Ok, so we just saw the weather reports for the area and north of us is about -10 right now and supposed to get to around -15 with the wind chill getting much colder than that.  We are at 1 with a low of -9 anticipated before morning.  The balance of the week looks like it will be in the teens and 20's.  Hopefully next week will be better, it should be.

Greg put Mercy on my lap tonight and she had a fit when he started to walk away so he picked her up and now the two of them are asleep in the "blue" chair.  What a spoiled rotten cat!

Think I'll wake them up and we'll go to bed, maybe Mercy can just sleep on his chest in bed (but I doubt it) and be happy for the night.

I decided to run over to New London to the sale this morning even though it is really cold!  I wanted to see the new building and thought there might be some terrific things there and that people probably would stay away since it was so cold.

Well, I saw the new building (and it's nice) but the weather certainly didn't keep the people away.  I'm not sure I have ever seen that many people at a Menke Hoyer sale before.  Although the building is bigger and allows for all the trailers and furniture to be inside there was hardly room to walk and certainly seeing things was difficult, you couldn't get close enough to the trailers to see what there was for sale and I don't like to buy things that I haven't looked over first. 

I'll give you an example of how things were going, a plate that would normally bring $20 sold for $160!  Unmarked plates that normally would sell for $1 or so were selling for $20 or more.  Not my kind of sale!

I bought one dresser dish and some tupperware and then said the heck with it and left.  Tom, Michelle and Alan were there but there were so many people that I didn't get a chance to visit with any of them, couldn't get to them and if I had we would not have heard each other, two rings going in the building so it was really noisy.

I now have a marble cake in the oven, helps to warm up the house and it also sounded good.  Haven't had cake since my wonderful birthday cake so figured it was ok.

It was fun to see both Heidi and Bobbi work on their blogs.  Heidi is now a payperposter and it won't be long before Bobbi should qualify, just has to age her blog and make sure she ads content almost everyday.

Now I will check how tupperware is selling on eBay and then either list or get back to work on the Beautifuls.

The guy at the post office just told me that Menke Hoyer has added onto their auction barn making it 3 times the size it was.  That will be sweet, every auction will then be able to be held inside which will be nice anytime of year!

They have a good sized auction tomorrow that I may well go to.  It will depend on whether I get my work done today, if so, it will be off to the auction, if not, then I won't.  I really need to finish up www.illinoisbeautiful.com.  I'm really close so it shouldn't take too long. 

Tonight we may go to the movie Charlie Wilson's War.  It sounds like it could be pretty good.  The other one that is up there is 27 Dresses which sounds cute too but I can't imagine Greg being too thrilled with going to that one.

It is snowing a little outside.  It has been most of the day, but it's the itty bitty flakes so accumulation isn't much. 

Mercy is being a butt.  She doesn't want anything to do with me….nothing!  I think she blames me for taking her dad away every week.  She sits on his lap, loves him up but won't even come to me.  I brushed her, much to annoyance, a little while ago but as soon as she could run she did.  Brat.

Monday we are going to go look at a townhouse in Urbandale.  We saw the outside the other day and so on Monday we are going to meet the owner and look at the inside.  We'll see.

If you are looking for a good price on things for your loved one for Valentine Day check out coupon codes.  One suggestion is to use the site to find travelocity deals http://www.couponchief.com/travelocity and book a fabulous get a way for the two of you.  Another suggestion is to buy them something they have been wanting but haven't spent the money on it themselves.  How about Illuminations coupons http://www.couponchief.com/illuminations  which will give you a free candle when you buy two.  That way you have something for yourself too…if you want to go that way.

I check the site often for things that I want to buy, it saves me money and has a great number of options to choose from.  Enjoy buying for Valentine Day using coupon codes.

 

The temperatures in Iowa are not expected to get above 14 degrees tomorrow.  Now I want you to think about that, it's not so bad where you are, is it?  The weather in Minneapolis is sub zero, some Siberian Express coming through, uck.  It makes other locations look really good.

The roads on the way home last night were good.  No ice or snow pack for a change.  We actually took the back way (Ottumwa) home since it is a shorter, faster route.  We avoid that route when the weather is awful since we aren't sure they get cleared off as much as I-80.  It could be that it is the amount of traffic that helps to cut through the stuff, but it also means lots of wrecks.  Yesterday the infamous area between Newton and Altoona had an accident with a semi and another vehicle of some sort (not sure, didn't hear) that had the highway closed again. 

Fortunately the roads have been good when we have gone into town on Monday mornings, just nasty when we head home on Thursday night.  Great LOL

 

I have an Acer laptop and need to think about getting a new battery for it.  I want one that won't break the bank like most of them do.  That brought me to the site digital camera batteries.  Although they have all kinds of batteries that you can review and then choose to purchase, I was specifically looking for one for my laptop.  It seems to me that they are being fair in their pricing.

I'm not sure that everyone needs a new battery, but I bet most people are looking for one for  their camera, laptop, printer or game.  Most of the things that we take with us on a trip require a battery.  Nothing is more frustrating than having your equipment go down due to lack of battery power when there isn't a plug in anyplace near!

Since I have been super busy at work and then suffering from a case of the sneezing cold I haven't updated for a few days.

It snowed yesterday and last night, but fortunately it has stopped, the sun has come out and so the trip home tonight shouldn't be quite the experience that we have had on a few weekends!  Maybe we will actually get home in good time rather than a 4 to 6 hour trip!

We got the family pictures from Cyndi today.  How wonderful to see our family look so beautiful!  The Glamour Shot of Kara and Shay are exceptional, so beautiful.  Bobbi and Greg did well! LOL, course, some of it is the gene pool, but, only our side and the Hancock side, hehe.

I had to chuckle when I looked at the picture of the family, there is Molly holding onto my finger and Jake's hand.  It must mean that she wants to be connected!  And bless Jake's heart, he very tolerantly let her hold his hand on a number of the pictures.  For two that can fight like cats and dogs they are so very close.  Kind of like Shay and Kara are close, what a beautiful thing!

We went and looked at the outside of a townhouse yesterday and then I called Alyce to see if she could show it. to us.  We met her when we went to dinner at The Trattoria the other night.  She's the owner and she owns the townhouse.  She said it was vacant and she wanted it rented.  She and her husband plan to move into it when they retire.  It's in a nice area, not too far from the office but in the west part of Urbandale.  We'll see.  I think it is a lot of steps and I'm not crazy about having to up and down all the time to do anything, but it's worth looking at.

I'm sending some pictures off to Bob and Ethel and one to Joe and Lori.  They will enjoy having them, I'm sure.

Hopefully something will pop on payperpost today, so far it's been pretty slim pickings, of course I'm busy enough that I don't check it as often as I probably should.

 

The weather is saying that we are going into single diget numbers again, Whee!  It is really nasty to get so cold, I can't wait until spring.  Or, until we can move to someplace that is warmer…

I worked on building www.illinoisbeautiful.com again tonight.  I should be able to wipe that out this week and get on to another state, probably Minnesota, but I'm not sure.  It will depend on my mood at the time   I have to finish out www.Missouribeautiful.com  too, not much left there but some.  It seems to be never ending, but I want to get them done so the guys can sell multiple states advertising too.

I took a picture of the guys the other day so that you could see who is calling.  They are really nice people and work hard.  The Terry that is sitting is new, the Terry that is standing has been with us since September, bless his heart!

Now it's time to pack for the week.  That gets old but it's the way it is for now. 

 

OK, so the kids all had their Christmas stuff down long before now, but we now have ours down, well, almost all of it, still have some lights in the family room but that's a five minute job.

I spent the day adding things to www.illinoisbeautiful.com and finally said I need a break, some exercise and to get the laundry done and the Christmas stuff down.  Greg is now taking the lights off and will be dismantling the tree, big job, big tree.

Mercy decided that she wanted to be brushed a little while ago so I was OK.  She came in, let me know what she wanted (or at least I surmised it was what she wanted) and spent quite a while brushing her.  Then she was done and away she went.  What a nut.

There hasn't been much available for me to blog about on payperpost the last few days, I guess there have beens ome things but I have missed them, darn. 

Just to let everyone know, I hate tax time.  I mean, I truly hate it!

I know there are people that thrive on doing taxes, they wait all year for it to be tax time, they crunch the numbers, make the numbers fit in all the little boxes and they send them in, happy as larks.  Good for them.  I am NOT one of them!

Going through all the old papers, wishing I had kept better records, wishing I had put the numbers in little boxes earlier is not how I like to spend my time.  Not now, Not ever!

Ok, feel better now.