Birthdays!

Today is my birthday! As birthdays go it hasn't been too bad. Got some nice greetings from my co-workers. A note from my sister and these beautiful purple (sterling) roses from a friend. Aren't they beautiful? What a wonderful surprise on your birthday to receive flowers. I was on the first floor at work checking up on a couple of things and had paused for a moment at the front desk when the lady who was doing the delivering brought them in! I was able to take my own flowers up stairs. Cleared off a place on my computer desk so I could smell them and enjoyed them there all day.

I haven't written much lately. Guess I haven't been doing much lately to talk about. Last weekend I got a strange call on Saturday afternoon. I answered, thinking it was my son as his number came up on the IDer, only to have a strange man tell me he had found my son or daughter's cell phone. Jim had lost his cell phone while on a walk with Odie! The guy went into his phone book and found MOM and called me. He told me he found it around the Valley Junction area (of which Jim and Mandy live near by) and wanted to return the phone. I quick found the address and told him what it was. After hanging up I wondered if that was a smart thing to do, but thinking about it decided there was no other way that Jim was going to get his phone back. I did make a quick call to Mandy to let her know what had happened. She, unfortunately, was in Omaha at a class reunion and I got her voice mail. I finally called Barb to see if she knew where Jim was or had been only to find her at the Iowa State football game at a tailgate party. She wasn't much help but said it must have been on a walk as she had been with him that morning and he had it then. Jim didn't realize he'd lost it until he went looking for it to call Mandy. He thought he lost it in the house. He emailed me to call him and to keep calling until he could find it. I didn't read the email until Sunday morning. He finally emailed his dad and asked him to text message him and by doing that ended up finding the phone in the mailbox. The guy asked me if they lived in a house or apartment -- he apparently just left the phone in the box and went on home. What a nice person!! JIm got his phone back when he didn't even know he lost it!

I've been busy at work. It's the end of the year for me. Our fiscal year runs October 1 through September 30th. I have year-end reports due to Des Moines by the end of the month. I have a workshop I'm attending next week in Urbandale and planning on spending some time with my children. I haven't seen Mandy and Jim's house since they moved it so I'm anxious to see the finished product! Also looking forward to spending the evening with my children and just catching up!!

We have an all-agency staffing coming up the end of the month which means extra work for me getting prepared for it. Lots of things due at the same time. Two weeks from now I'll probably be bored and wonder what to do with myself!

I'm still scraping and working on Christmas gifts. Hopefully I'll get the majority of them finished. I'm either getting faster at what I do, or cutting corners someplace. It doesn't seem to take me as much time as it used to. I think I'm just getting better at what I'm doing. I know I'm still extremely picky about what goes where on each page. I'm working with an 8x8 format right now. That's interesting as the majority of the pictures I'm working with are 4x6! I've learned to scan my pictures, put them on a CD and then have them developed at Wal-Mart, Walgreen, etc., much cheaper that way for me. I then have the pictures developed and still have everything on a CD to keep. Also am able to take some off my machine as I get them developed. I can always put them back on!!

I drug all my winter clothes out over the weekend. I sure do have a lot of things with snowflakes on them! I could use a couple of new things. Maybe next week when I'm in Des Moines I can do some shopping! Barbie and I have plans to attend "Annie" in November. We had a conflict with the date (I had a Board of Director's meeting) and she was able to change it to a Friday night so . . . . I have that Friday off as a holiday (Veteran's Day) so plan on staying the weekend with my children. Barb works on Saturday but I think I can find my way to a couple of stores in Ankeny and over to Jim's. I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and I won't have to drive in rain or the dreaded snow! That part I don't like. Des Moines/West Des Moines/Ankeny isn't really that far from Dubuque but when the weather's icky it seems that way!

One of the girls I work with is also a scrapper and we're thinking about getting together some Saturday and working on Christmas cards together. I want to try and make all my cards this year. I better start early cuz I don't think I get any out last year.

My tummy tells me it's time to find something to eat so I best go feed it. Hope this finds everyone well and happy. Have a good week.

I just re-read my last blog to everyone and realized I repeated my story about the cell phone. Sorry about that. The ending of the story was the same!! Must be old age. That's what birthdays do to you!!!

Take care all!