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My dad, the bird whisperer...well, maybe not, but Molly likes him! Her and Ty sat on Dad's shoulder for a good half hour today. She was parading up and down, and bobbing her head at the clicking noises Dad was making to her. Molly loves new people!

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While driving in my auto parts delivery truck today, I kept passing miles of these little wild daisy-looking flowers on the side of the roads. They were everywhere in Atkinson and Windham.

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This is my home away from home during the week. It is my cubicle at Measured Progress. I'm glad to have a paycheck coming in again. Hopefully this will last until next January/February.

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We found this little guy wandering around in our garage while we were replacing my Eclipse's engine. I don't know how long he had been trapped in the garage, but he was definately dehydrated. We put him in a box with some water and birdseed (which he didn't touch, must still be nursing) and ended up bringing him to Joanne, the bird lady at Seaworld Pet Center. She said that she would take care of him and nurse him back to health. I know that if we just put him outside that he wouldn't have lived for long. I hope he makes a full recovery!

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This generally is not a good sight the night before a race, but what can you do? I have to replace the head gasket in my CRX so I can race in the first Import Wars of the year at New England Dragway. The car was blowing lots of smoke.When we pulled the head off, we found a few holes in the old one. I just hope we can get it back together tonight...

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Isn't this cool? Here is one of my designs printed on a t-shirt!

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Ahhhh...Lake Champlain. I had never visited it before today. It is sooooo clear! The Cote family, Mom, Lance and I went to Burlington, VT today for a little sightseeing before we had to drive home. It was nice to see the lake, and the outdoor mall on one of the roads closed to cars. We all got ice cream at Ben and Jerry's, and then it was time to leave. Just like every other time we have visited the Cotes, I am sad to leave them.

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Allison graduated from college today. She started out in a Maryland college intending to be a lawyer. Then, she had a change of heart and decided to transfer to the University of Vermont to study elementary education. I think that is a much better profession for her. She is so good with kids. I wish her the best of luck in her new career. I just hope she can find work in the fall with the way the job market is right now.

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It's done! Project Super 16G swap is done. Rob and I swapped the small T25 turbo for a much larger Super 16G turbo on my CRX. It involved buying a new exhaust manifold, more intercooler piping, and a new half-sized Mishimoto radiator. Plus there was some bumper cutting and intercooler pipe rerouting. But, if she holds together, it will be so worth the work! Now I need to get some seat time in her to get it tuned just right for Import Wars.

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I look forward to May all year just so I can smell the wonderful scent of lilacs. I wish you could smell them through the computer. It is one of my most favorite scents in the whole world. I have five lilac bushes around my yard, but there is only one white one. It is the most fragrant one of the bunch, and I'm so glad that it recovered from having a huge tree branch fall on it during the ice storm this past winter. I wish someone could bottle the scent, but every lilac product I've sniffed just isn't right. Oh well, until next May...

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Here is my scrapbooking travel tool kit. Anita and I are going to a huge scrapbook convention tomorrow in Manchester. It is at the Radisson hotel convention center. Many of my favorite scrapbook companies will have booths there, and there are classes available to take during the day. We didn't sign up for any of them, but I think there will be a few free make-and-takes that I can do. Since I'm still unemployed, I only have $50 to spend tomorrow. It's going to be VERY hard not to buy everything in sight. But I'll only buy the things I love, and hopefully get some great ideas for new pages to create!

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Awww...look at the kissy birds! Pip Squeak and Roo may fight alot, but they do like each other. Roo was feeding Pip Squeak here, and preening the pin feathers on her head.

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I have a lot of songs. Granted, many of the files are audiobooks, but I still have A LOT of music on my computer!

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Oops.

This is not what I thought I was ordering from ebay.

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What a nice day to spend with Mom. It was of course Mother's Day today. We went to a brunch at the Sylvan Street Grill in Peabody with the rest of the women from Lance's family and Leanne. Then, Pam, Adrienne, Mom and me went to visit the gardens at Glen Magna in Danvers. The flowers were just starting to bloom. After that, Mom and I went to a cute little flower nursery and got some flowers for my front steps.

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"Roo: A Portrait"

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This is a turtle. It is not my turtle. It belongs to Calvin (around 10) and Aiden (2 1/2), Rob's cousins who we babysat for today. Poor Meghan needed some time away from her kids, so I volunteered our services for the night. It was interesting, seeing as I haven't babysat for anyone other than my own cousins in, like, 12 years. It wasn't too bad, but Meghan forgot to leave Aiden's special blanket at home, so he wasn't a happy camper when I tried to put him to bed. It took a while, but he eventually fell asleep. Calvin was fine, he went to bed right before Meghan got home for the night. She was so happy to have some "me-time" and I'm glad we were able to help out.

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Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Anita, Darren, Rob and I celebrated the fifth of May at Pedro Diegos, a little Mexican restaurant in downtown Haverhill. It was pretty crowded, especially the bar, but we didn't have to wait too long for a table. We all ordered burritos and chimichangas, and Anita and I ordered margaritas. Muy bien!

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Well, the race got rained out today. When we got to the track at 8am, we saw the sign across the gate. I wish the track would have posted that on their website, or changed their phone recording, but what can you do? Rob I., Andrew, Rob and I decided to go get breakfast before we started the trip home. I'm glad that I didn't book Sunday night at the hotel or I would have lost the $80. We ended up getting home in 4 1/2 hours. I can't believe we hit absolutely no traffic on the George Washington Bridge in NY. We've never made the trip that fast in the truck. I wish it took us 4 1/2 hours every time we make the drive!

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This was our first trip down to Englishtown, NJ to race at Raceway Park this year. The weather looked very bad for the weekend as we were watching it during the past week. Rob and I decided to just take a chance and drive down this morning around 5am. We arrived at 11:30am, right after the track opened the gates. It was raining. We helped Rob Ingels set up his tents and put out all of the parts that he would be selling that day - in the rain. Then we stood around for a while waiting for the track to announce whether it would have the race or not - in the rain. Finally, around 2pm, the rain stopped and we got a green light for the day's race. Whew! My CRX still was having voltage/amperage issues, so I had to keep it hooked up to the truck's battery in between races. I made it through a bunch of time trials since there were not too many cars competing. Then it came down to the first round of eliminations. Unfortunately, I got a really bad burnout and an even worse launch. There was nothing I could do, I couldn't catch the other car. Oh well, there's always tomorrow...Rob I. and Andrew ended up getting two round of qualifing for the 11.50 index class. They will have eliminations tomorrow.

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I got my hair cut today by my good friend Colleen. It's about time! It's been at least six months since I cut it last, into a really cute bob. But I'm not the type of girl who has the patience to blow dry my hair straight for a half hour before I leave the house every day. So it's back to choppy layers for me! I missed my wavy hair. Let's see if I can get it to look this good tomorrow...

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I've had this Christmas Cactus for over five years now, and it has never bloomed before this past Christmas. All of the sudden, there were a handful of buds on it at the beginning of December. I was amazed! And the strangest thing is that it is still blooming at the end of April! I guess it likes it here in the kitchen window, even if the birds do chew on it all the time. I decided to repot it today, and I'm glad I did. It was so rootbound! It should bloom even more now that it has room to stretch its legs.

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Today I finally attempted to make Rob's mother's famous meatloaf Florentine with mushroom cream sauce, and here it is. This is one of two recipes that she wrote down for us and I had never made it before. It turned out pretty good! I baked it in a muffin tin so it would cook faster, and make cute little bite sized portions. I hope I lived up to her cooking, I know Rob liked it. : )

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My mom surprised me today by coming up with a car-full of plants! I thought she was going to come up and look at my yard to see what I should do about all the dead shrubs and stuff in the gardens. But she was one step ahead of me! Her and I spent the day digging up the old, dead shrubs and planting new ones. Some were from her yard, like the yellow-green one behind her in the photo, and some were new. It was hard work, but we got one side of the front garden done today. Thanks Mom!

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I am awesome.

Yes folks, it's true. I have officially beat Super Mario Bros. 3! I don't care if I've been playing this game for the past 19 years (on and off of course, I don't suck that bad!), I'm super excited that I beat it. Finally!!! Hahaha take that Bowser, you bastard!

BTW, Princess Peach really needs to take some self-defense courses, I'm sick of saving her ass.

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Since we're gearing up for my first race of the season next weekend, we've been trying to finish the CRX by this Sunday so I can get in one last practice session at the track. While Rob was fixing my control arms the other day, he noticed that one of the important bolts in there was too short. I'm glad he caught that because it would be very bad if it snapped while driving at 100+ mph! Today he replaced it with the correct bolt, so I should be good to go. Thanks for looking out for me honey!

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Happy Earth Day!!!

I figured that I should take a picture of something eco-friendly today (I HATE the term "green" with a passion, it's sooooo overused!) and so here is one of the bags of paper recycling for the week. We get so much junk mail and newspapers, plus boxes from food and stuff, that it's no problem to fill up at least two big paper bags each week. Strawberry 100-calorie cupcakes rock, by the way! We try to recycle as much as possible and to reuse some things again before throwing them away. Just doing our part...yay Earth!!! : )