My Last Fragments of 2010!

SHUSH, children! Can't you see Mama's trying to FRAG?!?!

I mentioned on Monday that it snowed here on Sunday morning.

Today, it was 75 degrees, sunny and beautiful! You gotta love Florida.

This week has been interesting. Andrew is still at his grandma's and Shelbie has been over at a friend's house since Monday night. So it's just been Tim and Elayna here. The youngest and the oldest. Tim's main goal in life is to torture Elayna.

Elayna's main defense is to scream this ear-piercing shriek.

Good times!

On a totally unrelated note, I've had a lot of headaches this week...

Update on the "I think my house is haunted" situation: We've had several more odd things happen. For example, the other night Elayna said the Christmas tree was moving. I told her the dog probably had bumped it, but she said that the dog was sleeping on the love seat.

I try to explain these things away or just kind of forget about them. But it's getting harder.

Last night, John and I were taking a shower, and we realized the bathroom door was open. I got out of the shower and closed it. A few minutes later, John looked over and saw that the door was open again. This is not the kind of door that can just come open, you have to physically pull it open.

It looks like this:

.....and it's on carpet, so it can't just slide around. It's never opened on its own before.

The kids were asleep, and I don't think the dogs could open it from the outside, but regardless, they weren't in the room (the door opens into our bedroom).

Explain that one away, please, because I can't. Although I really want to.

Do you have any New Years Eve Plans?

How about plans for 2011? Resolutions? Bloggy or otherwise?

We have no NYE plans. We rarely do anything big for New Years. We'll eat party food and stay up till midnight and say WOOHOO! And then go to bed. We're a wild bunch, I tell ya!

We're under a burn ban, so we can't do fireworks or even a bonfire.

I don't really do resolutions. The only plans I have for 2011 are to go back to work, but I will work fewer hours and with less stress. I'm not getting myself into that trap again.

And bloggy-wise, I plan to go to my first blog conference, and I am just going to continue working on building my blog. I have found some great new-to-me blogs recently, and I'm really just excited about taking this blog further.

Speaking of which, I have also started a new blog, which is private and by invitation only. If you are interested in an invitation, please let me know. It will be different there, more of a journal and more personal. Maybe less of the fun and more of the dysfunction? ;o)

I wish you a wonderful and prosperous New Year!

Happy 2011.

and don't forget to visit Mrs 4444s for more Friday Fragments.

Here's my song of the week:

I think my house is haunted.

So, we've been blowing things off ever since we moved in here. Little noises, doors being open when we swear we've shut them, TV or lights turned on when we're almost certain we've turned them off, things being moved. We have kids & pets, so we just brushed these things off.

But lately.....it's been harder to do that.

Last week, John saw an old man standing on our front porch. He did a double take, and the man was gone.

A couple of nights later, I saw "something" in the hallway. I have thought I saw things in that same hallway before, but it was always out of the corner of my eye, and when I looked straight at it, it would be gone. But this time, when I turned my head, it was still there. A white, transparent, shapeless form.

And then tonight.

I had the vacuum cleaner out earlier in the night, cleaning off the fireplace & mantel to decorate it for Christmas. I left it plugged in, which I do very frequently because I use it so often.

And about five hours later, I was sweeping the floor and noticed that the dog bed needed vacuuming. I commented aloud to the dog who was sleeping on the bed, "You're gonna have to move in a minute because I'm going to vacuum that thing." (yes, I talk to my animals.)

About three minutes later, the vacuum turned on. All.by.itself. No humans or animals were anywhere near it. It has a push-button switch, you push down on it with your foot to turn it on. You have to push it pretty hard to get it to come on and stay on. Which it did. For several minutes, because John and I kind of freaked out and neither of us wanted to walk over there and turn it off.

Finally, I turned it off, and nothing has happened since then.

It doesn't scare me at all when these incidents happen. It freaks me out, because it's just weird, but I never feel afraid.

Mostly I feel intrigued.

What's going on here?
What's going to happen next?

Sundays in My Home-Away-from-Home City

We made a quick trip to St Augustine this weekend, and I played tourist so that I could share a few pictures of this beautiful town with you.

This is the city gate, which is rumored to be haunted by the ghost of a little girl. They say the police frequently get calls around 2 - 3 a.m. by alarmed passersby, who say they saw a little girl playing by the city gate all alone in the middle of the night.

This just makes the kid in me giggle.

St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied European-established city in the United States. It is rich in history (and ghost stories). It also boasts the Oldest Wood School House in the USA.

In our county, all fourth graders make a field trip to St Augustine and visit, among other things, the Oldest School House.

The school house and this sign made me think of my teacher bloggy friends, like Mrs 4444s.

This sign briefly explains the history of the earliest St Augustine settlers.
(click to see it full-size)

I hope you enjoyed the peek into St Augustine,
and I hope you had a wonderful Sunday in YOUR city!
Visit Unknown Mami for more Sundays in my City posts.