Category: life

Christmas, life

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2006 Christmas letter & picture

criscollrj

This is cut and pasted from our actual letter. Hope you all had a good holiday – I didn’t have time to do an actual web site this year, but wanted to send you this letter, in my new journal (posts from 2003-2006 are added from a former journal). Happy New Year 2007! Only change in letter is that I’m now working at home again, just a little. And we got a new hamster! Pictures are on the right at Flickr, taken by us, Brad & John.

CHRISTMAS LETTER 2006

HOUSEHOLD In case anyone missed our news, we moved last fall! Our moving story is here https://criscollrj.com/site files/movingday.html (2020 – site is there but has some dead links….) and last year’s Christmas newsletter, which never made it to print, is here https://criscollrj.com/site files/Christmas05letter.html (2020 – same as above!) . Every day we thank God for this lovely house we have been given. It truly is a gift. One of our biggest goals of 2006 was getting a fence for our yard. It was a long wait (end of October until approximately June 24), but with lots of help from family and friends we are the proud owners of this fence.

We also obtained a safety lock for our front door, and sleep easier at night knowing the boys cannot as easily escape the house. We had some close calls early in the year with adventurous boys being beckoned by the lovely schoolyard across the street!

The Lake County flood of July of 06 was pretty astonishing. You can see a picture blog our county made, Continue reading “HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2006 Christmas letter & picture” →

Christmas, hamsters, life

Chestnut, the Christmas Hamster

criscollrj


IMG_0889

Originally uploaded by criscollrj.

We are introducing Chestnut, who joined our family 12-26-06. He looks like Spice in a way, yet different. This was Spice who passed away in February. Chestnut has more white on him. Right now we’re just trying to distract Ryan from the cage….

More Christmas posting soon – have to clean up right now! Look at Flickr pics though – Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Christmas Dinner at Gayle & Chuck’s (including pics by John and Brad), and the fuzzy ones are from my cell phone…..

Happy Christmas Week!

 

interests, life, surveys

DO, DOING, DONE

criscollrj

do, doing, done

What have you done?  (Bold are things done….)

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside/outside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game (and survived the crush afterwards)
Continue reading “DO, DOING, DONE” →

autism, life

The beginning of the beginning

criscollrj

In 1993 our world completely changed. Our first child was born in 1990 and everything was really pretty wonderful. There is a link here that partially describes those years, and also partially describes his early schooling. But we were content, with the usual new fairly young working parents’ problems – we wanted to buy a house, we wanted to get our bills paid off, and set up a nice retirement. Our goals for Chris and our future children were to be well adjusted, happy, healthy, and generous working individuals with creativity, goals, and a love of Christ.

This entry and a few following from my hand-written journal from 1994 shows were our lives deviated from this path:

10-20-94. Chris will be 4 in a month. Colleen will be 5 mos. in 9 days. Chris is doing good at school. He says 47 words. But none at school. He carries his bookbag into school which he wouldn’t do last year. He’s doing better with pitching, tantrums. He waves his hands a lot. But I had some nervous habits when I was little. I rubbed my fingers on my mouth. I love how he snuggles with me with a book, or a shiny bowl. He likes the reflections, and the banging (no-no!). He’s really good on the organ. He draws circles and lines and drew a “C.” And he played “Here’s the Church” finger game today.

Colleen rolled over on or right before her 4 mo. birthday. She rolled from back to front. Now she does it all the time but can’t get back over and gets mad! She’s napping now. She fell asleep on her tummy for the first time. She’s breastfeeding well – no food yet. More and more she’s feeding for just 4x a day. She smiles real wide and giggles and shrieks. She blows raspberries. She likes her walker now for a while. Is entranced with the “Happy Days” radio, weeble, star rattle.

We’re still looking for other employment. Praise God for another miracle – since the last time I wrote and said that Roger quit his night job, right after that he looked in the paper and saw the XX was hiring. He got his old job back at XX! And today I got a lead form Laura that Jim was leaving the office and may need a part-time transcriptionist. I spoke with him and he’s going to let me know. I hope so!

Continue reading “The beginning of the beginning” →

life, sleep, transcription

up early? NA, THERE’S A TIME CHANGE – it’s later than you THINK!

criscollrj

Ha! I got up at 5 to start my depo proofing (I’m weird and actually like getting up early – though I do feel the start of a cold from my sleep kinda being untypical lately – like staying up until 1 Friday night typing, sleeping until 7 on Saturday, then falling asleep at like 9 last night, sleeping until 12, trying to get up and proofread, then my son getting up and my having to go get him back to sleep, then getting up at 5 with the alarm (trying to take advantage of that time when he’s asleep don’cha know!)

Well, I looked with surprise at my computer and it said 6:30 (I’d been leisurely in the bathroom, checking my email, getting a cup of tea for the sore throat, for half hour before I looked at it) and I was discombobulated for a minute before I remembered, oh, spring ahead. Back to standard time here in the “northeastern midwest” of Ohio.

🙂

birthdays, hamsters, life, transcription

a grumpy birthday for me

criscollrj

We of course all are still very sad about the loss of our Spice but not thinking about it every ay anymore. We love our lent (from mom) guinea pig Reese and we are still talking about getting a little dog (another yahoo group to join to see what kind to get for the kids, etc.).

I had a bunch of work since wed. so was busy typing typing typing. My mom was here 3 days helping me. She just came over to celebrate our birthdays (me and Ryan on Wed. the 22nd) and ended up staying until Friday night while I typed and she cleaned. She’s a sweetie! She went home last night so of course I should now be cleaning but here I sit. I’m TIRED!

Wed. was our birthdays, like I said, and my mom did a lot to make it a special day. She got us cupcakes and took me for a subway sandwich. She also brought me new clothes, and ryan a cute puzzle, and bought us (along with my uncle) a new dehumidifier. We are celebrating my and Ryan’s birthday next week with Roger’s parents. I haven’t given Ryan any of his presents either. We’re having the party on March 3, I think. But I was still kinda grumpy…. grrr. But I knew I had to take the work as no other money is coming in! Luckily though Rog is supposed to start a night cleaning job next week. Just about 15 hours a week.

Roger and I balance each other – when I’m too peppy and upbeat he gives me a reality check, I hope that when he’s down I cheer him up. We love our music, and goofy old tv shows, and we make each other laugh. And he’s hard working and a great dad.

I admit when I worked, I actually felt like it was EASIER at times. Get in the car, drive 2 boys to day care (after daughter walked down the street to her babysitter), drive 45 minutes while listening to my religious show of devotional speaking, get tasks done at work and actually get complimented for it (most of the time, until the end when I was fired for absenteeism at the end due to sick kids) and have a whole hour lunch where I did paperwork or ran errands, or just SAT, or even WALKED on a nice summer day), then finish the day and drive home and just watch kids for 2-3 hours. Of course it was hard with the housework, and no time with kids, and extra take out and convenience foods draining the budget, etc., but the actual DAY, WORKING at the job? No kidding, it was probably easier.

if you’re still with me, thank ya — I feel better.

now off to do massive cleaning with my head a little more cleared out than before.

dori

 

life, transcription, work at home, writing

scary!

criscollrj

Thanks, Heather, for alerting me to this —

check this out, guys

“http://www.familywatchdog.us
Check that out.. put in your addy + it’ll show you a map of where the sex offenders are near you. Click on one of the red boxes (offenders) + it’ll tell you their name, what they look like, what they did + when.”

And, am I the only idiot that forgets for entries on end to put “friends” only? I just changed like 10 entries from public to friends. I’m going to have to see if there’s a default for that…..

(2020 obviously above is a reference to LiveJournal — this was a friends-only blog on there.  I actually had to delete a lot of stuff to make this a public blog….)

dori, who’s proud to say she typed 2/3 of a CD at 6:00 a.m…..

Christmas, life, organizing

The list

criscollrj

 

  • 3 snows in 2 weeks – beautiful but cold!
  • Sent out Christmas postcards and emails – felt funny not doing regular cards, newsletters and pix but needed break!
  • Bought about half of Christmas presents?
  • Sold our old house – in-laws bought from us to sell after repairing – I hope they make good money on it!
  • Got ourselves a Christmas present/settlement check receipt celebration – 32″ flat screen (NOT HD or whatever) $500 TV with also a stereo system and beautiful cabinet and CD players yesterday! Have NEVER done that in almost 19 years of marriage!
  • Ate at a lovely delicious Chinese buffet yesterday too
  • Keeping up with dishes
  • Have unpacked all boxes in house about 3 times but then lugged more in from old house and in-laws and have to do it all again 😉
  • Haven’t seen hide or hair of our mouse (mice?) and no sign of them. 4 traps set
  • Our lovely Spice escaped last week and went downstairs and was only inches from the mousetrap. Found her when up early! She doesn’t seem very well now and we hope she’s okay 🙁

More soon, that’s the biggies.

Look for me to comment in a few weeks I HOPE! I love your comments and always read them. So I hope you have time to comment this time!

Blessed season to you all!

dori

life, surveys

ice cream

criscollrj
You Are Strawberry Ice Cream
A bit shy and sensitive, you are sweet to the core.
You often find yourself on the outside looking in.
Insightful and pensive, you really understand how the world works.
You are most compatible with chocolate chip ice cream.

cute —

🙂

I think I want some ice cream now.

I’ve been SO busy, and just crashing today.

More soon — but just thinking of —

big birthday party for Colleen,with pool and friends!

all the cleaning for it 🙂