miscellaneous

september 2002

the biggest news of this year is that I have cut my hair. yes, as you can see it has been cut *very* short ala 'jamie lee curtis' (one of my female idols) and the bigger news is: I love it! I donated the entire 13" ponytail to locks of love, which then make the hair into wigs for the children stricken with cancer who have lost their own hair to chemotherapy. I got a very nice card from them about two weeks after I sent it to them; it felt very weird putting my much-loved hair (no longer attached to my head; I think that was the weird part) into a plastic baggy and sending it in the mail. I am certain that some child has a lovely mouse-brown wig that she loves today because of it :-)

my husband and I have been doing a lot of work in the yard this year. the pond is still in progress although the garden as a whole turned out very nicely. we decided to go with all native prairie plants and spent the better portion of the spring and summer tending to them. of course, this being our first time, we did a lot of things wrong that we hope to put right next year - like not putting full sun plants in corners that are shady all day! michael has been diligently digging away at our japanese knotweed infestation and thinks after this weekend that he will have it all licked. can't finish the pond until that's done because the excavation from the pond is going where the knotweed-infested soil is being removed! it's been long process that will be worthwhile once the new walkway goes in, hopefully before winter.

after a full year of riding lessons, elaine has been in two horse shows, even doing a jumping class in the last one and placing very well. grace has finally started lessons as well and so far seems to be enjoying them. grace won the costume class on dax at the gymkhana across the street from my barn last weekend and elaine got a first in the walk-trot class on him! it was both of their first times on dax since his new 'retraining' schedule this summer. that is also going very well, thanks to barry fript at infinity farm (do you hear a plug?? hope so, his help has been invaluable). watch dax's web site for coverage of his first and only event of this year - the wayne-dupage horse trials on september 28, 2002.

almost every single part of the web site has been updated recently due to work at midas gradually running out. even egon's web site and my circumcision site have been completely updated. guess you can tell, I've been pretty bored at work. midas has finally removed the system that I have been supporting for the last 18 months (and putting in 60+ hour work-weeks, to boot) from their 72 pwi stores, replacing it with a system based on an AS/400 back end. the mis powers-that-be have pretty much decided to discontinue support for sql server, which doesn't leave much for a sql server dba to do at midas! so, I am looking for another job. if you have any leads, email me!

thanks for visiting and if you have time, please sign our guestbook. laura

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{ fresh } @home - a field trip to the chicago botanic gardens sept 2002

{ new } the sisters - grace and elaine photos summer 2002

{ new } vermont family vacation - our summer 2002 trip to visit family in vermont, with diary entries written by elaine & grace

this is a Yahoo! cool site

tips for using this site any decoration in the top left corner of a page always leads to home page. any page header at the middle top of a page always leads to the main page for the area you are in. links "back" to the logical previous page in the hierarchical structure are located at the bottom left of a page. a home button is located at the bottom right of many pages of the site. this button always leads to the site entrance. my email address is linked to the email button at the bottom left of a page.

• home page

  links to the main header areas outlined below. the home page also includes a search function (near the bottom of the page) and a link to our guestbook.

  
  

• @home

  stories and pictures about goings-on at our household. designed for random surfing as much as for our random thought patterns.

  
  

• kids

  sites just for the little tots of the family. sisters elaine & grace and cousins baby kane and baby jasmine.

  
  

• pets

  sites, stories and pictures revolving around the pets of the family. strangely enough the family seems to also revolve around the pets...

  
  

• away

  like the slide shows of vacations past that your parents made you watch. just as fun as you remember, but on the Internet instead.

  
  

• nups

  laura: "michael! think of a four-letter word for 'the wedding' for the the web site"...and this is how 'the nups' came to be.

  
  

• misc

  this document, including needed help info and a semi-annually updated welcome. please let us know if you enjoyed the site!.