My posts are a bit more spaced out, but I'm still writing on a fairly regular basis. I left off around Bryn's birthday, March 9. 

The day before that, Paige had a day off school and she and Bryn spent it shopping together. Bryn added to her shoe collection and Paige found her prom dress. While I was disappointed not to have that mother/daughter "say yes to the dress" shopping moment, I'm glad she got it and had the approval of someone her age. I still get to go and accessorize (shoes/jewelry) with her.

And the very next day, she was asked to Prom! AJ drew the letters P-R-O-M and had them on her desk with a flower 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th hours. 8th hour, AJ and Paige have study hall together, so he met her with the final drawing, a question mark, —and more flowers— and asked her to go with him to Prom. How lucky she is!

As Bryn's spring break ended, she asked to spend her birthday weekend in the Dells with a few other college friends. They had great weather and were able to go cart outside as well as enjoy the waterpark inside.

Abby was home for break the following week after taking the first weekend to jaunt in Minneapolis to visit a roommate who's doing an internship there. Abby spent much of her break working on her senior communications project, which involves interviewing foster families and transcribing their words. I'm interested to read it when she finishes. Abby made sure she got some Bella and Lucy time in while she was in town.

I ordered my new computer since my freelance business has taken off. It's a 27" and boy is it nice! Jeff helped me rearrange the furniture in the dining room, now my office, last weekend. I have 3 more weeks at Readers Digest working 25 hrs/week, then I plan to just freelance for a while and see how that goes.

Paige had 3 pieces of her artwork chosen to be on display at the Library during Youth art month: a sculpture from her 1st semester Ceramics class and 2 pieces from her Drawing class. Not sure why, but she wouldn't pose with her art for me.

Jeff went to Virginia again last week for work and is teaching a few more hours at MSOE now that it's the spring (final) trimester and the students' projects require more of his time. While Abby was home over break, Jeff remarked that his firm was hiring and why didn't a friend of hers apply? He did, and just accepted Ring & DuChateau's offer! So Mark (Abby's old boyfriend) will be working with Jeff! Weird.

Since I started at Readers Digest, my freelance work has decided to explode! I think I underestimated my standing client's workload and new jobs have all of a sudden popped up too! Good, I guess, but I'm a little frenzied. With all the work, I finally felt justified to order my new computer that should arrive this week. Excited to get a new toy!

Bryn is home on her spring break this week. I couldn't believe I found her doing homework last night! Proof that she has a tough class schedule this semester. Bryn qualified to participate in the Indoor Conference Meet on Feb 24-25 down at Illinois College. Her Distance Medley team won a gold medal for placing first! Bryn ran the 800 leg. (There's a video on her Facebook page if you want to see it.)

My college roommate, Polly, and I partook in Carroll's Wine & Beer Tasting. It was a nice event and always good to chat with Polly. But we decided that if we go again next year, we're bringing a party! We didn't know—or recognize—other alumni, which was disappointing.

Paige completed all her service hours for confirmation with an overnight at St. Ben's in downtown Milwaukee. St. Ben's offers meals to those who can't afford one. About 30 kids from her confirmation class went. The kids ate with those who came in for a meal. The next day they visited other organizations that help those less fortunate in other ways: job hunting, shelters, etc.

Between business trips, Jeff and Paige looked hard and fast to replace the Prizm we decided to have towed away. Paige was without a car for a week and half—you'd thought it was 3 months! They settled on a 2002 Ford Explorer SportTrac they found in Sussex. It's in very good shape, but has a lot of miles. Paige loves it.

Jeff's had to go out to Colorado and Iowa in the last couple weeks. Makes it difficult to get other work done when you're gone like that. Plus his teaching at MSOE will require more hours/week now that his project course is in full gear because now it's spring trimester!

We've been a popular place to visit the last couple weekends with Maggie coming for lunch one weekend and my parents visiting the next. Maggie treated us to a great lunch at Brisco County. And while my parents were here, Clark helped Jeff install lighting in the work room and laundry room in the basement, Mom and I went to see The Artist, had Kristin & family over for pizza, and of course (the reason they really came), we weathered the blizzard to attend the monthly fish fry at St. Anthony's.

As I try to place pictures in my blog, I realize that I never replaced my broken camera and therefore have no pictures. Need to work on that.