My first day in a hotel room

Yesterday I got to spend my first whole day in the hotel room. So you must be wondering what I did. We are staying in an extended stay hotel, so there is no room service. To start the day the toilet overflowed. So I got to go down to the desk and get a plunger and towels to clean up the mess. Not my favorite thing to do.
The TV wasn't working. Someone came to our room to fix it. He turned on the TV and it was working. He turned to Showtime and then checked the remote. It was not working. While he was doing that the TV was still on Showtime on a movie that had to be R rated. Just the sound of it made me ask him to change the channel. He changed it to Showtime 2. That seemed to be a horror movie, but at least it didn't sound R rated so Julianna and I just ignored it. He finally decided that we just needed a new remote and he went and got one.
Also the heat stayed on almost constantly until I realized that the window was open about 1/2 inch and I could't close it. The TV guy fixed that, too. Everything seems fine now.
The good stuff about yesterday. I read a lot from both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. I also read a good children's book called "The Lost Prince." It is a Francis Hodgeson Burnett Book. I really liked it. It had a lot of the typical elements of her books-an extraordinary child, a cripple, royalty, a child who is poor and wealthy. But it was really interesting.
I did some handwork. I ate soup. I talked to my family. And the day was filled with mostly good stuff.

What would you do for 2 weeks in hotel room?

Julianna and I are flying to Chicago on Sunday. Julianna is going to fulfill one of her dreams by taking the Wilton cake decorating class. Since she is far enough along that she really shouldn't travel by herself, I am going with her. I will be spending 12 days in a hotel room. We are going to use taxis to get around and Julianna will take a taxi to get to the school. The hotel is not near anything, so I will not have anywhere to go during the day. Also, since we are flying Southwest and can take 2 suitcases each for free, we are going to take food with us in our suitcases.

I have a Kindle and I will take some crochet and embroidery projects, but I wonder if any of you have any suggestions on what I should take-both things to do and things to eat.

What would you do if you were going to spend 2 weeks in a hotel room?

By the way, I am actually looking forward to this.

Thanks, Julianna

Julianna made an awesome new background for my blog. Thanks!!!

An improved picture of Pam

I put two sizes up because the smaller one is a little better quality, but the bigger one is easier to see.

Happy New Years

I am not much of a New Years person, and I don't feel sentimental about it. I have never thought much of that day as "the day to make goals." Setting goals should be a continuous process and there are not very many goals that have one year as a good time frame. It is a good time to evaluate, but that is about it.
I have not established very many traditions to go with the day. The most enduring tradition is aebleskivers, but that goes with every holiday. We always pop bubble wrap at midnight-it sounds like fireworks. We usually drink sparkling soda.
We used to play Candyland with real candy on some of the places. The goal wasn't to win, it was to land on one of the candy spaces.
This year for New Years we played an really fun game called Telestrations. It is a cross between Telephone where you whisper something to someone and they whisper to the next person, etc and Pictionary. EVERYONE loves this game. We also played Monopoly Deal until right before midnight and then popped our bubble wrap. Some of us tried to stay up and watch Aristocats, but we all promptly fell asleep. Annemarie had to go to work at 11:30 so she wasn't even here at midnight.
Anyway, Happy New Year to you all and I love you.

School Christmas Parties

Carianne's blog prompted me to blog. I have fond memories of school Christmas parties, too. I was Annemarie's room mother when she was in 2nd grade. It was the first and last time I did that. One Christmas party cured me of ever wanting to be room mom again.
That year it was decided that all of the classes on each grade level would do the exact same things for their parties. So the second grade party was planned by a committee of incompetent mothers-all trying to look like the perfect, supermom. No one heard anything I said. The Christmas "craft" was to ice a waffle cone with green icing and put candies on it. They asked moms to bring store bought icing colored green. The icing was runny and guaranteed to permanently dye everything it touched green. Being runny, of course, it didn't stick to anything but clothes and hands.
Annemarie's teacher had just quit teaching because she was very sick with Aids and the new teacher came that day. The main sounds heard during the party were fighting and crying.
For the gift exchange all of the kids were supposed to bring books. One book was an adult story made to look like a childrens book. In subsequent years, the school ruled that only school supplies could be brought for the gift exchange.
Meanwhile, in Julianna's kindergarten class the brilliant mothers had decided the children would paint ornaments for the tree. Julianna painted her bear ornament blue. The problem was someone brought oil paints for the kindergartners to use. Of course, it didn't dry for days and got all over the kids and their clothes and then the mother's hands and clothes and it was guaranteed not to be washable. Because it was not dry the ornament was ruined by the time we go it home.
In subsequent years I attended the parties for the last few minutes and participated as little as possible.
I made up for not being room mother by volunteering in the school in other ways. I would tutor, assist in the classroom, and do things like make copies and do bulletin boards. I found this was a lot better because I would see my kids at school on a regular basis and I got to know their teachers a lot better.
The pictures are of my kids making gingerbread houses-I don't think I have any of the school parties.

Elder Hinckley and Me

On Sunday we went to church with Tina at the Snow College Institute. Elder and Sister Trythall were there, serving a CES mission. Beckie and Debbie were friends when we lived in Germany. Debbie told me she had a picture of her and Paula and me with President Hinckley. It is amazing that I have no memory of this incident, but isn't it a wonderful picture. Thanks Debbie.