My favourite picture of Shannon

This is my niece, Shannon. The picture below was taken twenty years ago at my wedding. Shannon was adorable. The one thing about Shannon besides her fabulous style for dancing, is her personality. We have video of her at my wedding with a big plate of food (big for a three year old) and sitting next to a perfect stranger ( i think it was Mr. Farrell). She sat and ate all the food on the plate, occassionally smiling at the gentleman next to her as if it was her big brother. She acted like it was common place and no problem sitting at a table of strangers. Shannon has always been a friendly good natured soul and I enjoy her company. She likes to hang around with us older dames.

She just graduated from Nursing School last summer which we are all especially proud of, and works in Chicago at NorthWest Hospital.

And, she still has the best moves.

Its that time of year

It is that time of year and I am getting ready to head south to Chicagoland to spend Thanksgiving with my family. One never knows how it will end up. The last visit my nephew ended up in the emergency room with about 8 stitches in his upper lip. We were playing "Capture the Flag" kids versus adults version, and my brother in law had a stick in his hand. Now we know that children should never run with sticks, and they should never run at sticks especially if my brother in law is waving it. My son and my brother in law's son both know this because they know Jim (my brother in law) and accidents always happen in his vicinity. My poor nephew doesn't spend enough time with him to know this, being that they live in Ohio.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Headmen minus one

I went to Winona to see Harry play. It was a coffee house called "Blooming Grounds"

Harry and his friend were the opening act in a series of acts. The coffee house was featuring a line up of about 6 groups. I guess you would call it "alternative acoustic". I observed that all
the acts did covers, but made them their own. The guy who came after Harry had a definate style that was r&b blues and did a Hank Williams song in a pretty cool way. They were all so young.

The way the boys (Harry and his friends) got the "gig" was Harry was teaching his friend guitar (and that is how this group started) and there was a fire drill at the dorm and the kids ran out with guitars in hand. They continued to play while they were waiting outside and some girl heard them and asked if they wanted to play at this event at the coffee house.

Harry and his friend (one person missing) call themselves "the Headmen". They did 3-4 covers and then one of their own. They did Oasis (Wonderwall),
Jason Miraz, (I'm Yours), Smashing Pumpkins (Time of your life), Semisonic (Closing Time), and then another ..can't remember ..their versions were good. They did one they wrote themselves and that was probably their best, outside the Jason Brasman(?) song. They hadn't done any practicing before their spot, but say they plan to start. Originally Harry said they were going to play 3 songs that he and his friends wrote but ended up only playing one of their own.

The place was crowded. Harry and his friend got a good reception and the crowd was very supportive. Half the crowd were the participating "musicians" and their friends. It was a neat bunch of kids. I was flattered that Harry asked me to come. Very cool. Of course I took the boys out to dinner afterward. Thats a big deal too.

I'm back!

So I moved to Rochester, by myself! Everything I did just didn't seem to work out so here I am, and as my soon to be ex husband always says, "it is a wonderful life if you don't weaken..." and it is.



My mom and sisters came up in October because they wanted to "help" and we had a great visit. We went to the local farmer's market.



My sisters are spoiled living in Chicago. They could not help comparing. We went out for a pub crawl and I gave them the 10 cent tour. I live four blocks away from the downtown area. They liked the idea that there might be a bar at the end of my block. That was the way it was when we were living in Lakewood after college. Our bar scene was a bit of a let down for them. They kept saying, "this is out in the boonies!".

Then Laura went out Saturday morning for coffee..up to the local version of 7-11. As she was coming out of the store with coffee in hand, a couple of police cruisers had pulled up, and policemen were surrounding some guy. They pushed him to the ground, their pistols pointed just like on TV, at the guys head. She was freakin' out. What got her worse was that the local bystanders, none really, seemed to notice. It was like normal. People just went about their business. She talked about that the rest of the weekend. So there you go, not average after all.