01.29.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:27 pm by kellgaston
I’m almost afraid to call this week’s storm “The ice storm of 2010.” There is a lot of 2010 left to go! But regardless, we’ve had some cold and wet weather since yesterday (Thursday). Dh was sent home from work at 10:30 a.m. and told not to return until Monday. Yeah! It all stared with the freezing rain around 8 a.m. on Thursday. That continued until about 3 p.m. when the rain began turning to sleet here. That tapered off around 8 p.m. and then the snow started Friday morning and lasted pretty much all day.
We lost power around 3:00 on Thursday, just as the freezing rain changed over to sleet. On the news they’re saying we’ve made it through about 10% of the precip and then wham, no power. The lights didn’t flicker or anything, they just went off. Nathaniel had not napped well and he did not like the power being off. He thought we were being mean not turning on lights or shows. He cried for a lot of the time our power was off. Thankfully, we had heat courtesy of the new gas logs that dear fil installed on Wednesday afternoon. It actually worked pretty well — the temperature in the house held steady for the 1.5 hours we were without power. Luckily, that was all the time we were without. I assumed we were out for the duration of the storm, but around 4:30, everything came back on. We were extremely thankful!
We’ve had a good time just hanging out but I think we’re all getting a bit of cabin fever. Nathaniel told us he wants to “go home” which is his code for wanting to go somewhere, anywhere. So, we’ll have to see what the roads are like tomorrow. Travel is still being discouraged as of right now. Too bad for us, because we had a babysitter lined up for tomorrow night. 
We made two trips outside on Friday. One trip with just Thanny and one with both kids. They had a good time. We tried to build a snowman but the snow was just too dry. We will try again tomorrow. Thanny and I did make snow angels and we all threw a lot of snow at each other.
Here are a few pics:
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01.24.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:27 pm by kellgaston
Open houses are the bread and butter, so to speak, of Real Estate. They offer easy exposure to home lookers and offer Realtors a chance to pick up new clients.
I’ve done a lot of them since I started selling Real Estate. I have sold one propert at an open house and picked up one client who ended up not being able to buy. I’ve been swamped with visitors and I’ve sat for 3 hours and had no one show up. I have passed out flyers, put out balloons, posted on craigslist, had food. There is no way to predict how much traffic you will have. I have decided there is no need to go to a huge effort — just do a basic, no frills open house with plain signs and no food.
But I have also decided I will not be doing any more open houses for other people. It is just too stressful to hurry from church to lunch to home to the open house. Even if everything is ready to go, like today, I just end up being stressed out and mad. I will do it for my listings (we will skip lunch after church) but not for others. I just haven’t seen sufficient reward from them to justify the stress.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 9:22 am by kellgaston
We are fully into toddler mode — we eat, sleep, and play for toddlers.
This weekend, though, we were unexpectedly flung into teenager mode.
My sister went out of town at the last minute leaving us to cover for her. My nephew was tied up with a public speaking competition at OU and it fell upon me to pick him up and drop him off.
Friday night I was supposed to get him at 10. Never heard from him until 11 at which time I just headed that way. I get to campus and meet him only to discover that his teacher is insisting I come in to “check” him out from her. Grr. I am wearing pajamas and a sweatshirt and have on no makeup. Ed says I scared one of his friends. Anyway, I tried to call the teacher but she insisted. Luckily I was able to find parking. She did not want to let Ed leave until the competition was over nor did she want to let him leave with anyone other than his guardian. But it is okay for him to leave from the school after the school with another student? Crazy logic there. I realize there are school policies in place but at 11:45, school policy goes out the window in my book. It was time for those kids to be in bed! His fellow students did not get home until after 1 am and had to be back at school by 6:30 the next morning.
I think this is a bad setup. What is this competition really assessing — who can do the best with the least sleep? I thought the point was to have students perform at their best and that requires adequate rest!
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01.21.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:05 pm by kellgaston
I know our bi-weekly (okay, sometimes it’s more frequent, and sometimes it is far less frequent) date night is going to come to an end soon. Who is going to want to keep three kids?
Anyway, with that in mind, we are really trying to savor our remaining opportunities to go out and have adult conversation and food that I didn’t have to cook.
For a long time, I’ve wanted to try S*ltgrass S*eakhouse in Norman. Our food was good, but the atmosphere was lacking in my opinion. The cheesecake was wonderful, btw!
Aunt Bloss kept the little guys for us. I think they had a good time. They got into everything and played every game in the house, including Tw*ster. Thanny now loves Tw*ster.
Thanks Bloss! We had a good time.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 6:51 pm by kellgaston
On Sunday, Thanny went on an outing with Aunt Bloss to the Children’s Museum in Seminole. Looks/sounds like he had a great time. (Btw, it was really strange to be at home with just Ava).
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Posted in Uncategorized at 12:12 pm by kellgaston
So, I don’t have nearly the time to follow politics that I used to. However, I’m not completely out of the loop.
On Tuesday, the election in Massachusetts to select a replacement for the deceased Ted Kennedy had a profound effect on the future of legislation in both houses of Congress and ultimately on the future direction of this country.
I am disheartened by the outcome. In this instance, the people of Massachusetts certainly had the power and had the opportunity to make their feelings known. But their actions affect not just themselves, but people around the country. People like a friend from church who works full time but does not have health insurance, and now, probably will not have options that pending legislation would have given her (eventually).
I think the founders had it right — they wanted to limit the power of the people. That’s why until the 20th century, senators were elected by state legislators and not by “the people.”
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01.19.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:50 pm by kellgaston
This is probably old news to everyone who actually reads (if anyone actually still reads this old thing) 
.
But, we’re EXPECTING #3!
He or she should arrive sometime in September. We’re hoping to coax it into August, but doubt we’ll have much luck with an induction given our track record with Dr. K.
We go in next Monday (the 25th) for an ultrasound. Me being the constant worrier that I am, has been concerned –afraid that something might be wrong. I thought my hcg level was too low (58.5 at day 29 of my cycle). Of course, Dr. K’s nurse assured me that was perfectly normal for that point.
My chiropractor today thought I was “showing.” Great. That means I’m already getting fatter. Grrrr . . . thank you mom for the tilted uterus (okay, that’s just what I am blaming it on).
Really, though, we’re very excited. It’s interesting. Dh’s family was super excited. My side of the family was much more reserved. My middle sister hoped I was wrong when I thought I was pg. My mom asked me if I was kidding. But she’s taken it better than I feared. The comment at church was that our class should be known as the “begatting” class since we are taking the commission to go forth and multiply so literally.
We are very excited, although it still seems unreal. It took six months of trying, 3 months of that assisted by Clomid. But it looks like our bodies can (sort of) work as intended (with a little help). And, I don’t have to have any shots as of now. My progesterone was high enough that I am good to go (that may explain a little of my anxiety — it can’t be a real pregnancy without some kinds of shot, can it?)
Got to go exercise!
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01.05.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:14 pm by kellgaston
I remembered an important Than saying.
When Than wants dh to vacuum, he tells dh to “go to the corner.” We have corrected him numerous times but he persists in calling it to the corner.
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