Todays headline!

5 hurt in chain-reaction crash near Hampshire

Five transported in crash: About 15 cars were involved in a crash Sunday that began at about 10:45 a.m. at Route 72 west of French Road and continued for several hours as additional cars hit cars already involved. According to a Kane County Sheriff’s Department spokesman, there were no serous injuries and the exact number of vehicles involved was not immediately available due to the whiteout conditions. Route 72 was closed until about 3:15 p.m. while officers and paramedics sorted out the accidents. According to a Hampshire firefighter, five people were transported to area hospitals and 17 people refused medical attention. “It sounds like cars kept hitting each other or going off the roadway” before Hampshire police and Kane County sheriff’s deputies could close the road, Lt. Pat Gengler of the Kane County Sheriff’s office said. “The whole thing was a big mess.

That's our headline for today. Hampshire is about 5 minutes from us. It's a small town...not as small as ours...but small enough. We set out to do some Christmas shopping and where we had to turn right, you could not see anything to the west. We were glad to be heading east. Rich said "if the mall was that way, we would be turning around and going home." We decided to keep going since it looked better in the direction we were headed, with the plan of turning around if it got too bad. We got to the mall and home without a problem

When I checked today's news, I couldn't believe people would drive into a white out when there is a chance to turn around. It looked like a wall of white just 20 feet to the left of the intersection, you literally could not see anything.

We finished up our shopping for the grand kids and when we got home, I just had to play with the doll we got for Milaynah. She loves dolls and animals...this doll came with a dog on a leash, when you push a button on the leash handle, the doll asks the dog if he wants to go for a walk and the dog wags his tail, his ears start to flop, he pants and barks. There are about 6 different interactions between them. We got Julia...who is a real girlie girl...a wii dance game. She wants to be a cheerleader someday and loves any type of dancing. I bought them each an outfit last week but I wanted them to have something fun from us too, this should do it. My two oldest grand kids...teenagers, ugh...will be getting Visa gift cards this year. I got Rich a banjo case and strap for his new banjo and a CD. I am going to make a big cookie, Christmas breads, and candy tray for my sons and daughter-in-law.

Tomorrow is Julia's 8th B-day and I will be taking her shopping and out for dinner. I started doing that for each of them when Angelic started wanting sleepovers for her B-day party. This way they get thier social time and I get one-on-one time. The kids love thier special time with Grandma. Works for me! I really look forward to thier B-days.

School update

I have completed all my classes this semester as of today. I have all A's and I graduate for my Vocational Certification in Accounting and Office Technologies on the 17Th...WITH HONORS!!!

I have my next semester all lined up. I am only taking 6 credit hours this coming semester because I want to be able to work full time if the opportunity is there. I have a Saturday class for 1 credit, and a Tuesday night class for 3 credits and 2 independent study classes at 1 credit each. The 3 credit is tax accounting, then I have a Quickbooks ll, a tax software class and an advanced Excel for 1 credit each. They are all classes I will need for an Associates Degree.

I am starting to think that I should start taking some classes in medical terminology and Phlebotomy. That way I could widen my job scope. Any suggestions?

Belated Thanksgiving

Today was our day to roast a turkey at home since we were out of town for Thanksgiving. I am sooooo stuffed! My youngest son was here with his daughter and a few of our friends. Along with the usual dressing, and sides, I made a pear pie, key lime cheesecake, and our friends brought the pumpkin pie. It was fun to see my granddaughter again. She's four and finally past her shy stage. She answered the door when our friends got here and invited them in. I'm glad she is finally become friendly, but this could be a problem. She has gone from painfully shy to over trusting.


My friend is still in the hospital and still, is only able to have ice chips. I think it is the white blood cell counts that they are watching. Hers was at 19 on Friday when we went to visit her. It is at 14 today so she is finally going in the right direction. By the time she gets home she will be completely healed from the Gallbladder surgery. When I had mine out, it was out-patient and I was walking to the post office on the second day. I didn't have gallstones, mine just pooped out and was barely working. I am thankful that mine was so easy. They expect she will be able to go home Tuesday or Wednesday. She is so depressed being there for so long. She's worried about her job and her kids and just basically getting cabin fever. I'm sure once she gets home, she will do much better.

Job update

I am working part time at the local printing co...a block and a half away. The wages are better than the part time jobs that I have applied for that would be a 1/2 hour drive, so I am thankful for that, but I feel like I am right back where I stared. I started out in the bindery at the last company I worked for and after raising my kids and going back to school I was promoted to the position of estimator. I ended up running that department and revising the whole system, which had not been updated in...who knows how many years. Now I'm back in the bindery and have not heard one thing from Accountemps. I was somewhat down when I was reassured by a friend that she never got a call when she signed up for Accountemps. She is now an office manager and controller for a company that she was placed with through Kelly Girls. Next step...sign with Kelly Girls.

Talking about the friend above...she has been in the hospital since Thanksgiving. We took them to a feather party at the Eagles Club with us and they won four 23-24 lb turkeys, 8 lbs of bacon, and three 22-23 lb hams. They came to our house for breakfast the next morning bringing with them bacon. She was in horrible pain that night and refused to go to the hospital. Then on Thanksgiving, it happened all over again. This time she went to the hospital being dragged by her husband, kicking and screaming. They found that she had been passing gallstones and needed to have her gallbladder removed. She waited too long and developed pancreatitis, a fever, and high blood pressure. They put her on antibiotics and blood pressure med's and a liquid diet. The fever and white cell where down enough on Wednesday to do the surgery. She is still there, her white cell count went up again and the fever is back. It doesn't help that she found out through the grape vine, that her 18 year old...straight A student...son was driving a car with no brakes. He was leaking break fluid and didn't have the money to buy any so he just drove it any way. His argument was that he needed to get to school. She told him her car was just sitting in the driveway...take it!!! At 18, shouldn't he know better? And what about the people who decided to tell her about it, rather than to deal with it for her. Her husband who is the kid's step father was at the hospital and didn't know about it, but what about his father...he couldn't call him and say...dad, what do I do? It just angers me that people can be so STUPID! I mean...drive a car with out brakes...tell some one who is in her shape about it...who does that???? If he would have said something to me, I would have just asked her husband or Rich to look at it so Sue didn't have to be dealing with it. She should be concentrating on getting better and not dealing with adult children who can't make a sensible decision on their own.

We went to MO. for our Thanksgiving. We visited a friend of mine that I have known since I started in the bindery at the age of 17. It was a good visit and good food. I am making a turkey dinner this weekend so that we can be with our kids and a couple of friends.

I just got a call that I am needed to run an inserter. I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go!!!

I hope every one had a great Thanksgiving.

Not just one job but two!

OK...so they are two half jobs. But it's a start.

I went for my interview for Accountemps and scored in the mid 80's on all my tests. So....I was accepted as a temp!!! They said they would be contacting my references and if all went well with that, they would put me to work. My references are great so that's not a problem.

Yesterday I got a call from the printing company here in town. I went for a meeting with the production manager and they want me to start part time tomorrow. I applied last June and I got an interview on the spot because of my experience. Then his brother lost his job and he hired him instead. It's a very small company, only 4 full time employees. They have allot of mailings for the holidays, the first one due on Wednesday. It's only part time and only when they have a large work load. It's something to get me by till I can get something real. I can still work there weekends and nights when he is busy, even after I get a full time job. It wouldn't be the first time I worked two jobs. I told him about the Accountemps position and he said he understands that comes first.

Beaver dams

It just occurred to me that I did not post the beaver dam explosions. Here they are!!!

No beavers where harmed in the destruction of this dam. The beavers are all scurried out before the explosion. I tried to upload the video but the file is too big. Too bad...it's pretty cool looking.

The beavers make dams in the creeks and then the farm fields flood and the crops are ruined. Plus the farmers can't get the tractors into the fields. If you notice the handle of the shovel in the dam, It is just into the dam deep enough to get the charges into the dam. These beavers are serious about their dam building. The guy in the water (Tristan) is actually standing on part of the dam. The water was backed up pretty bad up stream.

This is what the Illinois boys do when they have a dynamite license. This and old silos that need to go to make room for new development.

I went with for this one pictured, today they went and blew up another one.

In a rut!

I have been thinking of giving up the blog for a while. I have only boring things to post. Other than the CA trip, I really haven't done much other than go to school and look for work. We haven't even done much on the bikes this year. I do miss our yearly bike trips.

Rich has been working on his 1968 Roadrunner. That's kind of exciting to watch. It was originally a stick and he wants to make it an automatic. I still haven't given up on trying to convince him to stay with the stick. He said he plans to drive it all the time in the summer. He doesn't want to go through all this work to drive it once a month to a car show and he wants to be able to drive it with out the hassle of shifting.

Can you believe he thought this was red when he painted it last? Talk about colorblind!

As for me...maybe things will start to make a turn for the better soon. I have had two interviews...one was for on-call work to fill in for the teenie-boppers that don't show up for work on Friday and Saturday nights on Macys' sales floor. I applied for clerical work or part time retail to try to get my foot in the door for clerical. I am not going to devote Thursday through Saturday to sitting around waiting for the phone to ring to replace someone who has poor work ethics and can't get their buts to work when they have agreed to. Sick is one thing, but we know that in the life of a teen, social activities come first. Plus, working a few hours one or two days a month, if that, wont pay my bills. The next interview was for a bookkeeping job...they hired someone with a bachelors degree. Probably a blessing in disguise...it's an hour drive in good weather. 45 minutes of that is on country roads so in the winter I can only imagine how long it could take. We get some pretty bad snow drifts out here in the farm land.

I have an interview with Accountemps on Tuesday. This is three interviews in 9 days, could this mean that the economy is starting to pick up, or am I disillusioned and heading for more disappointment?

On the bright side...I will graduate December 17Th with HIGH HONORS!!!! How cool is that?