Chaos and Mayhem

We've tackled zipping with Armie :)

2012-01-20T17:03:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m83k1opHn00&feature=youtube_gdata_player

www.totalchaosandmayhem.blogspot.com

- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Tabs For Taylor

2012-01-14T08:52:00.000-05:00

- Sent from my Palm Pixi

SuperMom, Hanna Rapini, speaks before Congress

2011-11-29T19:25:00.001-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hyVRP0lToY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

- Sent from my Palm Pixi

YouTube video of Taylor's new arm

2011-06-25T04:21:00.002-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKNyuMtaC9A - Taylor's Newest Prosthetic Arm

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Another Shriners Hospital Adventure

2011-06-24T23:06:00.001-04:00

Little Miss Mayhem got her new Dora armie yesterday!

What an adventure.....poor kids.....they were cooped up all day wednesday at my job, then stuck in the car (luckily for me they were asleep) until 1am thursday, then crawl their little bums into the house to continue sleeping until 6:30-7 then get back in the car. We arrived at Shriners at 9:50 and that's where we stayed until around 2:30. (Which actually wasn't a long day there but the girls I think had a slightly different opinion.....)

It was a full on kiddo rainbow in Springfield yesterday. Armies, Leggies, Cleft lip pre and post op, you name it. A building full of beautiful, perfect babies and children. Taylor was the center of Makayla's (also an LBE kiddo) attention. She was pretty excited to see another kid, especially a girl, with a limb difference too. It took Taylor a while to realize other kids there were just like her and then she nubbie bumped everyone including her OT, Debi.

Miss Muffet wasn't always so friendly yesterday though. When she saw her new arm she was all excited. 'Lookie Mom my Dora Armie' and she put it on. Then she took it off and didn't want any part of it. OMG! So Rob (the almighty armie maker/fixer) and I are trying to coax her into cooperating so he can figure out if her harness is too long too small whatever, and Taylor wants no part of it. She is a mini NinJeremya! Wow stubborn much.

We eventually win (with bribery) and she puts armie back on. And the leash (harness) is too long. But she won't wear her [nub] sock and after the battle to get her prosthetic on, we're not taking it off to adjust the leash or address the sock absence. So we run to visit with Debi upstairs for a bit and Taylor shows everyone she can open and close her new hand (this one has the body powered hook instead of the opening closing fakie hand she had last time) and then she takes it off.

Debi showed Taylor how she takes off her prosthetic (she's an all knowing and totally awesome, resourceful, informative....yes I can keep going.... Inventor, blogger, OT, RBE), and how she puts it on trying to get Taylor to do them same with hers. Instead Taylor was all excited and curious about the powder on Debi's nubbie. So Taylor tried to steal her powder by giving repeated nub bumps. So Debi ran around and found Taylor her own bottle of powder. We now have that side track done and Taylor finally shows that she can put on her arm and the leash all on her own.

Next, Taylor shows Debi she can open and close her new armie by opening the hook and then closing it on Debi's nose. Mind you this was Debi's idea, and she pulled back so Taylor didn't cause any harm. Then, in walks a kiddo and her family. Side track number 57......Taylor shows them she can open & close the hand and then takes off her arm to show them her nub. Here we go again. Now she wasn't excited about it again. At this point Rob tracked us down to check on how Taylor was doing and saw his opportunity to adjust her cord and harness so he snagged her new armie to go and fix it up, and we finished up with Debi. We eventually make our way back downstairs to meet back with Rob. Now her arms all set and we have battle royale again. We won and Taylor put on her armie and we were good to go. So we say our goodbyes and make our way to the car. I loaded up the kids and away we went. Taylor was asleep by the time I got to the Shriners Hospital sign, which is literally like 250 feet from the door of the hospital and Ashtyn was out at the I-91 on ramp about 3 miles away. Ahhhhhhh silence :) They woke briefly in Brattleboro long enough to eat a bagel (as Mommy's dumb and forgot to bring cash for lunch) and back out they went for most of the ride back to the almost-Canadian border. We finally got out of the car at 6:45 (and lucky me I got to work 3rd shift after all that).

Back to reality

Since we left Taylor has hard her Dora armie on almost every second she's awake (and sometimes when she's sleeping) and she really likes it. She's so happy she can finally hold things in her armie. I can't thank the Shriners and Shriners Hospital staff enough. Thank you. Truly from the bottom of my heart, you'll never know how wonderful you've made my daughter's life and mine.

- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Quick heads up

2011-06-04T19:23:00.000-04:00

2516.12.....and maybe more on the way :)

www.totalchaosandmayhem.blogspot.com

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North Walpole NH man missing

2011-04-27T18:32:00.002-04:00


share Source: sentinelsource.com WALPOLE — Police are searching for a missing Walpole man after his vehicle was found near his home early Friday morning.

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SHrINE ON SPRINGFIELD paperwork

2011-03-31T18:31:00.001-04:00

www.totalchaosandmayhem.blogspot.com

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More than 2,000 Babies are Born Each Year with Limb Difference | November 8, 2010 | The O&P EDGE | oandp.com

2011-03-25T00:21:00.001-04:00

http://www.oandp.com/articles/NEWS_2010-11-08_01.asp?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4d8c185fb4de53b6%2C0

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giavanna's shrine maple sugar bowl pic

2011-03-13T17:26:00.001-04:00

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It's gotta stop being like this.....

2011-02-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

I appologize again for the lacking posts. Facebook has been my sort of 'updater' recently. I started working back in november at this call center and the hours were kind of weird and with ashtyn's school stuff in the mornings, I was pretty much too exhausted to even think. This went on from thanksgiving until mid january when things got a little more tricky. I found out about an opening nearby at a retirement housing facility (basically a nursing home but its for people who just need help with bathing and keeping their meds straight) so I was all excited to get it since it gets me back in the nursing field. So I had this oh so brilliant idea that i'd work both places. I'd be at the retirement home from 2-10:30pm and then fly over to the call center to work until 2am, or later depending how the night went. Thursday, friday and saturday were the 'easy' days cause I only did the retirement home, but it was from 10pm-6:30am..... So needless to say sleep wasn't happening and I left the call center. Now i'm enjoying the perks of a set schedule, awesome coworkers (which I did have at the call center too, and I miss a bunch of them), more regular & nice paycheck and I don't have to worry about not waking up to send ashtyn to school or pick her back up. And no more calls from the shady pantyhose guy is an added bonus. The only ral downfall is that jeremy and I don't see each other ever it seems. I come home and he's asleep or leaving to go to work himself so that sucks but we gotta do what needs to be done I guess. I do (usually) have every other weekend off so we do get to do family stuff a little just not as much as we were all used to. We did get to have our second post children date a couple weeks ago, barely. Luckily our friend tammy was home. She and her boyfriend watched the girls so we could go to vermont railroads 'christmas' party that they hold up here in the end of january. All you can eat and drink, for free, at eastsides restaurant!!! Oh yeah. I had to go into work at 10 so drinking wasn't an option this year but I think the amount I ate made up for what they would have spent on my booze. Their food is almost too good. Mmmmmmm. That's basically the jist of how things have gone lately and brings us up to the beginning of february. Then, my exploder decided it's rear wheels wanted to fall off. They didn't really fall off but they were close. Both the rear barings were gone and my rear brakes were destroyed. I told them an idiot light came on and asked them to check it out. The light never came on for them and no codes came up on the computer scan. Weird. So $800 later, I have my car back. A week goes by, the tranny slipped on me twice in the am. So I call the shop and they said to swing in the next time the light came on....so I do.....my tranny is dead. I guess some cooling thing went which caused the transmission fluid to run low thus killing my tranny......and the price tag for this fix................... $3700!!!!!! As if. Thank goodness my inlaws came to my rescue and loaned me their not-exactly-spare rig for a couple weeks. I was supposed to find out today if my warranty would cover anything but haven't heard a word as of yet :( who knows.
That's about it for my update. The only other thing(s) to add is the 'planned' date for sos2011 is saturday june 4th. I'm waiting for the confirmation from the springfield selectboard about the trail but everything is in the works :) Hope to see lots and lots of people there again this year!!!

Ps, in reguards to the walk.....some of my links on my blog are for last years stuff.....hopefully i'll have them all fixed in the morning, but for now i'm going to get some shut eye :)

www.totalchaosandmayhem.blogspot.com

- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Tabs for taylor

2010-11-29T13:33:00.001-05:00

This was the car-load of tabs we delivered to shriners hospitals in springfield on St. Patty's day. We literally filled my mom's trunk, probably beyond it's maximum capacity, and turned in 90 gallons of tabs, which is 220 pounds or somewhere in the vicinity of 430,000 individual tabs! Bringing tabs for taylor's total tab collection to: 144 gallons (360 pounds or 678,000 tabs) in 9 months, with the last 90 gallons being collected in just 3! I'm being told by our 'turn in point tabbies' that we currently have around another 90 gallons on hand and there more are being turned in every day. This tab drive wouldn't be the success it is if it weren't for everyone involved. I'm humbled that so many people are willing to help. Thank you all for everything you have done and continue to do to help my little girl and all the patients of shriners hospitals. All of you, and shriners, have been a true blessing to our family..... Thank you all so very much.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

No, we're not done yet....but we're gaining

2010-11-15T09:50:00.000-05:00

I would have thought by now that my/our to do list would be completed. Not so much.

A lot has happened, as usual, since my last post......

Ron, sue and justin came up for a weekend. And brought with them an absolute ton of food, a bunch of warm winter stuff and about 100 movies. [a huge, huge thanks to everyone involved with that]. Sue took the girls and me to iroc to go swimming on friday for a bit and hooked me & jeremy up with a pass to go again and we got the girls memberships set up. I'm so excited.....the girls have free memberships until they're 17 thanks to iroc's local kids are free program.

While they were here we also worked on the addition a lot. We got the ceiling up, installed 2 lights, hooked up the kitchen sink, fixed the non-existant water pressure issue, hooked up the new shower dial thing, hung the kitchen cupboards up, insulated the ceiling, made an access to the 'attic' and {insert the sounds of angels here} halelujha!!! I got a washing machine!!!! Sue picked up an awesome-as-could-be front loader, and as much as it pained her to do so, they brought it up here (you rock!). I did about 14 loads of laundry that weekend. I was so excited to have a washer again after 6 weeks of hand washing....that weekend was the highlight of my month.....or maybe year....minus sunday, but that's another story.

Over the few available days before their visit and over this past weekend we carried on alone with our banging-it-out mission.......

In the addition: we got 1 outside light in, finished the metal roofing, put up soffets and closed up the ends of the roof, poured a cement slab for the back stairs, made the stairs, hooked up the electric lines to the generator house, ran electric from the addition to the porch, insulated the floor with fiberglass and covered it with tyvek (to be covered again with blueboard), covered the walls, put in window sills, moved the tall cupboard into the kitchen and moved the table, chairs and other kitchen stuff out there. Now the only things left to do out there are floor the kitchen and get the stove & fridge out there and hook up the heater.

As for the porch: we closed up the roof end and got soffets in (after 10 years of being open), put the ceiling in the porch up, put the inside walls back up, finished insulating the walls, ran new wire (because the evil porcupine jeremy shot had, previously and unknown before hand, chewed the old wire to bits), hooked up two outlets and a light switch, installed a light outside and a ceiling light, caulked the gaps, and hung the trim around the door. The to do list out here: finish around the windows on the short wall and hang trim.

Inside camp: we installed 2 outlets in the livingroom, moved the porch couch inside, put the cedar boards back up on the old kitchen wall, covered up the insulation in the living room and moved the woodbox to accommodate me bringing the rocking chair out of hiding. This to do list: get pumice board up on fireplace wall, finish putting up old kitchen wall (we ran out of lumer) and address the stairway support issue.

And basically the only other things left to do are put the clapboards back up and get the second bedroom upstairs situated.

What a crazy busy summer.....and fall.

As for the monkeys: both of them have been sick. Pretty much since cabbage night. We went to newport for their t.o.t. On cabbage night adventure.....ashtyn was asking to go home after about 2 minutes....and if taylor could talk, she'd have done the same. We woke up to 3 inches of snow on halloween, so we called this year a wash for t.o.t.ing. And basically since then one or both of them has had a cough, fever, booger face, puke bug or the liqui-poo's.

It's going to be a long winter.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

2010-11-09T06:47:00.000-05:00

Justin J. Towle, 29, died Monday morning, November 8, 2010 as the result of an automobile accident on Route 120 near Townhouse Road in Cornish.
Funeral services will be Saturday, November 13th at the Stringer Funeral Home in Claremont. Visiting hours will be Friday from 5 to 8 PM.
In lieu of flowers donations may be made in his memory to the Arms For Kids, 227 Valley Street, Springfield, VT 05156.
A complete obituary will be in Wednesday's Paper. [eagle times]

http://stringerfh.com/2010 Obits/justin_j_towle.htm

totalchaosandmayhem.blogspot.com

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Birthdays, dogs, building & friends

2010-10-26T09:23:00.000-04:00

Where is october going? I can't keep up!

4 of my loved ones celebrate their birthdays this month: Ron, Davie, my Mom and my Dad.

We have had a bunch of friends and family make it up to the nek to visit us this month too. Jessi came up with her little cutie pies charlie and maebel and the little bun in the oven that i'm so excited to meet in february. I didn't even know she and griffin were expecting..... I hadn't seen her or really even spoken with her since shrine on 2010 back in june. I was so happy to see them, as were the girls.

Next, justin, clyde and diane gallion made it up. Clyde and diane have never been here. Ron & sue have tried for the past 11 years to get them to come up and finally they did. Nothing beats friends and cold ones around the camp fire. Diane spoiled us too with a bunch of snacks and goodies and lisai's. They also brought up around 20 disney movies and a couple vcrs for the girls. Jeremy and I have {shhhh, it's a secret} been enjoying the new movies as well. I think we've watched the 50 or so I brought up about a dozen times.....so we've been pretty ansy to see something 'new'. The gallion clan stayed saturday night and around lunchtime they headed over to derby to go pick out and pick up their new puppy. She's a golden lab and I guess is bruiser's (ron & sue's youngest lab) niece. Shortly after their departure from camp, my aunt cindy and uncle mark (who I get to see once a year if i'm lucky) and cousin leslie (who i've seen maybe 4 times in the past 9 years) snuck over for a visit before they headed back down home from visiting mark's mom who lives a few miles away from us. It was an awesome weekend. It's kind of funny, I see more of my friends and family now that i've moved 2 1/2 hours away from them.

As for our addition building project: we've come a long ways since my last update.
We got the ends closed up and soffets in, the walls are insulated and we have plywood up as a temporary wall covering, the toilet, water heater, shower and bathroom sink are all in and working, we have some really nice linoleum on the bathroom floor, the storage area is insulated and some new light fixtures and outlets are in. Sue picked up a new front loader washing machine to replace our freebie piece if junk one {omg i'm sooooo excited} which will be up here soon and i'm working on insulating under the floor. My kitchen has had a major face lift in reverse though. We put in the door to go from old camp to the new part and in order to do it we had to take out the 10 foot counter which was the only real storage here and take down one of the cupboards. So I now have 2 cupboards on the wall and one on the floor which is also being used as a shelf for cereal and whatnot......so everything in the kitchen is kind of all over the place. And since I have no kitchen sink still, I still have to clean the dishes in the shower :(. But it's getting there. As far as right now goes, jeremy has friday off so we should be able to get the sink in and I hope to have the floor insulation done. I kind of want him to be here for that project because I have to use the table saw and I want everything cut correctly and it's too scary in my mind anyway, to run that thing with kids around. I can't wait though to have it done. To do the dishes in a sink, laundry not being washed by hand (again) and get the girls set up in their own room. Oh it'll be an awesome day.

We 'might' have a new dog. Her name is chelsea and she's almost 2. She's is an excellent dog. She doesn't need to be leashed or penned up, she stays right with you and she just loves the abuse the kids give her. Courtney tollerates abuse.....this dog seriously cherishes it. The two are an excellent match. I hope everything works out and we get to keep her. Right now is supposed to be a sort of test run to make sure the dogs like one another and that we like being a two dog family. She reminds me so much of my dog brandy. If courtney and cheslea were mushed into one dog, that would be brandy. I think that's why I wanted her so much. But we'll see how everything goes.

Hopefully i'm working soon. This paycheck to paycheck garbage is beyond old and I am done trying to borrow a nickel today, to pay back yesterdays dime at the price of a quarter. I've had it. I exhausted every avenue and turned up empty handed and broken armed. Last week I found 3 new roads to check out and am on it like there's no tomorrow.

Oh yeah, taylor turned herself into the jolly green midget. Funny huh. The girls found the food coloring and decided taylor would make a lovely baby shrek. Dawn and baby wipes work miracles.....it washed almost all of it off. She has a little spot of her wrist and the soles of her feet are green, but everything else is gone.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Letter to santa

2010-10-22T07:51:00.001-04:00

Dearest santa claus,

Last night we received our first of many flakes to come. I truly thought jeremy was messing with me until I looked outside and saw that evil white garbage all over the place.

One would think that being a northern new englander for 29 years, my entire life, would have conditioned me to accept, tollerate or even, dare I say it, 'enjoy' the winter weather. Well, not so much.

I can not stand the cold. In my perfect world it's never below 75. And i'd prefer it to be around 85-90: tank top only on my harley weather. That would be great.

I do ask for a white christmas but i'd also like it to be back in the 70's on the 26th. I've been a good girl.

Please.

I'll leave out extra cookies for you :)

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Twin state jeeps n things 3rd annual toy drive

2010-10-15T13:30:00.001-04:00

I just received this email from
Dave, twin state jeeps n thing vp. Jeremy and I used to be a part of this group. We enjoyed many a muddy, rocky, trail-blazing runs with this group as well as helping out with the annual toy drive and monthly food shelf collections. This year has been especially tough for jeremy and I and we are unfortunately not going to be able to help out like we wish we could, so i'm posting this on my blog and facebook in hopes that others back near home can maybe help out.

The toys need to be dropped off or a pick up scheduled by november 5th. If you plan to make a monetary donation and/or you are a business looking to sponsor, i'd recommend contacting dave asap.

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance to all who help. Here's wishing tsjnt a huge 3rd annual toy drive!!!! We miss you guys.

"I am sending this to everyone on my contacts list because this is important to me. Twin State Jeeps N Things of whom I am the Vice President of is asking for your help. We raised over 300 toys for families in Claremont and surrounding communities last year. This will be our 3rd annual toy drive and I need your help. We are looking for (New) if possible, clean unused toys for the toy drive. Books and board games are also wonderful. We are also looking for donations to purchase toys. A donation of as little as $5.00 goes a long way to help someone. If an individual or BUSINESS would like to donate, a $50.00 donation gets your name and or business logo on our sponsor web page for one year.
We ask that you check out our web page at: www.twinstatejeepsnthings.com for more information on what we do as a club for our community.
Toys can be picked up by us at your convenience. If you are interested in sending a cash donation please send it to:
Dave Collise
C/O Twin State Jeeps N Things- Toy Drive
8 Hardy Ave.
Claremont NH. 03743"

totalchaosandmayhem.blogspot.com

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Photographic evidence

2010-10-06T08:04:00.000-04:00

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Building, building and more building

2010-10-06T07:59:00.001-04:00

The addition is coming along. It's not a super fast paced project but we're going as fast as we can.

It rained from saturday the 25th until saturday oct 2! We had flood warnings in effect from noon on october 1st until around 2am on the second. Parts of hinman settler rd (the road that brings us to 'civilization') were under water, and today when I went into orleans I was detored because they're trying to 'fix' the bridge. Jeremy's train tracks washed away again somewhere up here. When we were in st. J, we were detored because the river was over route 5 and the town and police had center brownington shut down because the church, farm and road (5 way intersection) in the very center, were under water.

So with all this water barrelling out of the sky, putting slippy tyvek and tin roofing on a very freaking steep roof (with a busted arm no less) was not an option. But saturday, the skies cleared. And although it was cold as my idea of hell, jeremy and I got the tyvek and metal roofing up. Unfortunately, we were one piece shy {you wouldn't expect anything to go smoothly for us would you???? Where do you think 'chaos and mayhem' came from? Such is my life}. So, the roof is 'almost dome'. Then we got the 4 windows in and I cleaned them up.....soooo pretty. After that we went to bed. We'd had it. The next morning we set out to get some more accomplished. Now all the walls have plywood. Yay! and we started in on the big triangle opening {i have no idea what they're called}. The 'to do' list for this week end (if anything goes well) is: finish big triangle things, metal roof 100% finished, tyvek the outside walls, shower, toilet, water heater, sink all into and hooked up in the new bathroom area and outside door in place. If we manage to get all of that done, which I pray is finished friday, then we need to work on insulating, cutting out the wall and putting up the inside door and maybe some actual siding getting put up. Some point soon we also need to get the rest of the inside walls covered and trimmed. Oh the never ending joys.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Mayhem turned two!

2010-09-30T09:03:00.001-04:00

Little miss mayhem turned 2 on friday. I still can't believe how quickly time flies when you have children. I remember the summer before I started kindergarten and thinking fall would never come, and now i'm just like: wow, slow down here! Yesterday I was pregnant with ashtyn and now she's in school already! Yikes! Tomorrow they'll both be married and i'll be a grandma.

Taylor's party was small but nice. My mom, dave, julie and lisa came up to celebrate. We didn't get to have cake which bummed me out but it was okay. The girls killed the cake I made, or I should say crystal made, and so I just said the hell with it. Jeremy and I laughed about how mangled it was and since friday was taylor's birthday (when it happened) and since it wasn't frosted, we just let the girls eat the rest of it....after us adults snagged a little piece....it was yummy! My mom was going to buy a cake, and crystal offered too but in the end I said no and so we just enjoyed some burgers, dogs, present opening and watching the new tinkerbell movie.

Speaking of presents: my kids are spoiled. They each basically get to birthdays. They have their own and they have each others. Ashtyn got a ton of gorgeous new outfits...not really a ton, like 6 or 7, but still a lot....and a treasure chest full of wizard of oz dress up stuff, a light up glinda gown for trick or treating and some other fun goodies. Taylor got a beautiful dorothy dress and tinkerbell and another pink fairy outfit. They both got some new pj's, footies and non and some really nice fuzzy blankets from auntie julie and my aunt lisa made taylor an awesome quilt.

It was really nice that they were able to make it up here. It's around a 3 hour drive each way so it's hard to do it often, and it's not like they could stay here since there's not much room, but they made it and ended up actually staying longer than planned. Davie was helping jeremy and mack build the addition and I kidnapped lisa to bring her on a walking tour of our land and then showed her the old house...whats left of it....she was so excited about that. I was kind of excited and confused by my visit to it. I found some old insulator or whatever it's called from a utility pole.....there's no electric out here...why on earth there would be insulators out there, I have no idea....but I hope to find out.

When they left they took my last 'tabs for taylor' wishing well. My mom is putting it in her yard so people can drop their tabs off there. I'm so excited! She's submitting my write up along with one of taylor's tab filled pics to the newpapers out her way. Mom you rock!!!!!

I, we, finally got to meet the girls' new pediatrician yesterday. She seems awesome. I really miss dr. Hall back home, but I, so far, am really happy with dr. Bannach. Taylor had her 2 yr well child check up in the morning and since ashtyn's been coughing and is now producing phlem, I brought her in after lunch. The doc played with taylor a bit to get her to feel comfortable and was really impressed to see taylor in action: taking armie off, putting armie back on, reaching, grabbing, climbing everything, moving a huge wooden chair around the room, climbing up on the counter, turning on the faucet, getting soap from the dispensor, washing her hands, getting the paper towel to dry them and then climbing back down to find the trash. She was doing great. She loved how independent taylor is and how nothing slows her down. We talked about orthopaedists and shriners hospital and how we'll always make the drive to mass because they are awesome and we talked about her cold, blue nub ('cause it was when we were there) and then about her speech and ot services etc and that she's doing great. I know she's doing well but it's nice to hear it from others too. And then came the hard part: the hep b vaccination. What a trooper. She was unimpressed about me holding her down but didn't even make a peep about the needle. And was all excited to get a booboo bandaid. All done. So we said our goodbyes and went to the hospital. During our visit we had also discussed that taylor had tested positive for lead again. I can't for the life of me figure out how and when I described our current 'home', the dr was shocked too. The camp is all virgin (untreated/preserved/whatever)cedar and pine. No paint anywhere. So we're kind of assuming it's a bogous finger prick, which is why nh doesn't do finger pricks....so we went to the lab at the hospital to get some blood the old fashioned way, directly from the vein. Again, taylor was a trooper. She was scared of me restraining her and then when she saw the needle, she watched silently as the tube turned red and filled the vial. Another booboo bandaid and a sticker for being such a big girl. All smiles, she said bu-bye to everyone and we left to go pick up ashtyn.

We get back down to barton, get ashtyn, drive back up to camp for some quick pb&j and then back over to newport to the dr's.

I had to convince ashtyn that she would not get any shots, or finger pricks or anything of the sort. That she just needed to be weighed and measured and have her lungs heard.

Please, please be good.

She did not want to pick up the toys she tossed all over the play area but other than that she was good. The doctor gave her a nebulizer treatment for her nasty cough, wrote a rx for the treatment so we could do it at home and sent us on our way.

Luckily we have a medical supply place up here so we could rent the nebulizer. Holy cow! 200 bucks for the damn thing....we rented it for 20. Makes me continue to hate my insurance company.

In the end I was very happy I did get ashtyn in to see the doc but I felt like an ass for not doing it last week......and jeremy didn't get to cry about a pointless dr visit :) I keep reminding him our deductable is pretty much nailed already.....and he keeps threatening to go get a vasectomy.....jerk. Lol.

Anyways, jeremy and mack finally got the walls up and the roof streamers. They managed to get the plywood and plastic sheets on the roof and no sooner did they get down the ladder, it started to rain. And it's basically rained non stop since. I put all the plywood that was outside, the trim boards, windows and insulation in the addition area so we almost have a porch again. I've got another 30 or so sheets of plywood on the porch still to move out there but I hurt myself enough moving stuff yesterday. I can not wait to have two useful arms again!!!!!! Ugh!

Well, that's it for now. Off to 'chores' and whatnot.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Celebrating 85 Years at Shriners Hospital

2010-09-26T16:48:00.000-04:00

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Celebrating 85 Years at Shriners Hospital*


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I really did do a good job on myself

2010-09-22T13:20:00.001-04:00

Huh. So, my understanding of my wrist issues have been found in error and i'm just now grasping the reality of what went down and how messed up I really am.
First of all: the arm bones. I messed that up badly. I pulled my ulna (small bone, the bottom one when doing thumbs up) out of it's happy home within the nest of little wrist bones, not my radius like I had thought.
Second, I don't know if I mentioned it on here or not but I had this one xray pic that looked like I had smashed the top off of the bigger forearm bone (the radius bone).... I never asked my ortho about it. The first visit, I didn't even noticed the 'idea' of a crack on my xray, and then on my second visit, dhmc was a mad house and my ortho was all excited for me that my ulna was going back in place that I forgot to ask about the questionable looking xray. Well, yesterday it showed up again on only one xray again.....so I mentioned it. He corrected me on my total bone headed wrongness in switching mentally the radius and ulna, and clarified the whole ulna moved out thing
.....duh....brainfart....or maybe vicodin induced stupidity....anyways, and then he says that yeah, I did break the top of my radius off and then he showed me how the bone is re-fusing and that there's a kind of bump of bone now where there wasn't before.
Well that sucks. But he assures me things still look good and he'll see me again in 3 weeks. Now I get to lose this obnoxious stinky huge cast.
I've been feeling about 80% lately. My wrist does hurt if I pick up something real heavy but for the most part I don't have any pain at all. So i'm sitting there in the cast room shooting the breeze with the whole casting department and 'my guy' gets my yucky blue cast apart.

Oh my friggin painfullness!

It was like sitting, bleeding at the woodpile on that fateful saturday morning all over again. I had to lift my left hand with my right one to get it into the sink so I could feeblie attempt to wash some of the stink off.

'could I have a couple shots now? This is horrendous!'

He replies, 'you just told me how you wished the er doc broke your arm without the shot since the shot was more painful?'

Lol. 'no, I mean vodka or something'

.....not so much..... So I finish my pathetic effort of cleaning myself and carry my broken appendage back to the bed so he can [hurry up pretty please] put a new cast on.

New cast on and finally ready to go. I set up my next barage of appointments and go rescue crystal from ashtyn and taylor :) and continue on our journey to home depot.

There's so much more to this story but it's just going to have to wait......sorry

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Sept 21

2010-09-22T12:52:00.001-04:00

I was side tracked by my evil but not so surprising er bills that I entirely forgot to give an update on my oh so much fun re braking adventure. Well, it worked. I had my xrays done a week after my dhmc er visit and everything looks good so I don't need to have surgery. Yippee! I've had my cast for 3 weeks today and I am going back to dartmouth in a few hours to have a new one made and another dose of 'radiation'....can't see my bones enough I guess...

Kind of funny side story:

Last wednesday I got a call from a local number that I didn't recognize.
I answer, 'hello'.
'yes, Mrs. Honeycutt?'
'yes'
'hi this is [nurse] from [local hospital] orthopaedics. I'm just calling to remind you of your appointment tomorrow'
'for what?' I am so confused.
'your 2 week check up' she happily rebuttles, 'from your surgery.' she's starting to think i'm a moron. 'your wrist.' I can almost hear the 'duh' in her voice.
'oh!' I say. 'well that's funny. I never had surgery. I couldn't get ahold of you guys and decided it was a bad omen so I went to dartmouth, where they reduced and set my wrist and I don't need surgery'.
Who feels dumb now? Haha. A stunned silence is all I get in response. And then, 'oh. Sorry. Um...... I guess you won't need to come in then. Well, ooops, have a nice day.'
Wow! Really?
I guess in the end I will go with the general concensous up here: the local hospital sucks! Except for the awesome, awesome nurses who took care of me....you all rock!....or at least the orthopaedic dept up here sucks, and the er secretaries.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Happy 85th Birthday Shriners walkathon

2010-09-17T15:26:00.001-04:00

http://www.wwlp.com/dpp/mass_appeal/community/happy-85th-birthday-shriners-walkathon

The high price of learning

2010-09-17T11:45:00.000-04:00

I just received the first two (of likely a dozen more to come) of my insurance statements for my wood stacking/falling day of fun.

My first notice is for my er visit here. $2041.22 to clean the blood off of me, stitch my head wound, xray my wrist and put me in a splint. Ouch! And how much did my insurance company pay? Not one cent! Who is stuck footing the bil? Moi.

The next bill was for visit number 3 of my first visit to dhmc. It was for my er visit there when they re-broke my wrist and casted it. $1666.00 of which I have to pay $268.08.

Why did they cover nothing at north country and a good chunk of dartmouth hitchcock? For starters, north country is an out of network facility and we have to meet our annual out of network deductible of $8,250. (5500 family, 2750 individual) before they will pay anything. Since we haven't reached it yet, they paid nothing. Whereas with dhmc, they are in network and our annual in network deductible is $7,500. (5000 family, 2500 individual) I was $268.08 away from my individual annual in network deductable, so we have to pay the 268 and for the most part they'll cover the bulk of the rest....except the ot & pt, i'm sure there will be some battles with that....(they refuse to pay for taylor's ot).

I am still waiting for the statements of 3 sets of xrays and 2 visits to see the orthopaedic specialist. Followed by next tuesday's appointments with the casting department to remove this cast and then make a new one, another set of xrays and another visit with orthopaedics, which will be further followed by another set of visits with all three and ot/pt. I'm estimating another $7k, bringing my cost of learning not to stack wood seven feet high on stupid wobbley pallets to about $10,000! Awesome.

What's even more fun is my ot/pt will be at north country so i'll likely get to pay out of pocket for that. Taylor's 30 minute visits are $243.33 (each week) so yeah, that'll be expensive. We might meet one of our deductables this year. That's just swell {insert sarcasm here}. And the hospitals will get their money in monthly installments of $50 at most, since, {insert dr. Evil's 'muwah-ha ha ha ha' laugh here} i'm poor. And since I busted my self up nicely, I can't work. Isn't learning fun.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Boo-boo's, water and school

2010-09-14T08:58:00.000-04:00

As always, a ton of time has gone by so I have tons to say.

First, I had my 1 week check-up at dartmouth. The 're-breaking' of my wrist worked so I do not need surgery. Yay! But i'm stuck in this huge armpit to fingertip cast until the 21st (3 weeks.....and yeah it smells....yuck) and then 2 weeks in a shorter cast and then a splint for a little bit.

Next, we have water!!!! Our old method of water collection and distribution was not 'winter friendly' nor would I even consider drinking it. It actually was ok to drink it but years ago I had a couple night crawlers come through so that killed the whole drinking idea for me, even after I bought a filter system for it, just wasn't gonna do it. But now we have a nice, new well (many thanks to ron, sue, louis and dave) and all the piping is happily buried so we have year round water....and it is definitely drinkable

Next, we finally got started on the addition. We are adding a 12x20 area which will be split kind of 30/70. The smaller room will be.....dut dut dut daaah....an inside bathroom! No more going outside in the middle of the night to pee! And yes we do have an actual flushing toilet already but it's in it's own little bathroom house thing and like our old water system: seasonal. So everything is going to be north east kingdom winter friendly. Yay! The other part of the addition is going to be the kitchen. The current kitchen is also the dining room so more space is needed and will be available soon.

And, little miss chaos, has started pre-k. She is so happy and just loves it. Her teacher's name is miss julie which she thinks is just the best thing ever. Back home, her school didn't offer bus service. You had to be enrolled in the special ed school in order to be picked up, and then you were picked up by a mini van with a 'school bus' sign on it. She was furious at the idea of one of those 'buses' coming to get her (and not because those are for children who need extra help, she has no idea what special ed is or the short bus jokes.....its because 'big kids' don't ride little buses) So when she found out it was a fullsized bus she was psyched. She rides it down to the high school and then the bus driver walks her to another bus which then takes all the little ones over to the pre-k school. That first day I was a little worried. Minutes before the bus showed up ashtyn asked if it was a woman driver..... I had no idea. I was anticipating a huge meltdown...which of course would have been over-tired-exagerated and in front of people, so we're talking huge, huge meltdown. And here comes the bus. And we look. And thank God. It's a woman driving. 'Bye mommy. Have a good day' and she held our neighbor's son's hand (who thankfully rides too) and they waited for the driver's signal to cross the street, crossed and got on the bus. And off went my baby on a new adventure.
I went back down the road to camp so jeremy could leave for work and wondered if I should wake taylor to drive to ashtyn's school. We weren't here for orientation and she was with my mom because of my arm when I finally found out about the school and registered her so the poor kid didn't know who her teacher was (she knew it was julie but not who julie was) or where to go. She only knew what I had told her about the bus. In the end I decided to not be that parent even though it killed me.... I let taylor sleep. I knew everything was ok. Once the kids got to the pre-k, staff members go out to the bus to escourt the kids off and into the school, and on the first day, (or longer if needed) to their classrooms. It's the school and bus co's policy to never have any of them without an adult escourt. Some of their safety measures scare me and remind me it's not 'safe' anywhere anymore: when you walk in you enter the main office, you then have to be buzzed in through the locked door, then walk to your child's classroom and knock on that door so the teacher can unlock that door and let you in. Each classroom has it's own bathroom and door to the playground. The entire place is in a sort of lock down mode. It's weird. It makes me feel like ashtyn is safe but also that she's in danger, like kid abductions are a common threat. We didn't have security like this back home, where my locked car was stollen from my driveway and our convenience store was robbed at gun point, we had an unlocked door, four women and 20 little kids....and this place is a quiet, peaceful place.....so i'm not quite understanding the hightened security......but I guess it's better that it be overkill than not. But aside from this shady topic.... She had an awesome first day at school and has another awesome one every day. She loves it. And as much as I love the no fighting, bickering, screaming, whining, etc, I'm bored and I miss her all morning and can't wait for school to be over.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Better than ezra

2010-09-02T11:20:00.001-04:00

I'm so bored! This sitting around garbage is for the birds. I can't do anything. And I hate the word 'can't'. My girls hear it all the time, 'you can do anything. Can't is not an option in this house' I have told ashtyn I don't know how many times that 'can't' and 'hate' are naughty words and their use is basically forbidden. But here I am. All alone. With 'can't' on my mind. I need to do dishes.....can't. Need to do laundry.....can't. Need to mop.......can't. I 'can't' do any of that stuff....not only because I physically can't yet, but I can't get this stupid cast wet and I also can't because jeremy broke a water line, we found out after we ran out, and the stream is dry. Awesome! I need to put my hair up...... I can't. I want to cut it all off..... I can't. I'm getting pretty sick of sitting here. I've done all I can do and i'm now just stuck waiting for 4 to get here so I can go get ashtyn registered for school....which starts tuesday! So I guess there's a positive topic. Ashtyn got in to the pre-k program and i'm psyched. She'll get to ride the bus in the morning and unless things change over the next few days, i'll pick her up at noon. I'm still going to try to get her in the full day program but we'll see. Her teacher's name is miss julie which she is just going to love. I'm so excited for her. Now I need to work on lining up preschool for taylor. These poor kids have been stuck with one another and me for months. They need more kids to play with.....and stat! Another good thing: the addition is getting started tomorrow as is our well project! No more stream water! Yay! And an inside bathroom.....super big yay! Bigger kitchen/dining room....more yay! No more peeing outside in the dark because I have to, only if I want to........ I'm so excited I could bust. That's all I needed, a little venting, find a happy topic or two, now i'm in a much better mood....so thanks :)

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

2010-09-02T10:44:00.000-04:00

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Part 2: time to make and re-break

2010-09-01T09:41:00.000-04:00

We did make it to donna's birthday party sometime around 4. I got to tell my story another 50 times. We all had a great time. Sunday morning my mom and dave came to kidnap our monkeys for a few days since i'm kind of useless. When they left we went to town to rent a bunch of movies. When we got back we made dinner and just laid in bed and enjoyed copland, clash of the titans and repomen and went to sleep. Monday morning came way too early. 5:30 I get up, make jeremy and myself lunch and head to what's supposed to be my first day at work. I got there, was handed my timecard and paperwork and informed I might not be allowed to stay. 13 minutes later I was escorted out. If i'm 'lucky' I can work there after I am released to work by a dr 'if' they have any possitions available at that time. Great! So I get my things, drive down the street to the hospital, park my car, call jeremy to tell him, and I cry. This time very much like a baby. I waited 3 months for this job, finally get it and poof, gone. He calms me down and I head back to camp. Then I get to spend the rest of the day calling drs and dentists to cancel all the appointments the girls had this week, call dhmc to schedule my surgery, call westaff, call call call whomever. And in between out going calls i'm bomberded by people calling me, so I get to tell my story another million times. I get my call back from dartmouth, they can see me now but I explain I have no one to go with me at this second so tuesday morning would be better. I've been in agony for 3 days, whnat's another 12 hours. So I call jeremy, mom and mom #2 to let them all know and then head back to the hospital to get my xrays.
Jeremy gets home around 7 and we decided to just head down in the morning, much to everyone south's dismay.
We get to dartmouth and the place is packed. I drop my xray cd at the imaging dept and go check in at xray which happens to be where everyone under the sun is waiting for their dose of radiation. We wait for 30 minutes and all I call think about is how delicious the pizza from sbarro smells. I hadn't eatten or drank anything since I went to bed because of the anesthesia possibility so I was starving. I finally get my turn and go get another batch of xrays. When I get out jeremy has reached the breaking point of hungry. We had 30 minutes until my date with knives, needles, pins and plates, so I tell him to go eat. He finally does and i'm jealous but know that I can't. He gobbles it up and we head to orthopaedics. We're in there barely long enough to give the receptionist my insurance info and we're brought to my room. We are greated by an almost-graduate who asks a bunch of questions and is baffled that I was not given a reduction in the er. He explains that I might not need surgery and what he plans to do to fix my wrist without cutting it open. He goes out to talk to my would be surgeon and then the surgeon comes in and talks to us and tells us the same thing. Basically, i'm going to be sent down to their er to have my wrist re broken and set back the way it should be....hopefully. And if all looks well on xrays a week from now, no surgery, if it doesn't, then it's time for the shiny metal objects.
So I walk down to the er and check in. My nurse comes out to get us and brings me to my new room and gets my vitals. A minute or so later my new dr comes in with her helper. She explains to him, jeremy and me what is going to happen and then she gets out 2 syringes and a bottle of something to 'block' my pain. Let me just tell you....bullshnykies....it didn't block squat. 1/2 cc of crud to kind of numb my skin and the 10 cc shoved directly into my break. It felt like a knife was scraping the top of my radius and ulna....holy crap did that hurt. I'm flipping out but calmly and laughing histarically, so jeremy's laughing and now the docs are laughing. They start grabbing supplies and they told me they guessed on what color i'd like: black. I agreed, but then realized I would be able to doodle on black so I opted for baby blue. Sara, my dr, then told jeremy when she rebreaks my arm she wants him outside, so he kidnapped my phone and went out to the waiting room. She then started explaining to her helper what she would do and without anywarning in mid sentance she pulled twiced and busted my wrist. Oh man did that suck! She's this tiny little thing too, and I even told her how amazed I was. A few more minutes of torture and I had a blue cast and a massive, throbbing wrist. Then she pulls out this cast cutter, which looks like a bone saw or the cut off tool jeremy has for the air compressor....either way not fun. Wtf? Sara explained how my cast was really going to be like a splint, they'd cut it but tape it back on to allow some room to accommodate my swelling and swollen wrist. She could tell I was scared and they told me it was a special blade that won't cut skin. Bullcrap, i'm thinking. Nope. Sara turned it on and stuck it on her arm. I wanted to puke just seeing in my head what was about to happen but to my surprise: no blood. I felt better. So she starts hacking my cast. That saw doesn't cut skin but oh man, it can burn. It gets pretty toasty and my tender little wrist didn't appreciate having the veiny underpart grazed. Ouch. But it was over. She put some tape on to hold it together and sent me back down to xray. All good down there and then it was time for thank you's and goodbyes.

I called the local hospital to see if I could do my xrays and check up here......they don't want any part of it. They're mad I didn't go with their recommendation of immediate surgery....so now I go back to dartmouth next week for more xrays and a follow up to see if this re breaking thing worked.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

2010-09-01T09:35:00.000-04:00

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Learning the hard way

2010-09-01T07:49:00.000-04:00

By now you've likely seen or heard of my winter wood project. Well lets just say it's now jeremy's project.

We were invited to a friend's 70th birthday party at 2, which we obviously planned to attend....so we knew we didn't have the time to get the sono tubes in for the addition so we decided to work on the wood. Jeremy bucked up the last lengths of tree and I was running the wood spliiter. Ashtyn and taylor were safely away from us but still within sight... I know some of you will wonder. So, jeremy finished bucking and then went for a quick ride on his quad with the dog and I continued splitting....and yes, you can do the two-manned splitting garbage but i'd rather be in control of it all.... A couple minutes go by and he's back and starts running the handle of the splitter, which I just stated: I want to control it all or have no part of it. And please understand, it's not that i'm a control freak it's just I tend to f up when i'm watched and when he and I work together it's basically definitely going to happen and he's going to get hurt and well, it'll be my fault, so I avoid that stuff. So, I let him take over the splitting but, being the nice wife that I am, I placed all the bucked up wood closer to the splitter so he didn't have to keep running all over to pick it up. Aren't I sweet?
So then I start stacking up all the split wood. We only 'need' (we assume) 2 more rows and we'll be set for the winter. I start in on the first one. I grab an armful, like 7 or 8 pieces and stack them all nice in their new little row. I'm all proud of how my ends are these days. I used to be really really bad tying the ends, but now they are awesome and sturdy and i'm so excited I split and stacked about 98% of our so far 7 1/2 cords of wood all by myself. And yes, all by myself, during naps and whatnot. So now that it's almost done i'm just gitty with not having to do it again until next year. Another armload beautifully placed. And another. Look over to check on both kids. They're good. Another armload. Another armload... BAM! I hear a few curse words and the blaaght of the splitter motor. Oh f bomb. That hurt. 'are you okay' he asks. 'shut that thing off, where are the girls?' I respond. They are still safely away from us but have realized something bad just happened. 'oh s#*t, you're bleeding'. 'yup, can you go get me a towel'. He does. 'let me see your head'. 'i don't care about my head, I just mangled my wrist'. So a few more seconds of quick conversation and blood going everywhere. 'load up the kids and when you're done I need you to pick me up off the ground cuz if I do, i'm just going to faint'. So he gets the kids in and comes for me. I had to skip catching the blood for a bit so I could use the towel as a sling and pick up my arm. Not a pleasant feeling by the way. So we get on our way and I shockingly calm. I'm snickering about the lousy roads up here and how it'd be a smoother ride if we drove in the ditch. And we get to the hospital. Now it's do or die time. I unvelcro my left glove to finally see the damage and to save my glove from the doctors cut-happy scissors and then remove my never-ever-off-of-me harley davidson bracelet. Well, so far not bad. Removing the stuff hurt real bad but no bones protruding and no blood. It's a bit swollen and purplie. Now, everyone I know up here a) goes to dartmouth (which is 2 hrs away) and b) has expressed that they'd take their chances with bleeding to death driving elsewhere before going to the local one,so i'm a bit scared how this is going to be. Just for the record, I don't think it's as bad as they say but there were a couple annoying employees. So we pull in. There's this huge 'emergency room' sign on the building as well as normal sized signs everywhere. Jeremy pulls up to the door. I assure him I can walk the 15 ft so he can park the car in the closest spot available (100 ft away). So I get to the door, under this huge sign....'um, ma'am the er door is around the corner'.....really, that's super. So I stagger over to that door, it was only like 20 ft away. There are two receptionists at the desk. Neither look at me. The one at the window is casually talking with this girl about panic attacks and whatever, and i'm getting mad. Suddenly things are fuzzy. So I decide to go sit down. Jeremy walks in with the girls and I tell him I haven't been checked in. So he gets right up there. 'i'll be with you in a moment sir' and the woman sits down and starts eating a salad. Really? Wtf?! Meanwhile i'm chatting with a mother and daughter who are also waiting to check in. I explain what happened and they look at my blood covered head which is now covered with blood soak dreadlocks. They talked with me and the girls for a bit and finally in the background we hear 'what can I do for you sir?' 'my wife is bleeding all over the place and she broke her arm'. She looks at me....'i have a patient for triage' she says over the walkie talkie. well that got the fire going. Here's a nurse, there's a nurse, everywhere a nurse, nurse. Little nina messed up bad, eieio!
The secretaries we dealt with going in sucked! But the nursing staff made up for it. They were awesome. Cleaned me up, gentle as could be. I can't say enough good things about my nurses. They get me cleaned up, the doc comes in. I have gotten the 'oh'-face about a dozen times now. Everyone is in awe of my wrist. Doc stitches up my head and I get 'bedded' over to xray. That sucked worse than the stitches but the tech was a sweetheart and tried her darndest to make it as quick as possible. I snuck a peak of my xrays on the way back to my room. Yup, that's awesome. I basically ripped my radius (top bone of your arm when you do a 'thumbs up) away from all the little bones that make up your wrist, and shoved it into my ulna (the bottom one). Awesome. Goodstuff. So she wheels me and my bed back into my room and I await my goopy messy cast making adventure. Doc asked me what color and I went for this hot pastelled pink...ha!....and quickly realized it was an ace bandage. Huh? He then informs me I need to have surgery on tuesday-ish...but basically asap...and that's when I finally cried. Not like a baby, but I did cry for a minute. Then I put my tough girl attitude back on and they braced my arm. We were done now but had to wait as a man was brought in from a motorcycle accident (we wanted to not only respect his privacy....this place is tiny....but also not further tramatize the girls). As we waited jeremy commented on how many people came in to check on me and how I must have told what happened at least a dozen times. I then informed him it was how they try to make sure this wasn't a domestic abuse thing. That got him fired up but he quickly settled realizing that crap is a sad reality. So....now that i've said 'so' 52 times in this post....the moral of this story is: don't stack your wood 6 ft high, especially if its on wobbly pallets.....

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Oh the joys of 'the boonies'

2010-08-27T15:16:00.001-04:00

Taylor and I set out on a grocery mission this morning while jeremy, ashtyn and bryan ran off to littleton, nh to buy out home depot. We were headed for price chopper and big surprise, I went the wrong way, not once but twice. Once I stopped laughing at myself and got on the right path, I passed a crew holding a yardsale. As I drove by I wondered what kind of bonehead has a yardsale on a friday? Just as i'm passing their driveway I notice a pink snowsuit that looks brand new and ashtyn's size. I hem and haw with myself because I know I have zero cash on my person. I swing into the motel and head back after I shook my purse and heard the sound of lots of change. I pull into the driveway to check out this snow suit and as i'm pawing threw my purse i'm instantly mortified and don't want to get out of my car. $1.75! Wtf! So I figure whatever I can't get it but i'll at least go look. 50 cents!!! Holy cow. I grab it and run up to the guy who I assume is just like jeremy and happy to be rid of old kids stuff. I ask him if it's priced right and he says 'that's what the sign says'. Um, I missed the sign. So I toss the suit in the car and scavage like a lunatic for more change. I ended up finding another 75 cents and run back to the hangers and tables like a little kid at christmas with a blank check. I grabbed a never been worn pair of pants and another winter coat for ashtyn, a pink gap fleece hoodie for taylor and a really cute pink and purple hand crocheted sweater that they can basically share. Score! Ashtyn has been whining all week that she needs a new snow suit (the evil monkey is excited for winter....bah humbug is my thoughts on that) but now she has one! Awesome goodness.

I should be finding out about pre-k on tuesday or wednesday next week to which is awesome! They even pick the kids up and bring them home.....sweet. It only took me 3 months to find out there is a pre-k program here!!! That i'm a bit annoyed about, but....hopefully, she'll get in. I might have to call my local reenforcer to help with that, but she needs to be in school. She's too damn smart to be at home.

Taylor's doing really well with her speech 'issues'. She still doesn't articulate properly but she's putting 3 and sometimes 4 words together. Yay!

I go to my safety training for work on monday. I should know by the end of the day if I actually do have the job or not. At my interview the supervisors knew I needed to train as well as work nights, so i'm a little leery about this 7am on monday thing.....we'll see. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I think that's about it for now.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Carly is in the miss lake county pageant

2010-08-26T09:09:00.001-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WiHgsmPQGQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

How is it that the days go by at mach10

2010-08-25T19:39:00.000-04:00

So to catch everyone up to date....monday, the 16th, taylor and I had a special morning with my aunt kathy, uncle randy, cousin matt and his girlfriend renee....and my uncle's parents and several of his cousins. The 'tate' clan from all over the place ventures up here each year for their family reunion. I couldn't let my family be in the area without a visit so thanks to the internet I was able to figure out where they were, which blew my mind..... Mark's house is maybe 2 miles from me.... And so taylor and I strolled on down to mark's, found out 'my crew' were in town at the hotel. So we head over there to track them down and after a bunch of hugs and kisses and 'this is....' and 'nice to meet you's' , they invited us to the brown cow for breakfast. So we head over there and find out they don't have room for the 30 or so of us, but they worked on making sure we all gone our tummies filled. While they were rearranging stuff to accommodate the lot of us, we were greated by a 5 minute horrific downpour acompanied by some pretty intimidating lightning and thunder. It apparently killed power to most of newport and we later found out it killed it back at home in nh too, but the storm was short and we scooted inside for a delicious feast (many thanks to joel and susan). Afterwards mark played tour guide and brought us out to see elk, buffallo and deer. Oh my goodness. I'm used to seeing elk....we stop in derby all the time at cow palace so the kids can see them...ashtyn thinks they're reindeer....so anyway, we see them all the time, they are some big critters, well, the elk we saw that day put just about every large animal i've ever seen to shame. We actually saw a moose at the end of our excursion and I was laughing because keep in mind this was a moose and a pretty big one at that, but compared to the elk we saw, the moose looked like a miniature donkey. We even got to heard a baby buffalo back into it's corral. It broke out through a hole in the fence and couldn't figure out how to get back in. So we kind of stalked him and when he finally saw the way back in his mommy was there waiting. She was so happy to have her baby back, the silly beast was trotting literally when he got back threw the fence. It was a sight. The whole trip was pretty awesome...and the fact it's right down the road was really cool....and the new people I met were all awesome. I can't wait to visit. I found out later that joel and susan live like 2 miles away too in the opposite direction from mark and kristy.... I'm smack dab in the middle. After that adventure we headed back to camp to await cathy's arrival (friend from home, not my aunt kathy I mentioned earlier). Cathy shows around 3 and I finished up my laundry, made some dinner for all of us and got to stay up late talking girlie stuff which I haven't done in I don't know how long. It was nice. Ashtyn came home the next day with ron and sue, just a few hours after the fridge and stove scared me and needed to be shut off. They arrived around 5....with a chest of lobsters for us for dinner! So I ran around and got the grill going, realized it was a very good thing I brought my large pot from home (or we wouldn't have been able to cook the yummy treats) and cooked everyone dinner. Harlow's corn and lobsters fresh out of the atlantic = awesome!!!!! The next day ron and I fought with the gas lines and appliances. He got a new regulator, ran new lines, we cleaned and re cleaned everything....nothing fixed the stove..... I told him I thought the pilot was too high and it needed to be adjusted but neither of us knew what to do to do that. We hemmed and hawwed and worked on the fridge for a bit and then I mentioned the papers that were bolted to the range....maybe that will tell you how to adjust it. Low and behold! Yay! Ron fixed the stove! So we're all excited and we get the fridhe back together and back in it's spot and then it's dinner time. I made some sheppards pie, our style, and then we went over to marg and louis's. We hung out at the garage for a bit until it was bed time for the monkeys and sue, the kids and I went to camp leaving the guys with louis and the atv's. The next morning ron and sue were gone before we woke up, and no it wasn't late, it was around 7:15. Around 10 I smelled something not good. Turned out to be the fridge. It wasn't cooling anymore. The stuff in the freezer was still frozen but the fridge was not doing so well. Jeremy re-levelled it and we waited to see if it was working. That's basically how the next 4 days went: check the fridge, tilt it, shim it, hope it works, repeat. We did have a little break in the fridge cycle: justin and crystal came up to visit friday through monday, and bryan and rachel came over saturday night. We dusted the cobwebs off our brains re-remembered how to play asshole. And sunday day justin, crystal, jeremy, myself and the kids went to the fair down in barton. The girls had so much fun. Taylor could actually go on some rides with just big sis and ashtyn could go on almost everything. I think she had the most fun on the gravitron....that spinning room that has a drop out floor....yeah, she went on it with daddy. We found out while we were there that apparently all the really bad clothes, shoes and hair do's from the 80's have sadly become 'cool' again. It was pretty funny. All I could think about was jen's post last year with the king and queens of redneck, white trash-dom, fully backed up with photographic evidence..... I actually checked her blog while I was waiting for fries to see if she was there and laughing with me...but nope :(.... I still had a chuckle though. After we exhausted ourselves with endless rides and smash, bang and the honking of the fire alarms at the demolition derby, we ventured back to camp for a rematch of our oh-so-politely-named card game with bryan and rachel. Monday afternoon we said our goodbyes to justin and crystal (they'll be back up again friday :) ) and we got back to our fridge issue. Finally, the fridge is working. So tuesday I went grocery shopping. I have never been so excited to have a glass of milk. Now we are at today. Jeremy left some time this morning with bryan to go to alton to pick up his truck, trailer it to charlestown, pick up the jeep and plywood in north walpole and trailer that here. About a 12 hour day, in the truck. Not my idea of fun. Which is why we stayed here. I talked to him about 2 hours after they left, they were 40 minutes away....not a good start. I got a call around 2 and found out I got the job i've been trying to get for 3months. So I called jeremy to tell him the good news. I could barely understand him due to his lacking cell signal but I caught something about someone dumping diesel on him and his truck before the phone went dead....more not good stuff. Then around 6 he called and asked me to look at my keys..... I didn't understand it but looked anyway. Turns out the jeep is now locked, the key to it is not in it or in my house, my house was unlocked when he got the and the power which I shut off a month ago is still on. Not impressed about the house being unlocked....to say the very least.....my realtor will be hearing from me in the morning. I don't know what has happened down there over the past 3 weeks but someone's head is going to roll, especially after I have to deal with Mr. Cranky pants when he finally gets back here. So, that is basically how I spent my last 10 days....and now you're up to date.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Hello phone....picture attatchment would be nice

2010-08-21T00:43:00.000-04:00

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Father and daughter moment....

2010-08-20T17:11:00.001-04:00

If you can tell....the blurb at the top of the tree is jeremy, and the little feet at the bottom are ashtyn's.... Gee, kiddo lets break our legs together. .....this is why i'm mom...that scares me

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

New blog to share

2010-08-17T08:50:00.002-04:00

Thanks to little miss mayhem, i've had the privilege of meeting this wonderful, very supportive and always helpful lady named Debi. Debi and Taylor both have congenital upper extremity amputations. Taylor's on the left and Debi's on the right. We first met when Taylor was about 4 months old, minutes after Taylor received her first prosthetic arm. Debi shared a glimpse into her life from birth to present and I left that day knowing without a single doubt that Taylor would grow up strong and always be able to do anything and everything she put her mind to. I love being able to get her feedback on things. Generally I really only have the insite of other parents of children like taylor who have been in my shoes, I don't often, or ever usually, get to hear and see things from the amputee's perspective. Debi has shared her experiences as a child, teen, adult, mom and now grandma. She's been through it all and then some i'm sure. With '1/2 a century' of knowledge and experience, Taylor will always be in great hands with Debi around. That said, Debi has started a blog so that she can reach out and help and educated even more people. She just started it a few days ago so there are only a couple posts so far but i'm truly looking forward to her posts to come. Her blog is called
Single-handed Solutions and the site link is:
www.singlehandedsolutions.blogspot.com

Enjoy!

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Another butterfly lost

2010-08-16T14:23:00.001-04:00

A while back, this girl stumbled across my blog. She was looking for help, support and answers reguarding the recent news of her 20 week gestation nephew's limb deficiency. We exchanged emails a few times and then her sister, the one having the bundle of joy, joined in and we exchanged emails too. We have kept in touch as best you can in the busy world of work, family and play. 'Little Man' was due to be born on august 30th and i've been waiting to hear the great news of his arrival. I got it this morning. But it wasn't the great news it should have been. 'Mom' had some bloodpressure issues suddenly and so the baby needed to be delivered early. He was born on saturday august 7th, and he passed away on tuesday the 10th. My heart aches. Rest in peace Nathan. I hope you find peace 'mom', 'aunt' and all of your family. My thoughts are with you.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Busy day (second attempt to post)

2010-08-15T08:21:00.001-04:00

Ashtyn is off enjoying old orchard beach with grammy and grampa, and jeremy is working so taylor and I joined jeremy at work. Today st. johnsbury is having this sort of summer fest with a farmers market, bounce houses, you name it. Almost every business in st j has a tent set up on the street to entice you to buy their goods. And because it is a town wide 'fun day' they have a special passenger train (which is why jeremy's working on a saturday). Taylor and I went on the first run which took us from st j to barnet and back, the next one went to lyndonville and the last one will go to barnet again. We had a nice time. We got to enjoy different scenes than we were used to going on the bf to chester runs back home. I didn't even know that the connecticut river (pic posted) was up here too. There were some local celebrity types on board with us, radio djs, photographers, etc, all excited to see a passenger train run through their town. Jeremy and bryan did an excellent job 'driving' the train. It was a little speedy at one point I thought anyways, jeremy laughed at me about it, but whatever. The other kinda scary part was the zillion 100+ year old bridges we relied on to carry our tonage of trains and people across the connecticut and passumpsic rivers the whole trip but I guess if jeremy has to do that daily with 40 cars full of freight it could handle the engine and our three cars of people. I got to feel like the technology goddess for a little bit as I uploaded pics to facebook during the trip. This guy, who I found out later was the dj, was talking to brian (our train tour guide from bellows falls) about how the train should offer wifi and they both grumbled back and forth about not having cell signal (get verizon!!!!) I laughed when I heard him on the radio on my way home as he told his listeners about how he couldn't broadcast from the train because there was no signal available on the route..... Could have used mine..... He also could have done his blog post that he wanted.... But nope, I figured it out too late.....sorry. I felt bad about it really, especially after hearing his really great plugs for green mtn on the radio. Jeremy's embarrassed.... The radio crew took pics up on the engine and he's in them...haha, they weren't posted yet but the blog where they should be is www.vermontradio.blogspot.com .... Wicked funny! Anyway, I wish taylor wasn't so tired, it seemed like it would have been pretty fun to roam the streets of st j for a while but she was out before we left the parking lot. Oh well, maybe next time.

Rustic? Spoiled rustic, maybe.

2010-08-09T14:36:00.000-04:00

Yes it is a big bit out of the norm but it has everything you could really ever need. We have a fridge and freezer, heater and a water heater all thanks to the power of propane. We have a flushing toilet, 3 tvs, dvd players, vcr's, more movies than I can watch in a month, a huge generator to power the things the propane doesn't, big huge batteries that can power the stuff too, a wood stove along with my monster stack of wood to burn (the photo doesn't do it justice but it is taller wider and longer than the 8 person camper), a washing machine and microwave now, and 4 insulated walls and a roof over head. And if that's not enough fun, we've got 3 atv's (4 if you count taylor's power wheels), the tractor with 5 or 6 implements, 2 streams, our little clearing along the rest of the 80 acres to play on, an awesome atv trail down to our friends houses and we can even ride our atv's on all the town roads! That sounds like some good fun to me. I've got all of this in my yard (in laws yard :) ) ...... The only other things I need like stores and a reminder of why I like being a hermit (those people are everywhere), I just drive into newport or derby, like 6 miles away, and all is good. We even have a mcdonald's. The only thing this area doesn't have to offer is a walmart, but we don't need it. We've got the nek walmart: evansville trading post. They've got more stuff than I could even fathom....and just because it's wicked funny i'll give them one more plug: you can get married at the store, well, kind of behind it, in their chapel, but, ya......funny stuff right. So they're better than walmart. I'm still laughing about it...... Anyway. I may not have plattsburgh or burlington down the road but I haven't ever had them so I don't and wouldn't miss it. Somedays I think about missing keene and ckaremont but then I remember I hated those towns. I liked some people there, and I do miss them, but that's it really. And I do see those people either when they come here or I go back down there and I do love my house and wish that I could bring it up here, and i'm missing my harley too but the kids cause some massive riding issues anyway, and she'll be here soon enough.....other than that it's basically awesome. One thing I do miss: turning on the light switch. We do have a couple switches here but you have to go out and turn on the generator first, so it's not nearly the same.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Ok Jolene, here are some camp pics

2010-08-09T11:04:00.000-04:00

Same as always, no control of pic lacation.....

So, when you're looking at the camp, on the right is the 'bathroom' (shower and yes, a flushing toilet)...its the two toned plywood building/shed thing....behind the bathroom we added on a wash room/building thing for the washer and water heater so they aren't crowding up the bathroom or getting soaked by rain or shower water. The wash room obviously isn't completely finished as you can tell from the missing heater and sideways washer and the obvious lacking of a door or front wall, whatever, but it's getting there. We have to move the heater and re pipe it and do something about the chimney for it. But all in due time. I can't do it alone and jeremy needs to work :( Hopefully by the weekend it should be finished up.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Cole

2010-08-06T12:46:00.003-04:00

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

*****It's now Audust 18, I just finally actually got to see this video. It basically took all I had not to cry. Hannah and Chris, you are amazing people and even more amazing parents. I hope little Cole gets better soon.*******

Visit Cole's Cause

Just a little wet

2010-08-03T08:14:00.000-04:00

We got around 4 inches of rain between 11pm and 6 am last night. Everything that was dry is now under water. We were worried about our 'well' (aka stream and collection tanks) were all but depleted.....not so much now. Our water collecting pipe which usually rests an inch above the water line is now 6 inches under it and filled our collection tanks with muck that had been dried up all week. I had to run out in this gick to unhook the whole set up so we don't fill out brand new water heater (which we finally hooked up last night) doesn't get filled with dirt-y water. Joy! Like always these days, I have no control of photo locations so i'll do my best to tell you what's what. The pic of dry stream: the rocks at the bottom right of the pic is what you're looking at in the wet, filled stream pic. The 2 pics with the lotsa rocks, that's the end of my driveway....flowingg and filling fast where it should be and also were it shouldn't, one of the pics shows water running down our future lawn (no grass there yet). The one with the brown water and brush pile behind it is at the beginning of precourt lane, the water is pouring off ron and sue future homes lawn after coming through their rock wall and taking some of their baby grass with it which is the other pic. Wet wet wet. Oh my goodness! Poor jeremy is hanging off a train in this garbage right now. He ought to be a real 'happy' bear when he gets home.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Bad moon rising

2010-08-02T09:11:00.003-04:00

Ugh! The kids and I went back to north walpole thursday. Jeremy had to work friday....or at least was supposed to until the job was cancelled thursday night after we were already home.... When we got there I unloaded all the dirty clothes we had accumulated since our last trip home and started the wash and then went to my in-laws to have some awesome as always dinner. I was there about 5 minutes and was pestered to run over to clyde and diane's house by ashtyn who wanted to see the kids. So we run across the street to say hi and give clyde his shrine on hoodie I still hadn't given him and heath tells me his mom is interested in my house. So he picks her up and I show her my house (my 3rd showing in 9 months :( ) and then I go back to have my dinner and then back home to do more laundry and finally sleep. Friday I wake up at 6am for no good reason and start painting. I got the stairway, hallway ceiling, entry ceiling and basement stairway painted by about 10 and sue shows up with ashtyn. After a few hems and haws I decide whatever I have a ton of stuff done i'll go to keene with them. So we go to jcpenny's and sue buys the store out. She bought us all bathing suits, shorts, shirt, etc, whatever we need for our trip to punta cana in april. I wish I could still just go shopping :( , but I currently can't, so thank goodness ron and sue can and are willing to spoil all of us :) (thank you ). It was crazy shopping for clothing. Sue usually kidnaps me around my birthday and 'makes' me pick out a pair of jeans and a shirt or whatever and other than that I really don't buy clothing. I'm a packrat and if it fits, I wear it, I don't really care if it's out of style. I don't like style. I am a jeans and wife beater girl....and if it's cold out, a hoodie or my chunky hippie wool sweater will do. So anyway, back to shopping.... I have no idea what size I am. I've noticed that the more you spend on a pair of pants, the smaller your size becomes. A $14 pair at tjmaxx says i'm a size 7-9, my $38 carhartt's say i'm a size 6, my sister's $100 jeans say 0.... You get the picture. And if the dollar sign size thing wasn't enough, they've got womens, juniors, petites, full size, etc. I'm not a petite but a 34 inch inseem isn't the average girl world! I do not wish to have to cut 4 inches off every pair of my pants thank you. After attempting to figure out my size and finally picking out 3 pairs of shorts that almost don't show off my crud (which is another thing to the fashion world : if I wanted people to see my crud I wouldn't be wearing shorts, please stop making only daisey dukes and capris, there is a happy medium) and then it's bathing suit time. We go to where they are and find out that the are 6 bottoms left and 4 tops. 1 small bottom, which is too small and the rest are xxl, and the tops are all xxl. So I go back to the kids section where they had bathings suits from 2t to 18 which I thought odd but I go and realize that they are in fact kid sizes....although I don't know why we need a kids size 18 or anything above a 10 or 12 really..... I apparently and not only a 6,7,9, I am also a kids size 16-18. Can't we have one size latter. Which reminds me, sue picked up another bathing suit for me later in the day, it was european sized! It was a size 22....lol....i got it as far as my knees..... It was ashtyn's size. At least we got through it, had some laughs and are now almost totally ready. All we need to do is get sandals, sun block and some odds and ends for jeremy. And line up a dog sitter. So after the shopping fun, which did actually go well, sue took the girls and I to olive garden for lunch.....i might need to go switch those 5s and 6s for some 9s and 10s! I ate so much. I wished I had my 'thanksgiving pants' on. It was sooooo good. After lunch we headed back to the homesteads so sue could stash out vaca clothing so it wasn't touched until vaca. And I ran home to finish my painting project. I painted the porch floor and door just as jeremy arrived. He ran and did some random odds and ends around the house and then we went back to ron and sue's for dinner, drinks and socializing. Saturday came and it was off to crecent lake for my dad and linda's wedding. It was short, sweet and cute. We finally saw their cottage, which is adorable. Jeremy and I were forced to dance (there were only like 25 guests so each couple was 'demanded' to the deck for at least their dance) so after our forced dance we bugged the dj and made his playlist for him and actually continued to dance a bit. Around 7 we headed back to our house to get some food and watch the best fireworks in new england.... Rockingham old homes days.....from our backyard, but then decided to watch them with our friends and family from ron and sue's yard. It was nice. Jolene, dan, ashley, morgan, julie and ryan headed over with us. To our slight surprise there were a ton more people there than usual so we had lots and lots of kids there. A guy from the fire station, I think his name was tim, came over with a huge box full of bags of popcorn to give to the 20 or so kids, which was nice, and we all enjoyed the display. The monette crew took off after the show to get some much needed sleep before their 3 1/2 hr ride home in the morning and ryan went to our house to do the same. We stayed for one beer to say hey to everyone since we don't see them anymore. Just long enough for some 'hi' s and to see cathy's dog's 1 day old puppies and we were treated to some fried alligator (thanks greg) and then we headed up to our house too. In the morning julie and ryan treated us to some dunkin donuts before they headed on their 2 1/2 hr ride home and we frantically ran around picking up, finishing up, closing up, locking up and loading up before our 2 1/2 hr ride.....which ended up being more like a 5 hr process. We then ran over to ron and sue's to say our thanks and byes to them and the gallion crew and then ran to travis's house in c-town to get the washing machine to bring up here. After an hour there then head to home depot to get a new lp water heater since the one at camp blew up (not really, but it did die) last week.... 6-700$ later, we finally got on our way to the nek. We arrived around 5:30 and immediately started working on the heater issue. We set up and jeremy started digging post holes and we got the logs in place, filled the holes in and started the painstaking process of removing the piping and old heater. A few curse words and burns later and a lot of banging, we got it out. We opened the box to the new one and brought it into the shower building. Much to our shock and disappointment, it's taller than the old one and it runs on 3/4 pipe, not the 1/2 inch pipe we have existing and we're livid with the idiot at home depot for his 'help'... So it was another night of cold showers last night. Today I have to go out and get the fitting we need and 2x4's and hopefully we can get it done tonight. Oh the joys.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

2010-07-30T07:17:00.000-04:00

This pic didn't make it to my last post for some reason.

Also, I heard last night how my grizzly did in the maple orchard.....did ya notice what was pulling the Rzr out of the mud (last post)..... Go grizzly!

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Red-nek run pics

2010-07-29T09:12:00.001-04:00

The new project

2010-07-28T11:53:00.000-04:00

As if my splitting and stacking 6 cords of wood wasn't enough fun for me..... I'm now mastering the backhoe in my current project: un-rocking the lawn, putting the rocks in the stream where the driveway is being eroded and filling in the massive holes while making them look as undisturbed as humanly possible. I have no control over where the pics are going to be placed on my blog but the two of the stream are self explanitory, the two of grassy areas are where I just dug up two monster rocks and aside from a little soil, they don't look like they've been touched. Mad skillz!

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Red-nek run 2010

2010-07-27T08:40:00.001-04:00

Ron and Sue came up for the weekend and brought a bunch of Ron's work buddies up for the 'red-nek run' which is basically a bunch of us going out on the atvs and having a cook-out, camp out and all around good time. Last year I think 3 guys came and one of their wives.....they showed up on 'hangover night' and so no one was very lively.....they had fun but not as much as it should have and could have been. This year 5 guys came up. Bruce, Ernie, Jeff, Jim and Kevin. They were probably the best crew that I could have imagined. Especially Bruce, he was totally awesome with my kids. He rode 'bitch' (for lack of a better word) on Ashtyn's 4wheeler and he even let her 'drive' his Rzr into the driveway after he gave her her own personal ride. He dealt with and played Taylor's I want up and then I want down game. And he put up with me picking on his very shiny, super purple sleeping bag all day :) and his flower power inflatable matress hahaha. It's all out of love :). Stevie ended up whimping out and bailing on his trail guide duties so Ron took over and made sure the guys still went out and had fun. Us girlies went out for a little run too this year in the morning. Ashtyn went with grandpa (Ron) and Taylor rode with me. Ashtyn's become a little pro about riding but Taylor's still very green. I felt a little, or a lot, out numbered...out of the 8 atvs, I was the only one without a polaris...riding my trusty grizzly. It made it through everything and surprisingly in 2wd the whole time which is more than I can say for a few of the sportmans (haha!). I don't know how well she did in the maple orchard since I skipped that run but i'm sure she got the stuffing beat out of her with Jeremy behind the bars :) We had some awesome and delicious as always marinaded steak tips from Lisai's and Harlow's corn which is so sweet you don't need to drown it with butter for dinner and, can't forget, Sue's stuffed mushrooms....mmmmmm.....for our noontime snack. It was a nice time. We found out the Rzr could make it through some stuff we never imagined possible and that it too would not make it through the maple orchard. It went through a lot though, so much that Jeremy, Ron and Sue all now want one :) or should I say 'two'. I know at my house that's not happening for a long while but I imagine there'll be one here in place of the 500 sportsman soon. I also kind of expect that the annual red-nek run is going to happen 2 or 3 times a year....once just isn't enough.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Omg!

2010-07-24T18:01:00.001-04:00

Going to punta cana, with my in-laws, hubby, kids, bro-in-law and god only knows who else.....in april! Happy b-day to me and ashtyn (and no x-mas) :)

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Just a random update

2010-07-19T17:26:00.001-04:00

We had a pretty fun weekend. Justin and crystal came up to visit. Crystal wanted to be one with nature and justin wanted her to not come back unless she was covered in mud. So we went out on jeremy's sport quad and I got her covered in mud, only to find out that he ment really covered.....to the point where you can't tell where the mud stops and the person begins....so we went out again, this time hitting the muck harder and faster, completely and udderly covering us and then the atv kicked out sideways and was stuck in the huge ruts, sideways. So crystal got her one-with-nature time as we tried to find our way out of the woods, in the dark. A few bumps and bruises from ditches and holes we couldn't see and scratches from evil tree branches that were equally invisible, laughing all the way as we sang songs as loud and as out of tune as we could. I blew her mind with my new kids on the block songs from childhood and we recited lines from the goonies. Good times!
Bryan's up here working in newport with jeremy....hopefully they actually work :) just picking. Jeremy doesn't tend to allow putzing on the job. We're supposedly finishing up the wood work inside the camp on thursday and friday and getting ready for his dad and dad's friends annual adventure 'red nek run at camp crookit' this weekend. Sue's claiming she's not coming so the girls and I are apparently going to have to entertain the troops.
I found out today that not only is ashtyn on the green mountain flyer's flier and website but she's also on their tv commercial. That's cool. She was pretty excited. I think taylor's going to be in the sammy's friends calender again too. I need to get some pics picked out and submit them, and quickly though. Taylor's been doing pretty well with her new hand. She wasn't very happy about it on saturday which i'm pretty sure was just because of the heat... She didn't want to wear the harness so I put the old hand on it and took the harness system off. The next day she was back to the harness and wanting to wear it. It's a total balancing act right now with her and her use of her new hand. She did the same thing last time too. She didn't really like the zigzag one, she wanted her antiquie dots one. I thought since she only got a new hand instead of the entire arm she'd be less weirded out about the switch but, I think the new cable and harness are still just weird to her. It's only been 5 days since she got it too, so it's still new all around. I know she'll have it figured out and mastered in no time.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Video link since it didn't work the other way

2010-07-16T16:20:00.001-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeQ5LZmVI7I - Jul 16, 2010 2:51 PM

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

24 hours later

2010-07-16T14:54:00.000-04:00

Ignore me and my baby talk please :)

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Shrine on Springfield 2010

2010-07-16T08:31:00.001-04:00

Where does the time go? I can't believe it's been a month since the walk. My internet access has been lacking to say the least. I'm actually using my phone to get this out and so I appogize in advance for misspelling(s) and that the end of this email is primarily lower case, I mean no disrespect it's just very challenging to get this phone to switch to and from caps and I have already taken way too long to get this out to all of you.

A quick little update on Taylor: her arm was activated on 7/14. We went to SHC to have her annual check up and left with a new hand on her arm which she can open and close on her own. It's a harness system, not hooked up to nerves like I keep being asked :) . She loves it and I know she'll have it mastered within weeks. Also on our visit there, we brought down our can tabs we've collected since our march visit.... 90 gallons (220 pounds/625,000) of tabs!!!!! Thank you to everyone who has and/or is helping to make tabs for taylor such a huge success.

First I would like to thank: the town of Springfield for allowing us to use the Toonerville Trail, PCM Image-tek for allowing us to use their lot, Roland and Sue Irish at Sunrise Graphics for donating our euro stickers and silk screening, Ray St. Sauveur at Unique Signs for donating the shirts and hoodies, Ron and Sue Precourt for the burgers, dogs and post-walk party location ( I think I can say for everyone we were pretty excited to see the pool ), Clyde, Diane and Opal Gallion for the rolls, buns, salads and other food goodies, Candy and Dave Desrochers, Julie St. Sauveur and Rachel Harrell for drinks, chips and other snacks and last but not least the Discount Food Warehouse for donating water, napkins and plates.

Thank you to everyone who showed their support by walking with us: Travis and Zane Putnam, Chrintine Brehio, Clyde, Diane, Justin and Crystal Gallion (and special thanks C&D for cancelling your trip so you could walk with us), Jessi, Charlie and Maebel Dussault, Kristi Morris (thank you so much for all you do to help children, it really means the world to me that you could join us), Dennis Chabot, Isaac, Alexis, Ray and Elizabeth, Tonya McAllister, Val Schroeder, Deb Burns, Alethia Ficher and Bryan Butler. The following people drove 100+ miles to walk with us and deserve extra thanks: Cindy and Bill Gravel, Candy and David Desrochers, Sarajane Peck, David Okolita, Suzie Roberts, Landon, David Burbank, Julie St. Sauveur and Rachel Herrel.

We raised $1879.38 this year! And we had 37 walkers, blowing away last years totals of $1420 and 18 walkers. I hope the trend continues and we keep growing bigger and better each year.

Thank you to everyone who donated to Shriners Hospitals for Children - Springfield, we couldn't have done this without you: Bellows Falls Moose Family Center, Griffin Construction, Crown Point Cabinetry Charity Fund, T-Bird mini mart loose change collection, dona cass, tara todd, jackie demag, rick deschaine, joe paquette, bo hodgdon, ryan hodgman, kevin mcfarland, clyde & diane gallion, vinney croney, paul schofield, michael bryant, kim stowell, opal gallion, norde rau, tony & shawn waters, justin & crystal gallion, kirstie patch, karyne hearne, eileen czechowicz, lis schulte, ann cuadrudo, kathy connair, gwen sheehan, john tomlinson, stephaine burnham, yvette decker, rick sharron, douglas hanson, kathy kennett, bryan lantz, douglas weiss, cindy stevens, lori mcelroy, cindy & bill gravel, dave & mary gravel, ashtyn ora & taylor marie honeycutt, david okolita, dennis chabot, alexis mcallister, elizabeth & ray farnsworth, isaac, hannah welch, kristi morris, val schroeder, debbie burns, alethia ficher, korbin mcelroy, candy & david desrochers, tonya honaker, becky patten, kim wilcox, jane catalfo, paula cacede, dave reeder, jen horton, kristi couch, pauline desrochers, jay scharf, linda drew, and noel/hoffman/gravel.

Thank you all for everything. It really means the world to me that you helped make sos 2010 a success and helped our beloved Shriners Hospital. I hope you all had a good time and that you'll decide to join us again for sos 2011. Have a happy and safe rest of the summer.

All the love in my heart,
Nina Honeycutt

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Lovin' her new arm

2010-07-15T18:33:00.001-04:00

Thank you Shriners Hospital- Springfield! Taylor had an ot appointment today and she was uncooperative to say the leasy but once she had a nap and some more checking-things-out-on-her-own time she's doing awesome. She was picking up little sticks and her straw wrapper....all sorts of little things. She doesn't mind the harness at all which was a big fear I had. She's just doing so awesome. I can never thank SHC and all the Shriners enough.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

2010-07-14T14:43:00.000-04:00

Taylor had an appointment at shriners hospital today. We brought down the 90 gallons of tabs we've collected over the last 3 months and then we went to her appointment and moments later activated her 'armie'. Instead of the spring loaded thumb she has a body-powered hand! Awesome, awesome stuff.

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Dirty girl

2010-07-03T19:09:00.001-04:00

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Another rainy day in Brownington

2010-06-28T10:53:00.001-04:00

I am really beginning to think summer is just not coming this year. Everyday it's either cool or rainy or both. We're still having fun though. It's so weird not having route 12 outside my windows.... No more necr trains slamming together at 11 pm. We can only hear Jeremy's train whistle if the wind is just right. It's just us and the wild life. Just in the last week we've seen 2 rabbits, a moose and 3 deer.....and unfortunately we've heard several coy dogs. I split 3ish ( I think maybe more) cords of wood thursday and friday and we went to Stevie and Lisa's for their daughter's graduation on saturday. The kids had a total blast. They finally got to hang out and play with other kids. I'm off to finish picking up around here and then finish stacking the wood.... Oh joy!

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Finally! Back online and bloggin' it up from V T

2010-06-24T17:43:00.000-04:00

I have been offline for waaaay to long. I'm beyond psyched to be back. The current hang up is that I only have my phone to rely on so the pics and videos will be limited but....whatever. At least I can finally post stuff again. Now that I got that little tid bit of goodness out, I need to get my grubbiness into the shower...... (I stacked wood all day)

-- Sent from my Palm Pixi

Shrine On 2010 Pictures (Thanks Mom)

2010-06-07T11:40:00.002-04:00

Click here to view these pictures larger

2010-05-23T08:59:00.002-04:00

Lovin' her arms

Tabs, tabs and more tabs

Ashtyn worldwide

2010-05-12T08:16:00.002-04:00

The green mountain flyer put a picture of Ashtyn on their fliers!!!! I'll get it up here soon but this is the link to see it online

Minutes and feet apart

2010-05-06T18:20:00.004-04:00

Taylor and Tessa were born on Wednesday September 24, 2008..... a few short minutes apart with only a wall between them. Dan walked around the hospital floor like a proud new daddy and stopped at our door when he found out we were there too to show off his precious little bundle. We were some of the first people to meet little Tessa. Jessica and I talked about getting our girls together one of these days to play when I ran into her a little while back. The next morning I ran into Dan and Tessa just after her pictures with easter Bunny. It was only the second time I met Little Tessa... I never thought that that would be the last. Tessa passed away last night. They are not sure still of the exact cause...but the cause doesn't matter to me. I'm heartbroken and shredded by this. My heart goes out to Jessica and to Dan. I know at least she has Laurie Kathryn, Emily and Emy's little one up there to play with, but it still doesn't make it any better down here. Jessica and Dan, I'm beyond sorry.

Stringer Funeral Home Online Memorial (and obit)

Facebook Online Memorial

Oh the joys of the last days of April

2010-04-26T17:16:00.004-04:00

The entire month of April is a crazy one as far as my family goes. There are somewhere around 18 birthdays!!!! Of those, we usually are part of 5 parties, 2 of those I get to play hostess (Ashtyn's and mine, which are generally celebrated the same day). Saturday was my birthday, Ashtyn's birthday party day and Jeremy's going away party night. Um, busy much?! Yeah. I don't do the one party thing anymore, all of our parties have become multi-party parties. But, anyway, Ashtyn had a blast, I enjoyed myself (Thanks for the Dos Equis Brucie) and Jeremy had a tough night, or should I say morning. My cake came out pretty good. I was killing myself trying to come up with decorating ideas. Shrek, Dora, Sponge Bob, My Little Pony, ZuZu pets, blag blah blah.... I'm tired of that kind of stuff. I like the self designed stuff better. If I'm making it then I want it something I made, not Disney or Nickelodeon made.

Sadly, pictures of the cake are basically all I have for photos. I was too busy running around and forgot to snag my mom's photos before she went home. I didn't even get a picture of the cake Sue got for me (which was awesome by the way, Thank You!!!)
Our "Night of Mayhem" was a lot quieter than expected but Jeremy did fire up his chainsaw at 1am to cut up pallets for our very little "bon fire" (I married a redneck). His little shindig was the usual crowd: Me and Jeremy, Brian, Sam (his wife Rene was here for a while and even got to witness me kick Sam's butt in a very random wrestling match....Sam won the 3rd round, but I won 2 out of 3 HAHA), Chris showed up and decided to be "smart" and not drive home...problem was he didn't call his wife to let her know...dummy, I told you so.....and then Jeremy's friend from work Chris and his wife Tracy, and "T-Bone" aka Mack (who "tackled" our F-350) came for a bit and Justin and Crystal. Its sad and funny, as I'm writing this and re-reading it I'm seeing how redneck we really are.....I'm not sure how that happened.....yikes. All in all it was a good night, and day, and I think the fact that about half of the people I invited showed up was actually a good thing. The little crew of us just sat around our mini bonfire and shot the breeze until we were too tired to speak and went to bed.
Reality set back in today and it was work as usual. My morning kid pulled a no call no show, so it was just me and my girls until my afternoon kid showed up around 3:30. Jeremy moves up to camp in 4 days!!!! I'm sad, scared, horrified, and hoping somehow this all works out. My house has yet to be shown, let alone sold. I don't do the two-weeks-without-seeing-my-husband thing. I'm not a fan of the idea to be honest. I only have to deal with it for 5 weeks......hopefully those 5 weeks fly by.

Just me

2010-04-23T14:07:00.002-04:00

With the amount of time I spend online you'd think I might be posting more often. I feel as though my poor blog is neglected. Not that I have a huge fan base or anything but I still feel the need to keep it up to date. And I have sooooo much stuff going on to write about...and there is my problem. Too much going on. I've got another multi-party party on Saturday (Ashtyn's birthday was Thursday so her party is on Saturday, which is my birthday, and Jeremy's going away party) And cleaning, baking, packing, going crazy, stressing, more stressing, my kids, my extra kids, sick dog, neglected hubby, fundraising, Ashtyn's school stuff, blah blah blah...the list just keeps going. I'm going to have a book worth of stuff to write about this month..... I just need to find the time to do it. And now that I hear awake kids.... now is not that time.

I think I've found my Lady of the Lake

2010-04-16T11:39:00.004-04:00

A few years ago, Jeremy and I were helping his Gram clean up her long unseen upstairs. Tucked in the back of the closet in what used to be Sue's (my MIL) room, were 2 fairly large prints. She said they were just old junk that were left in the house by the previous owners (Gram and Grampa bought the house in 52~ish) and we could have them since she just assumed put them in the trash. I fell in love with the frame of the Lady of the Lake print. Its covered with little horse shoes and the glass is so old it has that old waviness in it.

I just loved it. Of course we'd love to have them. So we ever so carefully brought them home.....finding out the hard way we weren't exactly careful enough.....some of the frame flaked off my Lady..... but we got them home and did everything in our power to find spaces on our 100+ yr old latted(?) walls that was strong enough to hang our treasures. We finally got them up and happy in their new locations and over time and many conversations we questioned how old these things really were. The Cows by the Riverside is copyrighted 1896 but there is nothing on my Lady. We checked out J. Hoover and Son in Philadelphia, who owns the copyright and found some info, but not our pics. And over time just kind of gave up on our quest and just enjoy knowing our little treasures are pretty and have been through a lot over the past 114+ years. Today I was looking at just how wavy the glass is on the cow print and noticed what looks like 63 or 65 after the name on the print so I decided to check online again.....still not much but I did find Chris Lane's blog which actually had a post about my guys, J Hoover and Son. And the first print on the page, the text looks almost identical to my Lady...... bringing me to believe that my Lady of the Lake is also a J Hoover print. And after reading about how Hoover started out by making "elaborate wood frames" in the 1850's and then looking at my Lady's frame.......

......I'm pretty sure I've at least finally found her creator.

Seriously, I need to pause life

2010-04-15T12:07:00.006-04:00

Everything is flying so fast I barely have time to think about it, let alone write about it. Last Wednesday, Taylor took her first digger. The 3 kids and I were getting ready to run away from the house for a little while and Taylor was last up the (cement) stairs..... suddenly my dog decided she wanted to go back outside.... Taylor going upstairs + Dog RUNNING down stairs = bump and bruise on forehead and road rash on the nubbie. The even more cruddy thing about it is: if she had her prosthetic on, she would have caught herself, therefore not smashing her poor little face and nub. She started acting shy about her nubbie lately so I decided I'd give her a couple days without her arm to "gently force" her to not be embarrassed or whatever about her arm..... nice idea that worked out horribly. So I called down to Shriners and talked to a couple of the OPD crew and had my thoughts confirmed.... no arm until its healed.
A little while later my so far lousy day got better. I received an email from a guy named Jim who saw my Tabs For Taylor ad on Craigslist .... and to my surprise.... this email wasn't spam.... he informed me he had a 5 gallon bucket full of tabs that I could have if I knew a way to get them from him in Rochester..... no problems there thanks to my Aunt Lisa who went and picked them up for me. So that made me pretty happy.
Then, Little Miss Chaos, broke her nite-lite. SCREAMING, bleeding EVERYWHERE, more screaming.
"Where is the glass honey?"
"I broke it in the kitchen"
"Well if you had broken it in here there would be more than just the one piece that was stuck in your finger"
"I brokted it in the kitchen!"
This goes on for 5 minutes while I run frantically around looking for this glass before either of the 2 little ones find it. I then get her band aided up and continue my hunt. I can not for the life of me find it anywhere. She laid down and watched some TV while I continued frantically searching for the pieces of light bulb. I blocked the little ones in the living room so they can't get into the kitchen and find the glass for me..... another couple minutes go by and I hear it. The sound of a little metal pan from the kids kitchen set falls to the floor and lands on the itty bitty pieces of glass. And where is this glass? RIGHT WHERE THE LITTLE ONES ARE PLAYING!!!!! There was a baby doll outfit on top if it so I never saw it. What a monster. Thank God neither of the little ones touched it. I grabbed them and put them into the glass free kitchen and vac'd it up. Once Ashtyn woke up I found out she was trying to hide her nitelite so I wouldn't be mad. She failed, but she won't be touching glass again anytime soon. So my day was kind of back to not great. The phone rings. My father in law is calling to let me know my dog ran away and is at their house. Once the kids all wake up from their naps, we walk down to get her (they live 3 houses away). Taylor and my "borrowed kiddo" are in the stroller and Ashtyn's holding onto the stroller with me and the dog is practically glued to my left knee (the one closest to the road). We get about 30 feet from the end of the side walk where we would cross the street to my house and SQUEEL BAM YELP This idiot hit my dog. The dog limps over to the house and lays down in the yard. I'm standing there stunned thinking: A) my kids are watching their dog die, B) they're going to see me kill that moron and C) they're going to see me die when daddy gets home and finds out "his baby" is dead. I hurry across and check her out and she's okay, just really scared. The 90-someodd year old guy huddles over and asks if she's okay. Once I tell him she's alright he starts going off on me. He's lucky I was the one he dealt with and not Jeremy.
Long story short: Wednesday wasn't a good one, aside from the tabs.
Saturday the kids and I went with Grammy and Grampa Precourt to Yankee Candle and Ashtyn got to make a jarred candle at their wax worx station. She thought that was just the best thing ever. And then we had an awesome lunch at Chandler's (the restaurant at Yankee). Sunday was Ajlyn's birthday party so we hung out at Sam and Rene's house from 11:30 until around 8. We brought up the tractor to do some work in their yard so I got to "play" with the 'bota for a little while which is always fun.
And now for this week: Ashtyn's learning to ride her bike (finally). The little one is just too little for her and we still haven't found (or remembered to look for) the itty bitty inner tubes for the little bike....so I brought down her big one. She did awesome! She went all the way down our street and around the round-about-thing and back up the street a bunch of times. She loved it. Other than that its been normal craziness: getting ready for the birthday party/going away party on the 24th, getting ready to move Jeremy, Ashtyn's school stuff and all the last minute stuff for my Shriners fundraiser. Oh I can't wait for August. I'm not doing ANYTHING! (I hope)

Had to put this one on.... gotta have my princess dress on with my muck boots to play in the mud..... that's Mommy's girl.

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T12:06:00.000-04:00

Bektash Shrine, Concord, NH

2010-04-03T15:53:00.004-04:00

Hopefully the weather (and girls) cooperate tomorrow so I can attempt to get some better pictures on our way home.

The pictures I took of Jeremy and Taylor came out pretty good, with the exception that neither of them were smiling :( The sun was being kind of evil though....it was blindingly bright.

SHrINE ON 2010~ Walk for Shriners Hospitals for Children

2010-04-01T09:36:00.003-04:00

The info, fliers and sponsor forms are now posted on ShrineOnSpringfield.Blogspot.com Drop me an email or RVSP on facebook so we know who is coming. Thank you to everyone who is supporting Shriners Hospitals for Children.

Happy Birthday Jolene!

2010-04-01T09:12:00.002-04:00

Ha ha!

Dirt-y girls

2010-03-22T09:06:00.005-04:00

You'd think it was summer already here. It has been in the 60s and even touching 70. We've been having a blast outside. Taylor got to finally ride her ATV and she loves it. She figured out how to attach her prosthetic hand to the handle bar (and how to remove it) within a few minutes. Ashtyn took her ATV out for a spin too. I don't have video of that since I was holding her "kill-leash" while she drove. I'm pretty proud of my little redneck kiddos.

Taylor's New Arm

2010-03-18T13:10:00.003-04:00

We went to Shriners yesterday and picked up Taylor's new arm. Taylor's prosthetist showed me some "sport hands" (as I call them) for bicycle riding, baseball, stuff like that. Its really wonderful that there are so many different attachments to do different things. I was also able to bug Bernadette and Lee for a bit which is always nice. And I brought down our tab collection...... almost 100,000 tabs!!! That was interesting..... trying to carry 4 5-gallon buckets, which were full, as well as my purse, camera and diaper bag....and both girls.

I grabbed the blanket I made for her and she realized right off that her arm matched her blankie.

Ashtyn and Taylor worked their charms on a Shriner that was there in the morning and he gave them each a Potentate pin. Miss Ashtyn decided to wear her chocolate milk instead of drink it so she got to sport the very last Shrine On 09 shirt instead of her St. Patty's Day greens.

You can tell Taylor was exhausted. It was a very long day.....too much car time and not ANY naptime.
I'd jabber on more but no one wants to nap today either so I have to cut it short.

Crash Update

2010-03-16T15:46:00.001-04:00

Tabitha Royce, 33, of Charlestown, N.H., died at Springfield Hospital in Vermont, police said.

wmur.com

River rescue under way of trapped motorist - Tuesday, Mar. 16, 2010

2010-03-16T14:26:00.002-04:00

River rescue under way of trapped motorist - Tuesday, Mar. 16, 2010

Posted using ShareThis

SentinalSource.com article

"Oned-handed" ambidexterity

2010-03-12T14:08:00.002-05:00

I tried to upload this video onto blogger but after 5 hours I gave up.

Probably not the most exciting video to some people, but I'm pretty gitty about it.

She has been doing so much two handed stuff lately, like holding her cup with both hands and "driving" her ride on toys.....she tried to dig in the dirt with Ashtyn using her pro arm to hold the shovel.....the dirt was still frozen...but she tried :)

Taylor, my dear, you get an ATTAGIRL from Mommy. (and not the sicko definition....weirdos)

5 more days until we get her new hand. I have no idea if its the same type of hand or if they're just making a new arm for the hand we have..... I really never thought to ask....... it doesn't matter.....I'm just happy that they are able to provide prosthetics for Taylor. We know she can do anything and everything without a prosthetic, but she uses and LOVES her hand(s)..... I would be so heartbroken for her if she wasn't able to have them. I know she's super happy to have a helping hand.

No news is good news.... I guess

2010-03-08T19:28:00.003-05:00

We went to Shriners last Wednesday to get Taylor's feet checked out. Basically the consensus is..... don't worry about it. Her feet may correct themselves and if not... she'll just have flat feet and may at some point get arch supports for her shoes. The ortho we saw wasn't concerned at all and at this point I'm good with that. They said if she seems to be in pain or her ankles/feet get "worse" then definitely have her looked at again but they don't think I should be concerned. She is walking a million times better now than when we first set up her appointment, so that adds to my breathing easier about this whole situation.

We also got to go bug the OPD crew while we were there. Not only did little miss Taylor get fitted for another arm, we got to meet another little girl, Kristina, who lives in NH and has an LBE amp and cutie little "fingers" too. They didn't get to have any real in depth chit chat (the Mommy's did, and her Dad piped in a couple times) but the girls did have a good time swapping arms and comparing nubbies. I still can't believe she could fit into Taylor's arm.... she's 4 years old... I know Taylor loved it. She kept taking her prosthetic off and pointing with her nubbie at Kristina... in her mind saying "finally, someone that isn't a two handed freak!"

I also got to talk with a few of the OPD crew members about random special prosthetics... for riding bikes, atv's, etc. Which then kind of turned into a conversation about how amputees can and will do anything they want to and how I should check out Gimps on Ice which is an climbing event of Paradox Sports. WOW! These people are awesome and crazy-brave. And not because they are amputees, because climbing ice is a horribly frightening idea! OMG! The group has a bunch of other events too, fly fishing, biking, surfing, you name it and they're probably doing it.

I think that basically sums up everything I can come up with right now that I've managed to not blog about. I'm being very bad about blogging recently.... too many projects, not enough time. Speaking of time.... its bed time. Nighty night.

Walpole Wild pursuit; 2 men charged

2010-02-23T14:23:00.000-05:00

By PHILLIP BANTZ
Sentinel Staff
Published: Tuesday, February 23, 2010
After stealing beer and leading police on a high-speed chase that involved a crash and a near-collision with an officer, a drunken Walpole youth and man were arrested early Monday morning, authorities said.

Andrew T. Laacanen, 18, is charged with reckless conduct, disobeying a police officer and reckless operation.

Jeremy A. Provencher, 26, is charged with disobeying a police officer and driving after being deemed a habitual offender of motor vehicle laws.

Full article here

Set up your own online fundraising page for Shriners Hospitals for Children

2010-02-15T12:39:00.002-05:00

http://support.shrinershospitals.org/site/PageServer?pagename=PersonalFundraisingOverview

Some 'more informative' information about Vermont Yankee and Tritium

2010-02-11T18:02:00.006-05:00

The Energy Collective: Comparing a leak of Tritium that causes a flurry to two oil leaks that are virtually ignored

Another nugget from theenergycollective.com

The above author's blog which has even more info....

Tritium and Bananas

This last one is a report that by Richard Heaps detailing the economic impact of VY.

"This study estimated the impact of the Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, LLC Power Station(the “VY Station”) on the economy of Windham County and the state of Vermont in 2009. The study was conducted at the request of the IBEW Local 300 and was conducted independently of Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee."

I received it as a PDF so there's no link other than the for Northern Economic Consulting, inc, which is www.vteconomy.com.

Its long, just to warn you. But here it is:

N O R T H E R N E C O N O M I C C O N S U L T I N G, I N C.
PUBLISHING THE VERMONT ECONOMY NEWSLETTER SINCE 1991
669 CAMBRIDGE ROAD • WESTFORD, VT 05494 • (802) 879-7774 • cell: (802) 318-7374
email: rheaps@vteconomy.com • web page http://www.vteconomy.com
The Economic Impact
of
the VY Station
Prepared for the
IBEW Local 300
South Burlington, Vermont
Prepared by:
Richard W. Heaps
January 31, 2010
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
Northern Economic Consulting, Inc. Westford, Vermont 05494
Page i
Executive Summary
This study estimated the impact of the Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, LLC Power Station
(the “VY Station”) on the economy of Windham County and the state of Vermont in 2009. The
study was conducted at the request of the IBEW Local 300 and was conducted independently of
Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee.
In 2009 there were about 670 employees, including contract employees, at the VY Station with a
payroll of about approximately $68 million. The economic impact that year from this
employment and payroll was very large.
• The total number of jobs created in Windham County in 2009 due to the presence of the
VY Station equaled 1,064. Elsewhere in Vermont an additional 224 jobs existed in 2009
to the existence of the VY Station. Therefore, the total number of jobs created in the
state of Vermont by the VY Station equals 1,288.
• The total payroll created at all Windham County employers by the presence of the VY
Station equals $84.2 million in 2009. Payrolls at employers in the rest of Vermont were
$9.1 million higher than otherwise due to the presence of the VY Station. In total, the
VY Station led to a payroll increase throughout Vermont that totaled approximately
$93.3 million in 2009.
• In 2009 the disposable income of Windham County residents was $64.5 million higher
due to the presence of the VY Station than it would be otherwise. Elsewhere in the state,
disposable income was $14.0 million higher due to the VY Station. In total, disposable
income of all Vermont residents was $78.5 million higher in 2009 than otherwise due to
the presence of the VY Station.
• It is clear that the operation of the VY Station in Vernon had a large and positive
economic impact on Vermont in 2009, creating 1,288 jobs, a payroll of $93.3 million,
and raising disposable incomes by $78.5 million.
• Throughout the difficult period of the current recession, when jobs were declining
throughout the state, the VY Station has held its employment steady. And the
employment the VY Station created through the multiplier process also remained steady.
Not only is the VY Station a large employer in the state with significant impacts that spill
over to other firms, it is also a very stable employer, a characteristic that this recession
shows is extremely valuable to the state’s economy.
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
Northern Economic Consulting, Inc. Westford, Vermont 05494
Page ii
• The VY Station and the economic activity which it generated throughout the state paid
$7.67 million in General Fund taxes in 2009, out of the total of $1,102 million received
by the State.
• The VY Station and the economic activity which it generated throughout the state paid
$4.94 million in Education Fund taxes in 2009, out of the total of $1,320.6 million
received by the State. The $4.94 million in revenues received from the VY Station were
enough to cover the entire cost of educating 352 Vermont students in 2009.
• Finally, the VY Station has sold electricity to Vermont distribution firms at prices below
what they would have had to pay otherwise. From 2002 to 2009 these savings have
exceeded $300 million. We estimate that for every $10 million in savings from lower
electricity costs to Vermont households, there were 64 more jobs created throughout
Vermont with a payroll of $2.4 million in 2009.
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
Northern Economic Consulting, Inc. Westford, Vermont 05494
Page iii
Table of Contents
I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 1
II. The VY Station in 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 2
III. The Total Economic Impact of the VY Station . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 4
IV. The Importance of the VY Station to the Vermont Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 7
V. The Importance of the VY Station to Windham County . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 11
VI. The Impact of the VY Station on State Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 16
VII. The Impact on Consumers of Favorable Electricity Prices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 18
VIII. Appendix - Methodology of this Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 19
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
Northern Economic Consulting, Inc. Westford, Vermont 05494
Page 1
I. Introduction
Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, LLC operates a nuclear powered electrical energy generation
plant in Vernon, Vermont. The IBEW Local 300 asked Northern Economic Consulting, Inc. to
estimate the economic impact of the operation of this power station (the “VY Station”) on the
Vermont and Windham County economies. This report presents the findings from that analysis.
We first present a basic description of the operations of the VY Station in section II. In section
III we present our estimate of the economic impact of the VY Station on the state and Windham
County in 2009. It is necessary to have an understanding of the state’s and county’s economy to
order to grasp the importance of this economic impact to the local residents. In sections IV and
V we discuss the importance of the VY Station’s employment and payroll to Vermont and
Windham County residents.
The VY Station and the economic activity it created generated considerable tax revenues for the
General Fund and Education Fund of the State of Vermont. In section VI we present estimates
of the revenues generated for these funds by the VY Station in FY09.
Lastly, the pricing of electricity produced by the VY Station has been below market rates for
Vermont’s electric utilities and, hence, their customers. The economic impact of this favorable
pricing is discussed in section VII.
This analysis gives a comprehensive overview of the impact of the VY Station on the economy
of Vermont as a whole and Windham County in particular.
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
Northern Economic Consulting, Inc. Westford, Vermont 05494
Page 2
II. The VY Station in 2009
Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, LLC operates nuclear powered electrical energy generation
plant in Vernon, Vermont along the Connecticut River. The plant, referred to in this report as
the VY Station, began operations in November 1972 and has a license to operate until March
2012. Entergy purchased the plant from its Vermont owners in 2002. Prior to 2002, VY was
owned by Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation (VYNPC), a single asset entity owned in
turn by eight New England utilities (of which Vermont utilities owned 55%).
The business of the VY Station is to produce and sell electrical power to wholesale customers.
The VY Station is Vermont's single largest energy supply source. In 2003, the VY Station
supplied almost 35% of Vermont’s energy requirements and almost 28% of its peak load.
The VY Station is a nominal 540 MW capacity Boiling Water Reactor. The plant has a
maximum dependable capacity of 605 MW. Through 2003, VY generated an annual average of
over 3.4 billion kWh, achieving a cumulative output approaching 80% of its maximum potential.
In 2003, a year without a refueling outage, it operated at a capacity factor of 99.5%. In 2001 and
2002 (years with refueling outages) it operated at an average capacity factor of 91%.
The VY Station’s operations are located entirely in Windham County in southern Vermont. The
VY power station is in the town of Vernon and there is a small training center in Brattleboro. In
addition, Entergy VY contracts out for some maintenance and food services with local firms
which, from an economic perspective, adds to its total employment. Lastly, the nuclear power
plant routinely shuts down for refueling bringing in a large number of outside employees who
are specialized in this process.
The total economic impact of the VY Station on Vermont and Windham County depends several
factors: the employment and wages paid at the VY Station and to its contractors, the spending of
its contractors during outages, and the price savings which Vermont residents and businesses
enjoy. This report will mainly focus on the single most important factor — the employment and
wages paid at the VY Station and to its contractors. The impact of the spending of contractors
during outages, while very important to local innkeepers and restauranteurs, has a very minor
impact compared to the impact of the wages and employment at the VY Station and, therefore, is
not addressed in this report.
Finally, the VY Station has sold electricity to Vermont distribution firms (Green Mountain
Power, Central Vermont Public Service, and the Vermont Electric Cooperative) at prices below
that which they would have had to pay otherwise. From 2002 to 2009 these savings have
exceeded $300 million according to the Vermont Energy Partnership. In the recession year of
2009 the savings were lower as the price of wholesale electricity declined. From an ongoing
evaluation of the economic benefits of the VY Station, future energy prices from the plant and on
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
Northern Economic Consulting, Inc. Westford, Vermont 05494
Page 3
the market are hard to determine. Including any benefits from favorable prices in 2009 would
make it difficult to determine the benefits from the employment and wages of the VY Station
alone, which is the major source of the economic benefit of the plant. Therefore, no price
savings were used in the central analysis of this report. The economic impact of the favorable
pricing is addressed at the conclusion of this report.
The total employment and wages of the VY Station in 2009 was the sum the following two
activities:
• The VY Station Employment - In 2009 the VY Station had 642 employees working at
the power station and training center combined. In that year VY Station employees were
paid approximately $67 million in wages and bonuses. This implies an average wage and
bonus earnings of VY Station employees of just under $104,000 in 2009. Total earnings
can vary year to year based on the performance of the plant (number and length of
outages, etc.) and the use of contractors versus in-house labor. Earnings information
since 2004 show that 2009 was a fairly “normal” year for earnings.
(Note: readers of past economic analyses of the VY Station will notice that the plant has
changed it usage of contractors, accounting for significant changes in earnings reported
for VY Station employees versus its contractors. Care should be taken with comparisons
from other reports on the VY Station to account for these changes, although total
employment and earnings (plant plus contractors) has been reasonably steady.)
• Contracted Employment - By the end of 2009 the VY Station was operating with 25 to
30 contractors on site for food services and ordinary construction purposes. Special
conditions can cause this to rise substantially for brief periods of time, but this is
expected to be the norm for the foreseeable future.
In total, the VY Station had 667 to 672 employees in 2009. For purposes of this report, we will
use 669 employees.
The economic importance of the VY Station on the state’s and Windham County’s economy is
readily apparent from the employment and wages paid directly at the plant. However, in 2009
the full economic impact of VY Station was magnified through the economic multiplier process,
the subject of the next section of this report.
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
1 The model is described in the Appendix to this report.
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III. The Total Economic Impact of the VY Station
Based on the information in section II we estimated the total impact of the VY Station on
Vermont’s and Windham County’s economy. The impact of the VY Station on the state and
county economy is much greater than that due solely to its own payroll and that of its on-site
contractors. That is because much of the nearly $68 million in payroll is spent at other
businesses, thereby creating additional jobs and additional payroll at other firms throughout the
state. This is known as the multiplier process in economics.
By use of the REDYN model, a dynamic input-output model, we estimate the following impact
of the VY Station on the state and county economy.1
Total Economic Impact of the VY Station in 2009
Jobs
Created
Increased
Wages (in
millions
of 2009 $)
Increased
Disposable
Income (in
millions of
2009 $)
Windham County 1,064 $84.2 $64.5
Rest of Vermont 224 $9.1 $14.0
Total Vermont 1,288 $93.3 $78.5
The Job Impact
• The total number of jobs created in Windham County in 2009 due to the presence of the
VY Station equaled 1,064. The employment at VY Station was 669. Thus, through the
multiplier process, an additional 395 jobs were created in Windham County in 2009 due
to the presence of the VT Station in Vernon.
These jobs include 55 in construction, 53 in retail trade, 42 in accommodations and food
services, 43 in health care and social assistance, and 42 in professional services with the
remainder in other sectors of the economy.
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
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• Elsewhere in Vermont an additional 224 jobs existed in 2009 to the existence of the VY
Station. These jobs included 36 in retail trade, 29 in health care and social assistance, 24
in accommodations and food services, 22 in construction, and 22 in professional services
with the remainder in other sectors of the economy.
• Therefore, the total number of jobs created in the state of Vermont by the VY Station’s
669 jobs equaled 1,288. This implies an employment multiplier of 1.93. This relatively
large multiplier is due to the high wages at the power station itself which generates the
large multiple impact. (Note: 173 additional jobs were created in Cheshire County, New
Hampshire and Franklin County, Massachusetts, but are not counted in this figure.)
The Payroll Impact
• The total payroll created by the presence of the VY Station at all Windham County
employers equaled $84.2 million in 2009. The payroll at the VY Station (including
contractors) was approximately $68 million. Therefore, an additional payroll of about
$16.2 million was created in Windham County outside of the VY Station through the
multiplier process.
• Payrolls at employers in the rest of Vermont were $9.1 million higher than otherwise due
to the presence of the VY Station.
• In total, the VY Station led to a payroll increase at all firms throughout Vermont that
totaled approximately $93.3 million in 2009.
The Disposable Income Impact
The VY Station is located on the Connecticut River in Vernon, Vermont. Most employees of the
plant live near by, which includes towns in New Hampshire and Massachusetts as well as
Vermont In 2009 just over 40% of the employees at the VY Station lived in Vermont.
Therefore, not all of the payroll of the VY Station translates into income gains of Vermont
residents. This can be demonstrated by examining the impact of the VY Station on the
disposable income (essentially after-tax) of Vermont residents.
• In 2009 the disposable income of Windham County residents was $64.5 million higher
due to the presence of the VY Station than it would have been otherwise.
• Elsewhere in the state, disposable income was $14.0 million higher due to the VY
Station.
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• Finally, disposable income of all Vermont residents was $78.5 million higher than
otherwise due to the presence of the VY Station.
• The disposable income of residents of Cheshire County, NH and Franklin County, MA
was $18.3 million higher due to the presence of the VY Station.
The Total Impact
It is clear that the operation of the VY Station in Vernon had a large and positive economic
impact throughout Vermont in 2009, creating 1,288 jobs, a payroll of $93.3 million, and raising
disposable incomes by $78.5 million. The importance of these jobs and earnings to the state and
Windham county is the subject of the next two sections of this report.
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
2 The employment totals for 2009 are estimates based on QCEW job counts for the first two quarters of the
year and monthly CES job estimates for the state from July through December.
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IV. The Importance of the VY Station to the Vermont
Economy
In order to fully understand the importance of the VY Station to the Vermont economy, it is
necessary to review the recent history of the economy’s performance. In this section we briefly
present and examine the state’s employment and income growth over the last ten years. We then
review the near term economic forecast for the state
A. Recent Economic Activity in Vermont and the VY Station
1. Employment and Unemployment
The Vermont Department of Labor publishes an
annual count of the number of payroll jobs at
Vermont businesses. This includes about 80% of
the state’s employment, excluding the selfemployed.
The graph to the right shows the
annual job growth in Vermont from 1999 through
2009.2
During this ten year period the state’s economy
experienced two recessions. The recession in the
early part of this decade was relatively brief and
not as severe as preceding economic downturns.
However, the current recession has been a very
severe recession and is not yet over. Many economists believe it will prove to be the harshest
recession in Vermont since the Great Depression.
Employment in the Vermont began falling in mid 2008, then fell rapidly through 2009. As of the
close of 2009, employment in Vermont has fallen by approximately 11,000 jobs, a decline of
3.6%. In 2009 this was punctuated by workforce reductions at Ethan Allen Furniture (110),
Plasan Carbon Composites (92), Lydall, Inc. (190), IBM (between 250 to 500). Ten of the
state’s 97 automobile dealerships closed as did several major retailers (Circuit City and
Linens n’ Things).
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
3 Revised employment and unemployment estimates for Vermont will be released by the Vermont
Department of Labor in late February 2010
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Throughout this period, the VY Station held its employment steady, near the current number of
669 employees plus contractors. The 619 additional jobs created throughout the state (for a total
of 1,288 jobs) through the multiplier process also remained generally constant. In good
economic times, the VY Station is a major employer in the state. In these difficult economic
times, the importance of the VY Station to the Vermont economy is even greater. The steady
nature of its employment over the business cycle is a clear benefit to Vermonters.
The Vermont Business Magazine lists the VY Station as the 31st largest employer in the state in
2009, with 500 employees in 2009/2010. Using the correct number (669), the VY Station is
actually the 21st largest employer in Vermont.
The Vermont Department of Labor publishes an
annual estimate of the unemployment rate for
Vermont. This is the most frequently used
measure of economic hardship in the regional
labor market. The graph to the right shows the
annual unemployment rate in the state from 1999
to 2009.
Unemployment increased during the recession in
the early part of this decade, then declined to just
3.5% in 2005. It remained fairly steady until the
current recession. For all of 2009 Vermont’s
unemployment rate is currently estimated to be
6.9%.3 In the last two years, the number of unemployed Vermonters has increased from 14,000
to 24,900.
Again it is important to note that throughout this difficult period, the VY Station held its
employment, and the employment it creates through the multiplier process, steady. Even as the
demand for electrical energy declined nationwide during the recession, the low cost of electricity
produced by the VT Station allowed it to sell all it produced and to continue to operate without
any reduction in employment.
2. Wages and Income
Another important measure of economic activity is wages and incomes. The Vermont
Department of Labor publishes an annual average wage per job for the state. In 1999 the
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
4 The 2009 average wage is estimated from the VDOL reports for the first two quarters of 2009.
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average was $27,589. By 2009 we estimate this will equal $38,134, an increase of 38% in ten
years.4 For comparison purposes, from 1999 to 2009 the Consumer Price Index increased 28%.
The average wage at the VY Station in 2009 was $104,000 (see section II of this report). This
high wage is a reflection of the job skills needed to operate a nuclear power plant. The jobs at
Vermont Yankee are the very type of high-paying jobs that Vermont policymakers so frequently
call for.
In 2009, total wages at the VY Station equaled about $68 million. In Section III , we estimated
that through the multiplier process the total wages created by the VY Station in Vermont equaled
$93.3 million. This is $8 out of every $1,000 in wages paid by all employers in the State of
Vermont in 2009.
It is also illustrative to look at the resulting
incomes of Vermont residents. Income data can
best be obtained from the Vermont Department
of Taxes, based on data from the state’s personal
income tax. We present the inflation-adjusted
income for the median family in Vermont from
1975 through 2009 in the accompanying graph.
Inflation-adjusted median family income has
grown from about $40,000 in 1975 to $65,000 in
2009. Growth occurs during good economic
times but turns negative in recessions. The
current recession is no different. Inflationadjusted
median family income fell 2.7% in
2008. We estimate it fell another 2.5% in 2009.
The importance of the VY Station to the income of Vermont families is evident in two ways.
First, the average wage of a VY Station worker is higher than the median family income in
Vermont. The jobs at the VY Station are very good-paying jobs. Second, because of the steady
demand for the electricity produced by the VY Station, the earnings of workers at the VY Station
have increased, even in the recession years helping Vermont households maintain their standard
of living in these difficult economic times.
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B. The Economic Outlook for Vermont and the VY Station
The New England Economic Partnership (NEEP) prepares biannual forecasts of the economic
outlook for the New England state economies. The following forecast of NEEP was released last
November.
In brief, NEEP expects the Vermont economy to have bottomed out in the fourth quarter of
2009. However, the recovery afterwards will be slow. The state’s labor market will not begin
growing again until the middle of 2010. By then the state’s employers will have cut
approximately 18,000 jobs. NEEP expects job growth will turn positive in 2011, posting a 1.1%
gain that year and 2.7% in 2012. By the end of 2012 the state’s job total will still be below the
pre-recession peak set in 2007. Unemployment in Vermont is expected to continue to rise
through the middle of 2010, hitting a peak of 8.1%.
NEEP forecasts that inflation-adjusted per capita personal income in Vermont will fall 3.4% in
2010 and 1.8% in 2011 before growing slightly in 2012.
In sum, the state’s economy is just now starting to begin a long, slow recovery from the
recession. Employment growth will not resume until later in 2010 and unemployment will rise.
Given the continued demand for the relatively low-priced electricity produced by the VY Station
into the foreseeable future, the number of jobs at the VY Station will remain steady and the
annual earnings of its workers will grow. The VY Station will continue to be a very important
part of the state’s economy through 2011 and, if relicensed, for many years in the future.
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
5 The employment totals for 2009 are estimates based on actual job counts for the first two quarters of the
year and monthly job changes for the state from July through December.
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V. The Importance of the VY Station to Windham County
In this section we briefly present and examine Windham County’s employment and income
growth over the last ten years. In addition, we review the major demographic changes affecting
the local economy in this period.
It is clear that economic activity in Windham County has significantly lagged that of the rest of
Vermont in recent years. In addition, even as Vermont is a slow growing state from a
demographic perspective, Windham County is even a slower growing area. This suggests that
any major, negative economic impacts will be felt more acutely in Windham County than
elsewhere in Vermont.
A. Recent Economic Activity in Windham County and the VY
Station
1. Employment and Unemployment
The graph to the right shows the annual job
growth in Windham County (the line) versus that
of the State of Vermont (the bars) from 1999
through 2009.5 Job growth in Windham County
has lagged that of the state in nine of the last ten
years. Only in 1999 did Windham County post a
job gain. Windham County has lost jobs every
year since 1999.
From 1999 to 2009 employment in the state grew
by 5.3%, a gain of 15,236 jobs. During that ten
year period jobs decreased in Windham County
by 1,636, a 6.8% decline. Then, when the
recession hit in 2008 and 2009, Windham County employers continued to shed jobs, and at a
faster rate than employers across the state. We estimate employment fell by another 1,200 jobs
in Windham County during the last two years to stand at 21,400 for 2009.
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
6 We estimate the 2009 wage based on wage changes in the first two quarters.
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As presented in sections II and III of this report, the VY Station had 669 employees in 2009.
This is 3.1% of the total payroll employment in the county. And as presented in section III,
through the multiplier process, the VY Station created a total of 1,064 jobs in the county, fully
5.0% of the county’s jobs. Put another way, one out of every twenty jobs in Windham County
exists due to the presence of the VY Station.
The Vermont Business Magazine lists the VY Station as the second largest employer in
Windham County in 2009, with 500 employees. C&S Wholesalers is the largest with 1,200.
The third largest is Brattleboro Memorial Hospital with 480 employees. Using the correct
number (669), the VY Station is still the second largest employer in Windham County.
The unemployment rate for the state and
Windham County from 1999 through 2009 is
presented in the accompanying graph. Based on
the low job growth in Windham County, it is
initially somewhat surprising that Windham
County’s unemployment rate has remained below
or equal to the state’s rate during the period
under review. In the review of the county’s
demographic’s below, we will see this is not an
indicator of economic vitality in the county, but
rather a reflection of the population decline in the
county.
2. Wages and Income
The Vermont Department of Labor publishes an annual average wage per job for the state and
Windham County. This is shown below.
Average Wage per Job
1999 2008 Change
All Vermont $27,589 $38,134 38%
Windham County $26,782 $36,033 35%
In 2009, we estimate the average wage per job in Vermont was $38,134, up 38% from 1999.6 In
Windham County the average wage increased slightly less, 35%, to $36,033. The average wage
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
7 According to the 2000 U.S. Census, about 4,000 of the 23,000 working Windham County residents
worked outside the county. Over 1,000 crossed the river into New Hampshire’s Cheshire County.
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paid at the VY Station ($104,000) shows the critical importance of the wages paid at the VY
Station to the earnings of households in Windham County).
In addition, the total wages paid by the VY Station in 2009 equaled $68 million. This is 8.4% of
the total wages paid in the county. Further, through the multiplier process, we estimated in
section II that the VY Station led to the payment of $84.2 in wages in Windham County. That’s
10.4% of the total or one out of every ten dollars in wages paid in Windham County.
The above figures are wages from jobs in Windham County. Because many county residents
work outside the county, it is also illustrative to look at the resulting incomes of county
residents.7 This can be obtained from the Vermont Department of Taxes, based on data from the
state’s personal income tax. We examine the income for the median family in Vermont and
Windham County, which is available only for 2000 to 2008.
Median Family Income
2000 2008 Change
All Vermont $46,113 $58,069 26%
Windham County $42,045 $51,425 22%
In 2008, the median family income in Vermont was $58,069, up 26% since 2000. In Windham
County, the median family income was $51,425, up 22% since 2000. This income is $6,644 less
than the statewide median. The Windham median family income was the 4th lowest of the
fourteen counties in Vermont, only above the three Northeast Kingdom counties.
In summation, the VY Station is the second largest employer in Windham County, accounting
for one out of every twenty jobs in the county. It is ultimately the source of $1 out of every $10
dollars paid by employers in the county. Given the lack of job growth in the county and the
stability of the employment and earnings at the VY Station, it is hard to understate the
importance of the VY Station to the residents of Windham County.
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B. Demographic Changes in Vermont and Windham County
Population data for the state and Windham County is published by the U.S. Bureau of the
Census. The last population count was the decennial census in 2000. Population estimates for
the years after 2000 have been published through 2008 for the counties. Therefore, we review
demographic estimates for the years 2000 to 2008.
1. Total Population
From July 1, 2000 to July 1, 2008, the total resident population of Vermont increased from
609,909 to 621,049. This was a gain of 11,146 or just 1.8% over the eight-year period. Vermont
is one of the slowest growing states in the nation and during this period the annual growth rate
steadily declined to just barely 0.1% or less per year.
During the same period, the population of Windham County declined from 44,157 to 43,176.
The decline equaled 981 or a negative 2.2% in the eight years from 2000 to 2008. Windham
County was one of only four counties in Vermont to lose population over the period. (The other
three were Bennington, Rutland, and Windsor Counties.)
2. Working-Age Population
For purposes of this report, we define the working-age population to include residents aged 25 to
64 years old. During the period 2000 to 2008, the Census Bureau estimates that the workingage
population of Vermont increased from 327,736 to 344,012, a gain of 5%. All of this
occurred from a 24% gain (36,866 people) in the number of older workers aged 45 to 64 — the
Baby Boom generation. The number of younger workers — aged 25 to 44 — actually declined
12% (20,590 people) during this period.
The same general trend can be seen in Windham County from 2000 to 2008, where the workingage
population increased from 24,445 to 24,731, a gain of just 1.2%. As with the state, the gain
in the county was only from increased numbers of older workers aged 45 to 64, which grew
20%. The number of younger workers aged 25 to 44 declined 17% in Windham County from
12,364 to 10,277.
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3. Over 65 Population
Finally, the number of Vermonters aged 65 and older increased from 77,746 to 86,649, a gain of
12% from 2000 to 2008. In Windham County, the number increased from 6,176 to 6,265, a gain
of just 3%. This population age cohort will grow rapidly in the coming years with the aging of
the Baby Boom generation.
Vermont is one of the oldest states in the nation, measured by the median age of its population.
In 2008 the median age was 42.3 years, up from 38.7 years in 2000. In 2008 Vermont was the
second oldest state in the nation. In Windham County, the median age is significantly higher —
up from 40.1 years old in 2000 to 44.0 years old in 2008.
4. Demographic Summary
Windham County is losing population and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The
remaining population is aging and aging faster than the state as a whole. While the working-age
population is still increasing, that will soon slow and then begin declining (by 2012 is the
forecast) as the Baby Boomers retire.
From an economic perspective, a declining population generally means a declining demand from
the regional market for goods and services. A declining labor force means that it will be
increasingly difficult for employers, particularly for those serving the broader U.S. or global
market, to find the labor needed to operate efficiently in Windham County.
A large part of the lack of economic dynamism in Windham County can be explained by its
demographics. This will present a significant challenge to growing the economy of the county
for the foreseeable future. As a consequence, it is crucial to Windham County to hold its
existing employers, particularly those like the VY Station, that have a stable demand for their
products and pay high wages to their employees.
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VI. The Impact of the VY Station on State Government
In 2009, the VY Station itself, the employees of the VY Station, and the employees elsewhere in
the state created by the multiplier process all paid taxes into Vermont’s General Fund and
Education Fund. These taxes were a substantial part of the total revenues of the state. In this
section we present an estimate of the major tax revenues which the state received because of the
presence of the VY Station in Vermont.
A. Impact on General Fund Revenues
In section III we estimated that the presence of
the VY Station in Vermont led to the creation of
payrolls in the state totaling $93.3 million. In
2009 we estimate that the General Fund of
Vermont received $3.00 million in personal
income tax payments from these earnings.
In a similar manner the State treasury received
$0.82 million from the retail sales and use
tax, $0.44 million from the meals and rooms
tax, and $0.61 million from all other General
Fund taxes.
In addition, there is a special Electrical Energy
Tax paid into the General Fund which is levied
on the VY Station which totaled $2.8 million in 2009.
In total, VY Station and the economic activity which it generated throughout the state paid $7.67
million in General Fund taxes in 2009, out of the total of $1,102 million received by the State.
General Fund Revenues Received
Because of the VY Station
in 2009
Tax source Revenue
Individual income $3.00
Retail sales & use $0.82
Meals & rooms $0.44
Electrical generation $2.80
All other GF taxes $0.61
====
Total = $7.67 million
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B. Impact on Education Fund Revenues
In 2009 we estimate that the Education Fund of
Vermont received $4.94 million because of the
presence of the VY Station in Vermont.
The VY Station directly paid $2.00 million to
the State Education Fund in 2009. An additional
$0.65 million and $0.13 million was received in
the Education Fund from the sales and use tax
and the purchase and use tax from economic
activity attributable to the VY Station. Lastly,
the Education Fund received a $292 million
transfer from the General Fund, of which we
estimate $2.16 million was paid from economic
activity created by the VY Station.
In total, VY Station and the economic activity which it generated throughout Vermont paid
$4.94 million in Education Fund taxes in 2009, out of the total of $1,320.6 million received by
the State.
In FY09, the Education Fund spent $1,321.8 million on 95,676 students. That is a cost of
$14,046 per student. The $4.94 million in revenues received from the VY Station were enough
to cover the entire cost of educating 352 Vermont students in 2009.
Education Fund Revenues Received
Because of the VY Station
in 2009
Tax source Revenue
VY Station $2.00
Retail sales & use $0.65
Purchase & use $0.13
Portion of General
Fund Transfer $2.16
====
Total = $4.94 million
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
8 No estimate was prepared for the impact from the electricity savings cost to Vermont businesses.
Northern Economic Consulting, Inc. Westford, Vermont 05494
Page 18
VII. The Impact on Consumers of Favorable Electricity
Prices
The VY Station has sold electricity to Vermont distribution firms (Green Mountain Power,
Central Vermont Public Service, and the Vermont Electric Cooperative) at prices below what
they would have had to pay otherwise. From 2002 to 2009 these savings have exceeded $300
million according to the Vermont Energy Partnership. In the recession year of 2009, the savings
were reduced as the price of wholesale electricity declined, however, not below the price the VY
Station sold power to the Vermont utilities.
In this section we present an analysis of the impact of favorable electricity prices on Vermont
households. We do not attempt to predict the precise impact. We do note that the savings to all
Vermont electricity purchasers has averaged over $40 million per year since 2002. To put this
number in context, we estimate the number of jobs and the payroll created throughout the state
from a $10 million savings in electricity costs to Vermont households.8 This analysis was
performed with the REDYN model.
• We estimate that for every $10 million in savings to Vermont households in lower
electricity costs, there were 71 more jobs created throughout Vermont with a payroll of
$2.7 million in 2009.
Residential sales of electricity in Vermont has averaged 37% of total electricity sales. With
annual savings of $40 million from 2002 to 2009, this implies Vermont households enjoyed
annual savings of nearly $15 million. Using the estimate bulleted above, this implies there were
106 jobs with a payroll of $4.1 million in Vermont during this period due to the electricity prices
savings to Vermont households.
This job and wage impact was not included in the analysis of this report prior to this section.
The reader can conclude the impact of the VY Station in 2009 was larger than that discussed
elsewhere in this report by some portion/multiple of the job and wage gains shown above.
Economic Impact of the VY Station January 31, 2010
Northern Economic Consulting, Inc. Westford, Vermont 05494
Page 19
VIII. Appendix - Methodology of this Analysis
The economic, demographic and fiscal impact of the future operation and eventual
decommissioning of the VY Station is measured by use of a dynamic, input-output model
developed by Regional Dynamics Inc. (“The ReDyn Model”). This model allows the estimation
of economic, fiscal and demographic impacts from 2008 through 2056.
Regional Dynamics is an economic modeling company. ReDyn offers an advanced economic
model by web subscription or batch services to consultants, agencies, firms, planners, and
analysts (users). ReDyn runs on the Internet. The model estimates the multi-regional impacts
and year-by-year (dynamic) nonlinear effects on industries, consumers, and governments from
changes in company sales, jobs, wages, or investments; changes in taxes or personal or
government spending; or public policy changes such as energy, environment, school, health, or
security measures. The results are called simulation forecasts, or simulations.
The model is a fundamental re-envisioning of economic theory applied to estimating
multi-regional, dynamic effects. It reflects advances in New Economic Geography, especially
gravity theory (regional attraction) and trade flow (regional imports/exports), based on a new
distance impedance database from Oak Ridge National Laboratories that enables calculating
trade flow by commodity by road, rail, water, air, and proxy transport. The breakthrough in
design is the commodity production linkage between the trade flow process and an entity-based
data structure for the economy. Entities include industries, workers, governments, investors,
etc., and commodities are the goods they use and make.
ReDyn is more flexible, complete, and accessible than any other modeling process available
today.
For this report we developed a four region ReDyn model. The regions are: Windham County,
the remaining counties of Vermont (called “Rest of Vermont”), Cheshire County in New
Hampshire, and Franklin County in Massachusetts. The economic impacts on the latter two
counties are not of concern to this report. However, they were included in this analysis in order
to fully measure the impact of the VY Station and increase our confidence in the reasonableness
of the ReDyn model’s estimates.

Calm and Relaxation-ish

2010-02-05T11:48:00.004-05:00

Both the girls have an evil cough and I'm stuck with a stuffy-nose.....but all is not overly horrible. I taught myself to knit over the weekend and rather than do something easy like a pot holder or wash cloth.....I made Taylor a sweater. You can't tell from this pic but the left sleeve is shorter to allow her smilie to be free when she's not wearing her prosthetic. Its a little shorter than I would have liked but I just went at it without a pattern or anything....so keep your criticism :) Ashtyn's a little jealous so now I'm going to start making her one.

And even with the runny noses, booger faces and tears, the girls shared the love with one another. Cute as always!!!

I'm going to save it......for now

2010-01-28T15:30:00.003-05:00

As if the 29 letters Monday weren't enough............another 60 today!!!!! The only comfort I have right now is knowing it cost these jerks $39.16 to mail this crap to me. F them!

Another day in paradise

2010-01-28T13:14:00.003-05:00

I have another fight with my insurance company today about Taylor's "unapproved diagnosis". I've pretty much determined that our coverage is minimally useful at best. It covers the basic well-child check ups...... and I think that is about it. I paid more for medical care last year, than I made for the year last year. Same with 2008. I'm not impressed by any means. After my informative-and-not-helpful-at-all conversation with the insurance company, I called the billing lady at Taylor's PT's office to talk to her about what was going on and to see where we stood and what to do. She basically confirmed my feelings about my insurance company not knowing ANYTHING and not covering anything and basically being being junk in general, and then calmed me back down by informing me that this would in no way harm Taylor: she will still continue to get her OT/PT and if the insurance co doesn't pay, then that's that. The PT group will basically eat the loss. If it weren't for this group and Shriners Hospital, I don't even know, nor do I want to think about, were Taylor would be right now. I, and Taylor, are so fortunate these 2 companies exist and are willing and able to help her. I am eternally grateful.

When it pours.....

2010-01-26T12:39:00.005-05:00

Last night when I got the mail it was a surprisingly huge wad of envelopes. Roughly 30 letters. I open a huge envelope from SHC. It contains this really nice golden certificate thanking us again for our fundraising and letting us know they have put us in "the golden book" of donors. I'm so excited about it and I run right upstairs and frame it and then proceed to get to the other 29 envelopes. 2 bills, a couple junk mail things and then 20 envelopes are left which are frighteningly all the same size.....and all from our insurance company. Do you hear the jaws theme playing.....du dut du dut....
anyway, so I grab one and open it up and Jeremy sees the stack and starts opening one, you have got to be shitting me. These idiots sent us 19 letters informing us that they were billing Taylor's physical therapist for her services because they over paid them. Hello!?!?! Taylor's therapy is $160 bucks each visit and she usually has one each week. These friggin morons didn't start paying anything until a couple months ago and they only paid like $110 of it. So all the while the PT's company has been eating the loss. Now these assholes want the little bit they did pay back because "Taylor's diagnosis is an unapproved condition" I respond with, "Unapproved condition, seriously?" While I really feel like screaming: GO F YOURSELF! "Yeah, I'm sorry but we're not going to be able to cover these services" You have got to be kidding me.....
this is awesome!
They don't and won't cover her prosthetics, or anything that goes with them, ie visiting the ortho for the rx for the prosthetic, the suspension sleeves, the socks that go on her arm....nothing. And now they won't cover her physical therapy!?!?! If it weren't for her PT, she'd still be walking like an 80 year old pirate, and her arms would still be glued to her sides, and her balance would still likely be totally out of wack. Her PT has worked on so much more than just making sure she could use her prosthetic and do things without it.

The gov't has given us the FO
The state has given us the FO
and now our insurance company

what the hell is wrong with people?

Prosthetics are cosmetic, no pre-existing conditions, how 'bout FO to that!

If I ever hear prosthetics are cosmetic again, the idiot who says it to me will likely get punched in the face.

And so now, on top of the BS with them billing the therapist, that also messed up our deductable so we'll likely be paying a bunch more money for other visits that were previously covered and either the therapy group has to eat the entirety of the bills or we won't be able to have her come as often, if at all. Super! I'm so irritated right now......there are no words.

Time for some much needed rambling...

2010-01-18T12:22:00.012-05:00

I finally have a couple months off from the neverending birthdays. My goodness there are a ton of them in December and January. Not to mention the 4 thousands Christmas's and New Years Eve...ahhhh. Anyway, if you have checked out my slide show below, you'll see the kids faces all banged up. Ashtyn had a cavity that needed to be filled....she did great up until the ride home when she fell asleep and chewed her poor lip almost off! Then the next night Taylor was chasing Ashtyn around the living room and slipped on a blanket that was on the floor...SMASH...right into the coffee table. Ripped her poor lip and gums. I think her Daddy (and I) cried as much as she did. So that week, I had the privilege of a dental visit and 2 trips to the doctors office...ugh! And because of the first dr's visit I get to go down to Shriners again in 4 weeks....which is awesome.... and scary. Its awesome because I obviously love having any reason to go there, the scary part is that Taylor needs to get her feet looked at. She walks "funny" and has some pretty bad flat footedness(?) so her pedi wants an ortho to check her out. I know at least if she does need some sort of help with her feet then SHC is where I want her to be. This past weekend we went up to Newport/Brownington, VT. And when I say "we" I mean a ton of us. Jeremy, me, the girls, Ron, Sue, Justin, Crystal, Mack, Shawn, Greg...and 3 dogs... all fighting for sleeping space at camp. It worked out well even though it was cramped. We also found out the f-350 won't stand up to being t-boned by a mac....I was right there and I still don't know how exactly it happened..... sometime around midnight Mack ran full bore into our truck. The truck never stood a chance. He kind of killed our door. And this was after he rolled Jeremy's death quad....while we weren't even there...... which is why I don't leave my keys to ANYTHING, EVER. Mack is fine and Jeremy is surprisingly calm......I cetainly wouldn't be..... but boys will be boys I guess. Friday night (which is why we weren't at camp when the ATV was in a one- manned collision)Jeremy and I were at East Side for the Vermont Railroad's Christmas/New Years/Retirement dinner. Awesome food, 4 courses of it, and an open bar (thank goodness....their drinks are pricey) and no kids allowed at the meal..... oh man. I honestly think that was the first time since our honeymoon that we had dinner at a restaraunt without at least one of the kids. Those 4 hours were definitely a VERY MUCH needed break.~~~~Thanks Ron and Sue~~~~~
That pretty much sums up the excitement of the last few weeks.

On another SHC note:

MARK YOUR CALENDERS!!!! I have set the date for SHrINE ON SPRINGFIELD 2010. Its going to be Saturday June 5. It will be at the Toonerville Trail in Springfield, VT, registration starts at 9:30 and the walk will start at 10. Its going to be the full trail this year, so get ready!

My Dad (Unique Signs) said he is going to purchase the tshirts again and Roland Irish III (Sunrise Graphics) is donating the stickers and silk screening supplies (and his shop space so I can ink the shirts again.) Huge thanks go out to both of you!!!!!

I'm still in the process of figuring out the post-walk party, food, etc. I've got a bunch of ideas/plans.... its just a matter of time and pulling it together. I'm sure it will work out no matter and I know that at least as far as last year's participants went, they'd all have been there whether we had the party after or not.

TABS FOR TAYLOR is going well. We've collected around 162,000 tabs to date and more are being gathered up almost daily. Taylor's PT/OT brought in 2 bags full from a co-worker last week and she brought one of my jugs to the office/daycare in hopes that others will get involved. Our Parents As Teachers home visitor is rallying troops in her circle to start saving them and I'm hoping to talk with her supervisor and the other groups at her office building to see if I could put up another community drop box there. The Old #4 Fire & Hose Ladies Auxiliary in Charlestown (who started Tabs For Taylor) voted at their last meeting to put up a community drop box for tabs. Hopefully soon we will be overwhelmed with tabs.

I'm out of blog time...Taylor just told me nap time is over.

Photos of the month(s)

2010-01-18T10:16:00.004-05:00

I have been so busy I can't even see straight. You'd think with less kids to take care off and no money to go out to do anything I'd have all the time in the world.....nope! Here's a tidbit of pics of the 3-4 weeks. Bump after bruise, gash after bite, a little snow, a little camp, a ton to talk about, and no time yet to do it. Maybe nap time will be kind today. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.

ATVs to be allowed on state land: Times Argus Online

2010-01-07T17:30:00.003-05:00

Awesome good news!!!!! (as long as it really happens)

ATVs to be allowed on state land: Times Argus Online

Posted using ShareThis

U.S. snowboarder Pearce remains hospitalized

2010-01-04T18:08:00.002-05:00

U.S. snowboarder Pearce remains hospitalized

Posted using ShareThis

Finally! The holidays (and year) are almost over.

2009-12-31T08:22:00.010-05:00

I'm such a crank this time of year. The craziness of too many people at the stores, the people who forgot how to drive when it snows, or even "dusts" a few flakes, the wrapping like theirs no tomorrow, then the opening like theirs no tomorrow..... if it weren't for my girls, I'd be done with all of it. I just feel like I don't have time to breathe, let alone do anything else. It makes me nuts. And then the fighting with random family members about how I don't want 15 Christmas's.....I want my girls to have one. Santa comes one time a year....not every day of December. Grrr. Enough ranting....well, maybe......

As 2009 comes to an end...

1) Where did you begin 2009?

At Camp. We missed the ball drop yet again. We started the night at Marge and Louis' house.....for some foolish reason we left to go back to camp (apparently at 11:50ish) to fire up the generator to power the TV so we could see it and shout our "Happy New Year" and then go to bed. Needless to say, we got to camp, found out it was already 10 after 12....so we just went to bed.

2) What was your status by Valentine' Day.

married

3) Were you in school (anytime this year)?

no

4) How did you earn your money?

watching kids, cleaning, plowing, mowing, etc

5) Did you have to go to the hospital?

Yes and Sort of. Ashtyn needed to see the Doc for an "issue" with bubble bath soap and her pedi was on vacation, so I took her to Urgent Care (its really slow as death care in my book) and Shriners Hospital is a "hospital" and we went there 6 times I think. Oh yeah....I got to go to the ER because I'm a moron and put my hand through the door. Yippee that was fun. I ended up gashing my other hand a few weeks ago too (because I'm great like that...who cuts their hand open on a can of peas????....I do) I needed stitches for that one too but I said to hell with it....bandaids and medical tape.

6) Did you have any encounters with the police?

Yes. Only one time this year. Again, those stupid jerks from BF tried to break in to my neighbors house. I caught them in the act and called my ever so useless PD...big shocker, they didn't find them. I love paying taxes for stupidity.

7) Where did you go on vacation?

Orleans, Vermont.....to our camp

8) What did you purchase that was over $1000?

Kubota L3400, backhoe and brush hog

9) Did you know anybody who got married?

Justin and Crystal, Jason and Crystal, Leslie and Rob

10) Did you have any new additions to your family?

Nope

11) Did you know anybody who passed away?

Emily Brown and ( I didn't know him, but he was Jeremy's uncle) Travis Honeycutt

12) Did you move anywhere?

not yet

13) What concerts/shows did you go to?

Ashtyn's Preschool's Christmahanakwanzika Concert

14) Are you registered to vote?

yes.

15) Who did you want to win Big Brother?

I don't watch it

16) Where do you live now?

New Hampshire....still

17) Describe your birthday?

My birthday was "forgotten" by my awesome hubby. All his friends remembered though. That was a bad day :(

18) What's one thing you thought you'd never do but did in 2009?

3 things: Host a fundraiser. Enroll Ashtyn in preschool. Put my house up for sale.

19) What has been your favorite moment?

When Ryan's court stuff was over and heard he wasn't going to jail. When I heard Shriners Hospital wasn't closing Springfield.

20) What's something you learned about yourself?

I'm still a very negative person.......and I can inspire people to help do great things.

21) What was your best month?

I think they were all kind of equal. Everyone had their ups and downs.

22) What music will you remember 2009 by?

none

23) Who has been your best drinking buddy?

Ashtyn and Taylor.....we get to be sober together...yippee

24) Made new friends?

Jen, Jen and Lisa

25) New or old best friend?

I still have no idea what I am supposed to say to that...

26) Favorite Night out?

Ummmmm When I have one, I'll let you know.

Ashtyn's Preschool's Winter Concert

2009-12-23T08:19:00.011-05:00

I apologize for the random shakiness and occasional blurriness.....It was almost as much a challenge for me to video the performance as it was for the little ones to get on stage in front of 500 people to sing.

Ashtyn was not very impressed by being on the very end of the stage. Jeremy and I thought for sure she was going to fall off at any given moment....she even tried to weasel in a few places away from the end.....but her classmate wasn't allowing any of that.

Here's my Christmas Card.....

2009-12-17T12:35:00.002-05:00

.....this is it. I'm not mailing any :(
I'm officially out of time.....big shocker there, right?!

Guess who

2009-12-16T13:16:00.011-05:00

After looking at some pics the other day and having a total ball when people guessed wrong....I'm sharing some pics with others......Can you figure out who is who?

Me

Jeremy

Julie (ha ha that was a trick photo)

Taylor

Ashtyn

Ashtyn

Santa Claus is comin' to town

2009-12-12T14:42:00.006-05:00

Today was Get-ready-for-Christmas day at our house. Ashtyn went to the salon this morning with Grammy and Grampa to get her hair and nails done....something Mommy would never ever do......and then Jeremy and I took the girls to get our Christmas tree at Bishop's Farm in Springfield, VT, which is where we've been going since Ashtyn's first Christmas. After that we went to visit with the Claus's. Ashtyn obviously loved the visit but Taylor had other thoughts about it. Santa and the Mrs. thought maybe it was a little too chaotic at their visiting venue, so they made a special surprise visit to our house after their other visit was over......Taylor still wasn't happy.....

...but we did finally get her to come out to the kitchen for a minute...

and Miss Ashtyn got to tell Santa 8,000 more things she wanted for Christmas and even show off dancing for him and Mrs Claus.....

....but she still doesn't want her picture taken.

And now its time for music and tree trimming.

ReBuilt is back!

2009-12-06T19:19:00.003-05:00

A few months ago I found this awesome show on FitTV about people with prosthetics, the people who made their prosthetics. It was really neat to see how they were made and the many different kinds available and what the different ones do or activities they make easier etc. Its called 'ReBuilt:The Human Bodyshop'. Two weeks after my discovery, the show just disappeared with no explanation. It is now back on and I did some checking online about its disappearance and found out it was a short lived series. The first episode aired January 18, 2006 and the 12th (and last) episode aired April 5, 2006. That said, FitTV is showing the series again...here are the dates and times I have found: Dec 7 at 2pm and 3pm, Dec 11 at 9pm, 10pm, Dec 12 at midnight and 1am, Dec 14 at 2pm and 3pm and Dec 18 at 9pm and 10pm. FitTV's site would only give the listings up to the 20th so I don't know any other dates and times yet but if you have the channel, I'd recommend cheking it out.....the few episodes I've managed to catch were really awesome.

Link to FitTV schedule

Smarty baby

2009-12-03T11:38:00.003-05:00

I finally caught it on video...... she's so funny, she "kisses" her smilie to lube it up like I do when her nubbie isn't cooperating.... a little spit solves almost every problem :) I don't really know what the deal is with her nubbie randomly swelling....Monday I couldn't get her prosthetic on without removing the spacer sleeve and putting a nylon on her arm, then on Tuesday I had to put the spacer sleeve back in it and use the suspension sleeve to keep her prosthetic from falling off...... little weirdo.

My house is officially up for sale.....

2009-11-16T21:26:00.004-05:00

I'm not quite sure from one minute to the next how to feel about it. The Century 21 sign went up last Thursday and I was not happy to say the least. I didn't cry, like I did when the realtor left after the paperwork the previous Friday. But it made me sad and mad and depressed. Then on Saturday, Jeremy, the kids and I were up in Orleans hanging out and we went to see a house... I fell in love with it and wanted nothing more than to run back here, pack my things and be done with New Hampshire. Then today I got a call from my realtor who informed me she is showing my house TOMORROW!!!!! and I want to cry again. I'm excited to get the ball rolling on this house we looked at, but I really love this house. And I don't want anyone to let it get run back into the ground again. I, along with Jeremy and the rest of our family, have killed ourselves trying to get this house back to what it used to be....and no, I'm no where near done.... it's 100 years old, which is code for "it'll never be done"...... this house is old, big and awesome. But being able to walk outside your house during the day and pee in your yard with no one seeing you.........that's the kind of place I want to live. Not because I have a secret love of peeing outside... I just want to be that secluded. I just wish I could move the house up North with us.

Taxing Prosthetics?

2009-11-10T09:57:00.004-05:00

***I am seriously hoping this is untrue. If anyone finds info to debunk this, please send it my way***

Click here for~~~Original Post

By Dick Morris And Eileen McGann 11.7.2009 Published on TheHill.com November 6, 2009

As the suicidal Democratic congressmen proceed to rubber-stamp the Obama healthcare reform despite the drubbing their party took in the ‘09 elections, the president trotted out the endorsements of the AMA and the AARP to stimulate support. But these — and the other endorsements — his package has received are all bought and paid for.

Here are the deals:

* The American Medical Association (AMA) was facing a 21 percent cut in physicians’ reimbursements under the current law. Obama promised to kill the cut if they backed his bill. The cuts are the fruit of a law requiring annual 5-6 percent reductions in doctor reimbursements for treating Medicare patients. Bravely, each year Congress has rolled the cuts over, suspending them but not repealing them. So each year, the accumulated cuts threaten doctors. By now, they have risen to 21 percent. With this blackmail leverage, Obama compelled the AMA to support his bill…or else!

* The AARP got a financial windfall in return for its support of the healthcare bill. Over the past decade, the AARP has morphed from an advocacy group to an insurance company (through its subsidiary company). It is one of the main suppliers of Medi-gap insurance, a high-cost, privately purchased coverage that picks up where Medicare leaves off. But President Bush-43 passed the Medicare Advantage program, which offered a subsidized, lower-cost alternative to Medi-gap. Under Medicare Advantage, the elderly get all the extra coverage they need plus coordinated, well-managed care, usually by the same physician. So more than 10 million seniors went with Medicare Advantage, cutting into AARP Medi-gap revenues.

Presto! Obama solved their problem. He eliminates subsidies for Medicare Advantage. The elderly will have to pay more for coverage under Medigap, but the AARP — which supposedly represents them — will make more money. (If this galls you, join the American Seniors Association, the alternative group; contact sbarton@americanseniors.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .)

* The drug industry backed ObamaCare and, in return, got a 10-year limit of $80 billion on cuts in prescription drug costs. (A drop in the bucket of their almost $3 trillion projected cost over the next decade.) They also got administration assurances that it will continue to bar lower-cost Canadian drugs from coming into the U.S. All it had to do was put its formidable advertising budget at the disposal of the administration.

* Insurance companies got access to 40 million potential new customers. But when the Senate Finance Committee lowered the fine that would be imposed on those who don’t buy insurance from $3,500 to $1,500, the insurance companies jumped ship and now oppose the bill, albeit for the worst of motives.

The only industry that refused to knuckle under was the medical device makers. They stood for principle and wouldn’t go along with Obama’s blackmail. So the Senate Finance Committee retaliated by imposing a tax on medical devices such as automated wheelchairs, pacemakers, arterial stents, prosthetic limbs, artificial knees and hips and other necessary accoutrements of healthcare.

So these endorsements are not freely given, but bought and paid for by an administration that is intent on passing its program at any cost.

SHC in the process of accepting insurance

2009-11-09T14:27:00.000-05:00

From: The Melha News

(Click pic to read it)

Quick bit

2009-11-08T18:27:00.006-05:00

This is just a really cute picture.... I never manage to get any photos of Jeremy on here...so here's a cute one...can't tell Taylor's his daughter

Today I went to Shriners Hospital for their Thank You brunch for people who helped during their "dark days of summer". It was really nice that they did that for everyone. Normally it seems when you help someone they turn around and ask for more when your done.... not SHC. They do everything in their power to let you know just how much anything and everything you do to help is very much appreciated. I had to hold back the tears (yes I'm a sally)during some of the speaches.... I just can't imagine what we'd do without SHC. They've done so much for Taylor and for our family I can never thank them enough.

This was my mission of sorts for the last few months. I was so shocked and happy we collected almost 10 gallons of tabs from June 1-August 1, I was doing everything I could to fill up this tote with tabs by the end of 2009....well we did it....in 3 months! There was about 21-22 gallons of tabs in the bucket and bags....can't really tell by my awful picture but...I know they're there.....and whoever has to pick them up out of the mail room tomorrow will know it too :) ~~Sorry LOSNA, next time I'll make sure they're in a box or something. ....And THANK YOU to everyone who helped with "Tabs for Taylor" and for filling this enormous tote!!!!! Thank you thank you thank you!

Update on Eric Warner Case

2009-11-07T22:17:00.006-05:00

I'm still really confused how to feel about this situation......... but here's what was in the paper

Eagle Times write up: (Click on the pics to enlarge them)

Finally some good news

2009-11-05T07:54:00.002-05:00

Fosters.com

No jail time in Alton road death: Judge relents to wishes of victim's family

By Gail Ober
gober@citizen.com
Thursday, November 5, 2009

LACONIA — The Alton man who killed one of his passengers in a drunken driving crash in September 2008 will not serve any time behind bars, despite his guilty plea, a Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday afternoon.

Ryan Sell, 27, of 33 School St., wept as he apologized to the family of Robert H. Richey of Florida who died when the sport utility vehicle he was driving missed a poorly marked corner and ran into a culvert on Avery Hill Road.

"To sentence Ryan to jail will cause more grief and tragedy," said Megan Quinn who spoke for the entire Richey family, many of whom were in court for the sentencing hearing in Belknap County Superior Court.

"We, the family deserve, to have something positive come from this. We need something positive," she said as she pleaded with Judge Kathleen McGuire to allow Sell to continue with community service, but not to put him in jail. "We can't bear to see another life lost to the shuffle of the system."

Belknap County Attorney James Carroll had asked for Sell to serve 12 months for the vehicular homicide and had agreed to suspend a two- to four-year prison sentence for aggravated driving while intoxicated.

Sell's attorney, Mark Sisti, told McGuire Sell takes complete responsibility for what he had done and has "from the day it happened."

"I don't think taking a chance on Ryan Sell is taking a chance," continued Sisti, who said Sell does not have a drinking problem and has never used drugs or gotten even a traffic ticket.

After silently reviewing her notes for a few minutes, McGuire told those in the courtroom she could not remember a time in her 20 years on the bench when she did not impose prison on someone convicted of negligent homicide — until this time — a statement that brought tears and hugs from both Sell's friends and family as well as Richey's.

McGuire said she was "most persuaded" by Sell's intent that night, which was clearly not to drive.

According to testimony, Sell had gotten a ride to one area club with his mother-in-law and had walked to a neighboring club to meet his wife. His intent was to walk home.

Instead, Sell's uncle, Brian Eagles of Alton, asked Sell to drive him and three of his friends home, one of whom was Richey.

"His judgment was impaired but when he drank, he did not intend to drive," said McGuire who also agreed to let both sides stipulate that Sell did not drink between the time he left the club and the accident.

McGuire said she also considered the rainy, foggy evening, testimony stating the sign at the intersection was misleading and that Sell was familiar with neither the road nor the car.

"The wishes of both families is also critical," she continued. "And, by all accounts, he has been a positive hard-working member of the community."

McGuire sentenced Sell to 12 months in jail, but suspended that portion of the sentence on condition of good behavior. She also sentenced him to two to four years on the aggravated drunken driving, all suspended. He will be on probation for two years and will have to undergo an alcohol evaluation at his own expense. Sell must further perform 200 hours of community service.

The Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Sell's license for four years. However, he can reapply for it in two years.

When asked if he was satisfied with the sentencing, Carroll said the judge imparts the sentence and he respects the sentence.

"There was no way I wasn't going to ask (for jail time) because I think deterrence is important," Carroll said. "It's my job, and I will continue to do it."