Chèli's personal blog

Well, I'm taking the plunge and striking out on my own. I'm setting up this blog to let my friends and family keep track of what I'm doing and what's keeping me busy. That said, HERE GOES!

It's Opening Day of the baseball season and it was raining this morning, but the sun is trying to poke its way out so that there might be a game. I spent some time last week on the phone with Verizon to make sure that I had the correct availability so that I wouldn't miss a thing. Everything is in place, just waiting for the right time! Bear and I are set, we have our Orioles shirts on and are ready to boo the Yankees! GO O's!!!!

While we wait, I have been making some modifications to the Derry Family Blog to make it easier to read and finishing up the design here. Hope everybody likes my bright colors.
Now for the Chèli update.

1) I'm still on my diet (cheating every once in awhile) but have lost 63 pounds. I went to the Gastroenterologist today and he said that I was a STAR PATIENT.

2) I’ll probably be starting back to work in Tim's office very shortly (Georgia is due to have the baby April 19th but I'm not sure she'll hold out that long. As soon as she has the baby, I'm in the working force again.)

3) I'm still trying to improve my golfing skills, (working won't help) so I will be popping to the Country Club when I get a chance to hit some balls. I am also the coordinator of the lady 9 holers invitationals, so I have to make sure that I get enough ladies to play at the other golf courses on the events day. So even though I'm not playing golf on a regular basis, I'm still getting sucked into the golf environment. (Just teasing - the ladies 9 holers are great!)

4) Tim and I have been working diligently to get the Montgomery Country Club Bridge Group started and growing. We had been playing on a monthly basis but now we have a bunch of new members (my recruiting is finally paying off) and we are expanding to twice a month. We play on Sunday evenings at the Club and we have new group members that Tim and I have been teaching bridge. It’s been lots of fun and great meeting and getting to know such nice people.

5) On the home front, I will be starting the demolition of Derry town in the next few weeks. I need to get the pieces inventoried and photographed so that I can get a listing sent off to the insurance man. (Hear that, Dave!) Once that part of the inventory is done, I will be working room to room to update the info on the rest of the house so that I eventually, can burn a CD and give it to State Farm for safekeeping. While I’m working on the home inventory, I will also be working on making my will current (the last one was 15 years ago) so if anyone has something they would like to be heir to, let me know. If that’s not enough I also have the 5000+ photographs from the Bill Derry’s that I agreed to scan into my computer and burn CDs for everyone. (I haven’t forgotten.)

6) I would also like to get some work done on the two books that I am writing. The first is a novel that I started in 1993 and would like to eventually finish. The second is a children’s book that I am writing for my “grandson” Jackson. (Those that know me, also know that having had no children, it would be hard for me to have a grandson. However, when our nephew Christopher and his beautiful bride, Melanie, were expecting, Ellen (Christopher’s Mom – my sister-in-law) and Melanie’s Mom, Gloria, said that I could be Nonna – the Italian grandmother – they are sharing their grandson with me and I feel so blessed by their generosity. ) Hopefully, I will make some progress on both of these projects soon.

7) For my relaxation time, I have been reading and stitching. As of this day, I have read 54 books in 2009 and my goal is 109 books for the entire year. I have joined LIBRARYTHING (LT for short) and I have met so many nice people who share my love of reading. I have joined into a number of challenges/groups which drive the need to read those 109 books.

a) the Main Challenge is the 999 Challenge. Here each person chooses 9 categories and 9 books in each category = 81 books.

b) Terp Challenge was to read 2 books for each loss that the Men’s Basketball team suffered in this past season. Since they had 14 losses that’s another 28 books.

c) Supplement to the 999 Challenge and Terp Challenge are the 75 and 100 Challenges which are basically the same books.

d) The last challenge is the one that Tina (my sister) and I devised together. The US Presidents’ Challenge is to read the Biographies of all 43 Presidents before the end of the term of our current President. That gives us at least 4 years and possibly 8 to get this reading done. So far, (I’m reading in order) I’m done, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. I’ve been reading background books as well – drafting of the constitution, War of 1812, those kind of things so that I can get a feel for the time in history that these men occupied.

Thanks to all my new friends at LT I have found so many new interests in books. I have been stretching my normal areas of reading to include history, biographies, (these are what led to the Presidents Challenge), Award Winning books/Authors (these are probably books I never would have read), non-fiction, and Classics. That doesn’t mean that I’ve given up on the old standards because I am still reading oodles of mysteries (I currently have 45 series that I follow) but I haven’t read a romance so far this year. I have some on my list but haven’t gotten to them yet.

Also in my relaxation time, I am back to working on my Cross Stitch projects. I finished a Cross Stitch Birth Announcement for Jackson and have a few others in the works but since I want them to be a surprise, I won’t tell what they are.

Lastly, I am still spending time travelling to Baltimore to visit with my Mom (she’s doing great) and working with my sister, Mary-Ruth, trying to finish up the cataloging of my Dad’s stamp collection.

So, Chèli’s Cozy Corner is very busy, but never too busy for the love of her life, TIM. This year we will be celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary and I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without this man who treats me like a princess and always, always, makes me feel loved beyond belief.

So, come in and sit down, anytime you’d like in my cozy little corner of the world. I may not be posting everyday, but hopefully, my postings will be fun!
Love to you all! Chèli