My father, who makes a living building – among other more utilitarian things – beautifully crafted decks and garden structures, has been recruited (by yours truly) to build my Xmas present. My hen house! I’m not sure what thrills me more – finally being able to purchase my chicken babies or having something that my father designed and hammered and sweated over. I’m kinda hoping he puts a big red bow on it! Here is the first pic that he sent me.

It will be able to slide out for cleaning and each divider lifts out! I squealed when I saw this!

Today is Thanksgiving, and I have a lot to be thankful for. Very rarely do I count my blessings although I should. And I’m sure I’m not the only one guilty of that.  But it’s hard not to stop and recollect on a day like this.

It’s hard to believe it’s only a month and a half left before we start classes and “officially” start down the path to actually doing this.  I’m thankful for the opportunity alone to make a difference in someone’s life, especially a child’s.  I’m thankful for John and the house we have,  the love we share, and the fact that he has so much love to give. I never would have done this without him.I’m thankful he wants to walk down this path with me.

I’m thankful that we have great jobs and can keep our bills paid, our house warm, and keep food on the table unlike so many others out there who have been hit harder in these rough times.  I’m thankful for long weekends like this where we can relax and enjoy what we have. I’m thankful to have a life so filled with love and things to be thankful for.

And I’m thankful for the love and support of our friends and families that have molded and shaped us into who we are today.  We would certainly be lost without them.

Many believe there are no such things as coincidences.  Maybe it’s just fate that John and I have started this journey right now before the holidays.  It’s special. It’s definitely a time to remember and to be thankful for, but I can’t begin to imagine what next year will be like when Thanksgiving and Christmas roll around again and we can experience those times again through a child’s eyes.  We will have the opportunity to build memories for someone else and to give them things to be thankful for.  There will be new traditions.  New memories.  New photos to look back on.

I’m thankful for that.

Dear Little One:

We have yet to even meet, and I don’t know your name.  You don’t know mine. I don’t know what you look like.  I don’t know if you like gravy on your turkey, or if you like pumpkin pie.  I pray that wherever you are right now, right at this moment, that you are not hungry and that you are not sad.  I pray you have blessings to count.  If you don’t, just know that will change.  And know that right now at this moment, I was thinking about you.  And I am thankful for the opportunity to make a difference in your life one day soon, and to have you make a difference in mine.

Thank you,

Shannon

Some pics from Parteen Villa Weir, O’Briensbridge, Montpelier, Castleconnell, Annacotty and Plassey here.

Statement from ESB regarding River Shannon as at 9:20am, Thursday 26th November 2009

Water levels rose again last night in Lough Derg and are at a record high. As a result, discharge levels must be increased today at Parteen Weir. ESB will be increasing the discharge incrementally over the morning by up to 8% on the existing flow. The development is expected to cause increased flood levels downstream of Parteen Weir by an estimated three inches over the current level. A slight fall in water levels was detected downstream this morning in a number of locations. [...]

This Thanksgiving I was invited to my cousin’s house for Thanksgiving in Elizabethtown, KY. I grew up in Louisville and I still have a majority of family here on my dad’s side. I am so grateful to have this opportunity to see my family and be able to visit with them since I hardly ever get to see them. I only get to come down to Kentucky once or twice a year and now that I’m an adult, that has even decreased because of funds, time, and other factors such as travel. This time, my boyfriend, Josh, and I decided to drive instead of flying, mainly because it was much cheaper and we hadn’t enough notice to buy plane tickets at a reasonable rate.

The trip down wasn’t terrible, it was just long and arduous. We packed up the car with our luggage, only really a small amount because we’re only staying here from Tuesday to Saturday. We also packed a few snacks, pretzels, Pringles, a few tubes of Go-Gurt, and of course, a giant bag of Sour Patch Kids for me. And a cooler filled with Mountain Dew Voltage, unsweetened tea, V8 Fusion and of course, Dr. Pepper. I am not much of a morning person at all, but I was so excited to get down here, I almost couldn’t sleep. We left about 7:40 AM CST and the travel wasn’t all that bad. We drove in three hour shifts to keep ourselves awake, focused, and to keep us from being too cranky. That was kind of lost when we hit Indiana because we just wanted it to be over. Traveling in the rain is just terrible. Especially when there are semis everywhere blocking the roads and spewing gratuitous amounts of water at your windshield. I have deemed this situation as a ‘Cluster-Truck’.

“Cluster-Truck” (n.) a situation during travel when every lane is blocked by at least one semi trailer causing traffic to go much slower than normal.

We had lunch at a Wendy’s in Beloit, IL which was pretty ghetto. I really hate when public restrooms don’t have coat hangers on the inside of the stall. It still had the soda fountains behind the counter so you couldn’t just go and get your drinks, you had to wait for the slow service to get a beverage. We had to wait for my wings because they weren’t ready when we were ordering and the cashier took it to some guy that had a hat and a ponytail first until she gave them to me. I was also wearing a hat and had a ponytail. I thought it was kind of funny but it also reminded me of my distaste for men with really long hair. My rule is that whoever I am dating cannot have longer hair than I have and that’s only happened once.

We got to Shannon’s house about 10:40 PM EST, which put us at about a thirteen hour drive. It really didn’t seem that long but going through southern Illinois through Indiana was just excruciating because there is pretty much nothing there. We skirted around Indianapolis which gave us a little to look at but not really much. I would hate being a trucker.

Music really helped get the trip going and I discovered that I could hook my iPod right into the radio console. That was really cool and made it easy to control it instead of having to go through the ‘Pod itself. We listened to a lot of Beatles and Tenacious D and sang  along with a lot of it. Josh’s car is really good on gas mileage too, which saved us a lot of money. We only used two and a quarter tanks to travel 750 miles or so and it only cost us about $90 or so. Compared to flights at this time of the year, it was an incredibly good deal. When I was looking at ticket prices, they ranged from about $300-$400 a person which we could just not afford.

Shannon’s house is just awesome. This is the kind of house that I’d like to live in someday. They have a pool, hot tub, huge kitchen suitable for lots of cooking, which hopefully I’ll learn how to do someday. Or I’ll just leave it to Josh because he is more ‘domesticated’ than I am. The guest room we’re staying in has a giant comfortable bed that is a billion times better than Josh’s twin we usually share. Granted, he wasn’t really expecting to get a girlfriend that would spend the night so often when he moved back from St. Paul, so I don’t blame him for that really. But he does need to get a bigger bed sometime soon.

All of that aside, nearly my entire conglomerate of family from Kentucky will be at this Thanksgiving. The only ones missing will be Uncle Schmill and his girlfriend Rose. My grandpa and grandma will be there, my dad and his family, all of my cousins, aunts and uncles, and even baby Isabella who I’ve only met once before.  I am incredibly excited.

Everyone is getting along with Josh really well too, which is awesome. Right now, him and Kris, my cousin’s husband (I guess that makes him my cousin-in-law?) are playing pool together and bullshitting over a few beers. Shannon likes him and my cousin Kristen and he got along well when she came over to help prepare some of the food. I can’t wait for my dad and my Nanny to meet him.This is the first boyfriend that my family in Kentucky has ever met, so it’s a huge deal for me.

The only thing that is kind of bothersome, but tolerable, is one of Shannon’s dogs, Chanel, is very skittish around pretty much everything and has a high pitched bark that could break glass. She’s a very cute dog and Shannon loves her very much, but she goes nuts-o if you make even the slightest bit of movement around her.

Well, now that this is a thousand-word post already, I think I shall end with a Haiku-Of-The-Day. Or night, really because it’s almost 10 PM here.

Thanksgiving travel,

Family reuniting,

I am excited.

Thanks for reading,

WJ

I have always viewed myself as a westerner. Even though I have spent the past 17 years living in the east, my B.C. roots and my 12 years in Alberta taught me to think with the time zones in mind.

I can’t help but think hockey fans in the eastern part of the continent are missing something. By the time the news is coming on, most people in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa (and New York for that matter) are setting their alarm clocks for tomorrow morning. They are missing the buzzer at the end of the first or second period for some of the most entertaining games in the NHL.

And they are missing some of the great stars in the league too.

In California alone, there are at least six great players who have electrified hockey fans on the West Coast. The Kings have Anze Kopitar leading the league in scoring (going into Wednesday’s games.) Kopitar has two strikes against him, as far as recognition. Not only do his games start at 10:30 pm ET, but he is from that hockey-hot-bed, Slovenia. His puck sense is sensational, and his knack to be in the right place at the right time has fans in L.A. talking about a comparison to two other Kings scorers, Marcel Dionne and Wayne Gretzky.

On the Kings’ blue line is Drew Doughty, who is actually 19 and plays like he’s 29. His leadership and on-ice composure have many saying that he will have a chance to play for Canada in the Winter Games in Vancouver.

Down Interstate 5, Corey Perry is playing for a Ducks’ team still trying to find itself. But Perry’s play is entertaining, aggressive and very smart. He isn’t afraid to go to the net, with or without the puck. Perry’s play has overshadowed linemates Ryan Getzlaf and Bobby Ryan. And as a threesome, they are the Ducks’ offence. Which if you are a fan is very entertaining, but if you are coach Randy Carlyle, it is a frustration because you can’t play the trio for 60 minutes.

In San Jose, the names Joe Thornton and Dany Heatley are well known, even to those in the east. That’s probably because Joe and Dany had great success for teams in Boston and Ottawa, respectively. But I do suspect that many east of the Mississippi have never stayed up late to watch the boys work their magic in the Shark Tank. They just might be the best one-two punch in hockey since Brett Hull and Adam Oates. Thornton to Heatley has become lethal, and after a slow start the duo has the Sharks at the top of the conference standings, where they belong.

In Calgary, Jarome Iginla has to be my early-season Hart Trophy nominee because of his recent play. A hat-trick in L.A. and both goals in Anaheim left me absolutely in awe of the Flames captains’ athletic ability and his will to win. Against the Ducks, it felt like he never the left the ice in the third period, and that he willed his team to come-from-behind to force a tie (only to lose in a shootout).

I could probably go on and on here because players like Roberto Luongo, Dustin Penner and Mikka Kipprusoff have been great for their teams with great notice locally, but little acknowledgement from the hockey world on the other side of the continent. Even team success, like that of the Avalanche, only gets noticed when most people check out the standings the next day, and they wonder in amazement how Colorado can do anything right without Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg! Just remember the names Craig Anderson, Matt Duchene and Ryan O’Reilly.

So, if you live in the west, know how lucky you really are to be watching these players all the time.

And if you live in the east, check your TV schedule, take an afternoon nap, and stay up late one night.

Enjoy some of the games’ great names live, and enjoy the whole league.

Ronaldo making good progressDucks give up on Sbisa for season

I’ve done my research, I’ve Googled the breeds, I’ve recruited my skilled father to build me a beautiful coop for Xmas, I’ve read far too many chicken books for one who doesn’t actually own a chicken yet. Sigh. Why can’t I find a chicken?

Living in Florida, as I am apt to do most days since I live here and all, I don’t take things like “winter” and “cold” and “snow” into consideration when planning my projects. Apparently most hatcheries do not have chicks available during the winter! How can this be?? Nearly every site I visit won’t ship chicks until February or March! That is just too far away for an impatient person such as myself!

There are very few hatcheries that ship less than 25 chicks. I only want three!

Marrying both shipping dates and minimum order is turning out to be a HUGE basket to fill.

I actually made a spreadsheet on my Bento App (what came first, the iPhone or the Bento App? Probably the phone, but damn if I don’t love my Bento!) organizing the pros and cons of the hatcheries that appeared in the first three search pages of Google. After a long afternoon of micro-organizational-happy-madness, only one hatchery remained standing, offering both winter ship dates as well as small orders – Ideal Poultry.

The only downside is that I had my heart set on three breeds (one of each, please?): Ameraucanas, Barnevelder and Faverolles. Ideal Poultry only has Ameraucanas available over the winter. So, I can wait until after the New Year and order my special breeds, or I can be anxious and impatient and order three Ameracaunas.

Patience is just not my virtue. Politeness, maybe. Sexiness, definitely! But not patience.

In the meantime, meet Tug, our farm cat. We actually have EIGHT cats! Three of them spend a lot of their time outside, by their own choosing. We call Tug our farm cat because once she got a whiff of outdoor air she never looked back. She looks like she would be content as a purring kitten to perch atop a henhouse, doesn’t she?

As it stands this day, I am 29 years old. I have been 29 for just under a month and am already feeling the heavy burden of that looming 30. But I digress…

When I was a child, let’s say 11 years old or so, I heard a phrase that stuck with me for years – decades, even: “Mon Petite Chou”. A friend, whose name did not stand the decay of time, was called such by her mother. In French, it is a term of endearment spoken by a parent to a child that translates to “My Little Cabbage”. Through all my years, this has been lurking in my head and I have always remembered it as one of the sweetest, memorable and most endearing things I have ever heard.

I knew I wanted to start a blog that chronicled my creation of the life I envision. It had to be called something special and fantastic, of course. I brainstormed many lukewarm ideas with the following words: art, creative, garden, craft, something that ended in –ology would be cool, I thought.

And then, out of the depths of my mind, it surfaced. That phrase I heard long ago, “Mon Petit Chou”.  I looked up the phrase online, just to be sure I was accurate. I was! THE CREATIVE PETIT CHOU was born! As it would translate, I suppose, “The Creative Little Cabbage” encompasses everything I dream. Art. Family. Garden.

In our growing sunflower patch: Sidney Quinn, Mon Petit Chou.

Some photos here of Dromineer, Garrykennedy, Killaloe, Parteen Villa Weir, O’Briensbridge and Castleconnell.

Deixo aqui os voos plotados na madrugada do dia 21. As estações monitoradas foram as de Riverhead em 6661 e Shannon em 6532. Clique na imagem para visualiza-la em tamanho real.



Receptor: Icom IC-R75
Antena: Dipolo de 20 metros

Happy Thanksgiving!! Here is an Across special hosted by Bob Shannon!

Here is a page covering the effect of the floods of November 2009 on the old Limerick Navigation from Plassey downstream. (This page complements another about the upper reaches of the navigation.)

This page covers:

• Plassey, including the Black Bridge and the towing-path
• the regulating weir at Corbally
• the upper lock on the Park Canal, the lady’s hole and the 2.4m increase in depth above the lock
• the lower lock and its patented mechanism
• the current in the Abbey River and under Mathew Bridge.

Here is a page about the upper end of the old Limerick Navigation, with photos of the Ardnacrusha headrace, Castleconnell and its weir and quay, O’Briensbridge, Errina bridge and Doonass. There are photos taken over the last few days and older photos, showing normal (post-Ardnacrusha) levels at the same locations. The recent photos do at least give a hint of the levels that the pre-Ardnacrusha waterway coped with.

At time of writing, the ESB says it is going to release more water down the river to O’Briensbridge, Castleconnell and Limerick.

Photos of the lower stretches (Plassey, Corbally, the canal harbour and the Abbey River) will be posted later (floods permitting).

Photos of Killaloe in flood are now up. They were taken on the morning of 22 November 2009.

Here is the first of a number of pages showing the effects of the floods of November 2009 on the lower reaches of the River Shannon. This page shows Dromineer, on Lough Derg, on Saturday 21 November 2009, with water-levels well above normal.

Other pages will be added later.

In chapter five Alice meets the Caterpillar. As I read this chapter, I couldn’t help but think that the Caterpillar reminds me of the fairy godmother in Cinderella.

Both the Caterpillar and the Fairy Godmother resemble each other in a unique way, to me. Although the Caterpillar does not have any magical powers, he has the knowledge Alice needs to get back to her true height. While the Fairy Godmother has the magical powers to get Cinderella to the ball. In my opinion I think that these characters show up when Alice and Cinderella need them the most. Alice is starting to lose control of herself because she is stressing out about finding her normal size. She then meets the unfriendly Caterpillar who tells her that one side of the mushroom will make her grow taller, and the other side will make her grow shorter. In Cinderella the Fairy Godmother gives her a beautiful dress to wear and a horse and carriage to ride in to the ball in.

Both the Fairy Godmother and the Caterpillar help Cinderella and Alice, while also posing challenges to them. The Fairy Godmother tells Cinderella that the magic will wear off at midnight. The Caterpillar tells Alice about how one side of the mushroom will make her grow while the other will make her shrink, but he never tells her which side will do what.

In both stories, the Caterpillar and the Fairy Godmother are only in the one scene, and never appear again. I don’t believe that these characters represent each other, but resemble each other.

I’m not one for writing in a journal. It takes too long and hurts my hand. I thought to myself the other day, “You know, with all that is going on in you and Colby’s lives surrounding the planning of a pregnancy, you should really start a blog so twenty years from now you’ll remember this stuff.” So, this is our official “baby Shannon” blog. Why baby Shannon? Well that’s easy. I’m not pregnant. I’m not even close to being pregnant. We’re planning to start a family in the next year or so and have a ton going on surrounding the planning of this pregnancy, such as our move back to Florida. So, because we aren’t even close to being pregnant, we don’t have names picked out. We don’t know if we’ll have a boy or a girl. So we’re just calling it “our baby Shannon” since we know at least the last name will be Shannon. I’m really excited to be starting this journey with a blog, although I guess I’m a little late with that.

It all started a year ago when I was feeling miserable all of the time. I was nauseated, bloated, gassy, tired, fatigued, etc. I thought I was pregnant. This was the third or so pregnancy scare I had. I say scare because we were in a very bad place financially and a baby that we weren’t ready for would have made for some pretty bad complications to things, but of course we would have welcomed it. I ended up going and having my blood work done at my GYN and the results confirmed I was not pregnant. When I found out I wasn’t I actually felt sad that I wasn’t. That’s when my motherly instinct kicked in and it’s never gone away. Colby and I had a talk in January of 2009 and determined if we were in a better financial situation we would begin trying to start a family in December of this year, this year being 2009. In April, though, everything changed. I had a burning desire to move back home to Jacksonville, FL where my family and friends live. Colby’s friends live there too. We spoke and prayed BIG time and decided to move. That’s the short story.

So here we are. November 2009. The house is going on the market on November 29th and we are preparing for our big move back to Florida. After we get there and get settled, the IUD is coming out and baby making time is going to occur… Yes, that’s right. I said it.

So, this blog is dedicated to my baby journey. It will probably continue into our kids someday being grown and will be a precious HUGE log of memories that were compiled over years and years. That’s why I love blogging. It’s awesome! So here we go on a long journey. Join me!

And to our future children: We can’t wait for you to be conceived someday. The 9 months you spend growing in me will be so precious. I can’t wait to see your little faces. I always wonder what you will look like. Your dad and I joke that you’re going to inherit all of our flaws because that would be our luck. Our flaws are my asthma, his crooked feet, my crooked teeth, my pale skin, my red hair (although I’ve learned to embrace those things), my allergies to everything, his horribly blind eyes, etc. It’s funny. You might not find it funny someday, but we still have a good time joking about it. Your dad and I are going to love you so much. I can’t wait to get the news that I’m officially pregnant, but I know that’s a long time off. You should also know I’m working extra hard to shed my weight so you have a great environment to live in before you’re born. I want to give you the best. However many of you I have.

Your dad and I also buy a new Christmas tree ornament every year. Once that represents something special that happened to us during the year. I hope next year we can buy a “pregnant mommy” ornament or even a “first Christmas with a baby” ornament.

Your Grandma and Grandpa Gist are also super excited to have grandkids some day. We decided last weekend that you are going to call grandpa Gist Papa (pronounced paw paw). Grandma Gist hasn’t decided what she wants to be called yet. I told her she would get the worst name… Granny! Just kidding. She said she’d look up some grandma names on the internet and get back to me. You’ll probably end up calling her Grandma. Maybe Mema (pronounced me-maw). We’ll see what she decides. She’s also talking about having a grandbaby shower with her friends so they can get her a crib and tons of baby furniture and stuff so that when you spend time at their house they will have all of the things they need to take care of you. You’re going to have so much fun there. They’re going to keep you on some weekends so mommy and daddy can relax. They’re going to come to all of your baseball games, dance recitals, whatever you’re into. They’re going to teach you about God and how to live a life pleasing to Him. Daddy and I are going to teach you that too, but Papa and Grandma Gist are going to too. They’re going to love you so much. They’re going to be some of your biggest fans in life.

I guess that’s all for now.

Bellview Airlines Boeing 767-3P6 ER 5N-BVA (msn 24496) SNN, originally uploaded by Airliners Gallery.

Bellview Airlines (Lagos) will restore the Lagos-London (Heathrow) route with this newly-acquired (first) Boeing 767-300.

Please click on photo or link below for full view, information, prints for sale and other photos:

http://airlinersgallery.com/2/262a799/#/gallery/bellview-airlines/bellview-767-300-5n-bva-09-grd-snn-tv-lr-904189/