchronize my folders of one machine onto an external drive or to another HD

ccleaner: great clean up of all the left over temp files and pretty good registry cleaner tool.
command prompt here: powertoy tool from Microsoft.

DeskLite: If your system has a dual monitor and you remote desktop in with a single monitor, what happens to those apps sitting on the 2nd monitor? This is your answer!

XanaNews: newgroup news reader made with Delphi.

There are loads more, but I should get back to doing the good stuff. :)
cheers!

Toy Story 3!!! In 3-D???

Well this was a cool little blurb. I am skeptical..and extremely curious to see this actually work. In all honesty, I have never found that 3-D has ever worked for me, no matter how hard I try. I seem to remember when we went to Disneyland (pre-Irene) that I actually saw it work with the Honey I Shrunk the kids stuff..but it's a fuzzy memory now. So I can't honestly remember anymore.

Anyway...here..see what you think:

http://www.movieweb.com/news/97/25997.php

Firefox - How to uninstall Stylefeeder junk from your toolbar

Man, I have to post about this because I found it annoying and got no response back from the people that create Stylefeeder - which I found through an applet in Facebook. When Iwent to install Stylefeeder I found I didn't find anything useful with it, so I wanted to uninstall it. Do you think I could figure out how to get rid of the toolbar it added to firefox? I sent email to their customer service site after much digging - no news. I would have blogged kindly saying YAY!! They helped me out. But noooo. So for anyone out there like me who hunted to try to find a way to get rid of StyleFeeder.com and their junk, do the following

1) Click Tools | Add-Ons
2) Click the Extensions button at the top
3) Find StyleFeeder
4) Click uninstall button
Restart Firefox and your issue is gone.

HTH's others. I know I was happy to get rid of it.

Nastalgia

Well, I am yet again, fixing a VM that got lost. I am having to create a Virtual Machine with Windows 98 on it. Can you believe it? It took me forever to remember the fact that I have fdisk a hard drive and then format it. I am spoiled!!! :)

Anyway, things are moving along. I am learning ActiveX OLE and COM these days. Been interesting. Still not too sure of myself. But at least the terms are coming a bit easier than before. Ok..back to reading!

Happy New Year - Welcome to 2008

Well we've gone through another year. This last one was calm and collected. It was happy for the most part with a few trials and tribulations that have worked out fine in the end. I've learned a few things in this year:
1) take the 2 weeks Christmas vacation - you'll need it to make it through the next year with a fresh mind.

2) Never try to do dry rot repair on the roof and around the house in November - no matter how much you don't think it's invasive to the house - you might just have to end up replacing the entire roof by January (like we're doing).

3) Cross Stitch is a necessary thing to remove stress

4) Music is a necessary importance in your life. It's relaxing, it's motivating, it's distracting, and focusing all at the same time.

That being said, we're moving to 2008. Resolutions you ask? Nah. I find I break them most of the time. We're working on the downstairs and getting it cleaned up and usable. We're cleaning out the garage to make it more usable. We're getting rid of crap that we no longer need. We're spending more time with family. All of these? These were goals for 2007... see what I mean? Hehe. Anyway, I wish you all a happy New Year.

hmmm note to self: finish postings about Disneyland in November before I completely forget :)

OH! the other change that is coming for this year! I've moved from QA in the IDE world to QA in the Activex world. I couldn't be happier. It's a completely new genre. I've started my reading and hope to prove more useful and goal oriented as the year progresses. I think I was burned. Glad Chris saw the need and made the change.

Anyway...Happy New Year to all! PS: those of you with Facebook add me to your list of friends :) I have been having a great deal of fun in that realm.