Gorgeous weather... when will the bottom drop?

I really never thought of myself as a pessimist, but seriously, how can we be on such a lovely weather streak? It's Central New York after all. We NEVER get consistent weather. But none the less, it's been consistently beautiful and DRY! I'm loving it, except for the allergy thing, but I have to wonder, are we in for it? Is this just a kind of sick joke by mother nature? Will she dangle this lovely wonderful weather we've had and slam us with another 12 feet-of-snow-in-a- week-kind-of-weather? When will the bottom drop out? I guess I should just enjoy it right now and not worry about it, but I am coming to HATE CNY winters! Really, 33 years is enough to jade anyone with winter blizzards, cold, slush, and short summers. It's depressing to say the least. So, why have I not moved down south? Why stick it out and complain all winter????

Well, here are a list of pros and cons for CNY:
Cons:
1) inconsistent weather (long, cold, snowy winters & short, warm summers)
2) humidity (BLAH) except for this year!
3) horrible roads (due to snow and road salt)
4) Rude and miserable people in the winter & spring
5) High taxes resulting in high prices overall
6)because of the high taxes, businesses are leaving and cultural opportunities are not diverse or plentiful.

Okay.... PROS:
1) Autumn is spectacular!
2) Housing is reasonable.... low cost to build.
3) Summers are usually mild
4) Salt Potatoes ... our specialty (love those summer babies!) Produce is cheap and yummy in the summer
5) NO hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, forest fires, monsoons, sand storms, or tsunami es Just ALOT of snow... snow melts... Oh yeah... no scorpions, tarantulas or other weird deadly bugs.. that I know of. Just a lot of mosquitoes and flies... nothing major.
6) What doesn't kill us makes us stronger (because we are used to the terrible weather, we don't shut down with an inch of snow! Life goes on!)
7) Wineries and fine dining abound! We have it all!

Okay, so there are probably more Pros or Cons, but those are the ones I can think of. It's definitely not too bad, but I still hate CNY winters!!!! So, I'm getting my coats dry cleaned and my boots waterproofed and preparing for the worst... We'll see...

Here's some beautiful CNY pics to share:

IS anybody out there???

Seriously, I don't update my blog daily because I thought NOONE was listening... well, some of my girls at We B' were telling me that they do in fact read my blog... WOW! I am pretty happy about having a small audience! Thanks ladies. You make me feel loved.... LOL!

Okay, today's blog is about my first week or so back to school...
It's been fast and furious. The kids are nice so far except really immature. They are either really small OR really tall. Weird combo! I like most of my classes though. I've already made some of them mad as that I had to move a few seats around in order to make the room less chatty while I'm chatting! Oh well... life isn't always fair. I warned them and they either didn't believe me or didn't care UNTIL it came down to me following through with the consequence I threatened. So, I've decided that it's much like having your own children. It's always a work in progress. By the 10 week report, I will have them BELIEVING that I mean business. Anyways, I have a few kids that are particularly excited about the visual journal project and have ALREADY starting creating on their pages!!! WOW! So cool or kewl, as the case may be. Okay, they are rough diamonds right now, but I'll have them sparkling in no time! We did our first "playtime" activity yesterday... Inking backgrounds. I'd read somewhere that mucking up your white pages will make the experience less intimidating! So I decided to show them how to use block printing ink and a brayer to roll a colored background. Fabulous results... I went to a crop last night and then home and decided to try it on my own pages. I've used paints before, but not a brayer... I'm excited to say that it is freeing them to make a mess and creativity is at a high! The kids, and myself, were have a fabulous time playing... We had 2 firedrills, but just so happened to occur AFTER cleanup! YES! Thank you Lord... that would have been interesting to walk out with ink all over our hands and try not to touch anything! Okay, here's my playtime results....

One last thought... PLEASE leave me a comment so I know you are out there! LOL! No seriously, leave me something!

A Fantastic NEW site/ kit club

I am trying out for a Design team on this fantastic new blog site and kit club. The product is so great and the site has a great feel to it. Angel is the blogger and owner of the site. She is so supportive and fun! It's a small site and the gallery is growing! Stop by and check it out... The blog is called "Stop, Drop & Crop". Look in my "Links I Dig" below for the link to the site! It's a great site for ideas and how to advice in scrapbooking. I'm loving the new challenges and prizes too. It's very motivating. Need a kick to your mojo? Check it out!