Smellyann Strikes Again

Saturday 9: Greased Lightnin'

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Saturday 9: Greased Lightnin'

1) Greased Lightnin' was the name of a car. Have you ever given your car a name?

Sure. I thought everyone did this? I don't remember what I named my first car in high school, but in college I had an '81 Honda Civic wagon that could go from 0 to 10 in 60 seconds (that's NOT a typo!), so I named it "Bullet." Then there was my Dodge Neon, "Butter," because compared to the Civic, that's what she was like. The Chevy Venture was uncreatively named "Vanna," and our Odyssey is now named "Penelope." Someone please tell me you get that one.

2) Could your vehicle use a trip to the car wash this weekend? 

Pretty much always, yes. I have three kids; it goes without saying. (The exterior is fine, but the interior is always cringe-worthy.)

3) This song is from the soundtrack of the movie Grease, the biggest money-making movie musical of all time. Have you ever seen it?

Only about 4700 times! It's one of my faves. I have the disc of the sountrack, too.

4) John Travolta's astrological sign is Aquarius. What's yours?

I'm a born-again Virgo. I don't know what means, either. I don't buy into Astrology, but I do exhibit pretty much all Virgo traits.

5)  In addition to being John Travolta's birthplace, Englewood, New Jersey, played a significant role in telecommunications history. In 1951, Englewood's mayor made the first-ever direct dial long-distance call in the United States. Now it's your turn. Tell us something about your birthplace. 

 

First, let me tell you that my grandparents lived in Leonia, right next door to Englewood, and Grandpa worked for many years in Englewood, so I have been there countless times. I was born in Goshen, New York, in the Hudson Valley. I grew up with a "New Yawka" accent until the age of 6½, and when I get mad or otherwise excited, it still comes out of me.

6) Travolta is an excellent dancer. How are you on the dance floor?
 
 

I do okay, but I'm far too self-conscious to do it in public most of the time. I took lessons, though, and I danced under the tutelage of several famous choreographers in Manhattan in my youth. (I remember only the name of Jimmy Locust, though, and I can't remember whether he played the part of The Purple People-Eater or was the choreographer on The Cosby Show... or both.) Those were fun times!

7) Grease is an upbeat musical about the students of Rydell High. Another Travolta movie is Carrie, which features the worst prom night imaginable. Grease or Carrie -- which is closer to your high school experience?

I'd say it was somewhere in the middle. It wasn't horrible, but there were definitely some horrible moments. I was a nerd with lots of popular friends. Go figure.

8) What was your best subject in high school? What was your worst?
  
 

Science and Math were my subjects, but I was pretty equally stellar in English class. My worst subject was History. I do not remember dates that well, and I have always abhorred learning about wars.

9) Sam made good use of the bus ride to school, using that time to complete her homework. What do you remember about getting to or from school?

I remember one time, in kindergarten, I was standing up on the seat, jumping up and down, and the bus went over a bump. I fell into the aisle, hit my head, and bled like a stuck pig. And I think I got in trouble for the jumping, to boot. What a crap day!

Fin.

VLOG: Kids Get Kindles

 

As I told you a few days ago, I ordered Kindle Fire HDs for each of the kids, along with cases, chargers, a stylus 6-pack, and... I think that's it? They were supposed to come Friday by 8 PM, so at 8:08 PM, when they weren't delivered, I was all over Amazon looking up my order status. It said "delivery attempted," so I was like, "WTF?!" and immediately called up the shipping company. The delivery had apparently been attempted before noon, but no notice was left, and I was pissed. Then they told me I could pick it up on Monday, and I really flipped the script. I literally whined, "NOOOO!!!!" The guy on the phone, who was very calm and sweet, asked me what was in them, since they were obviously so important. I told him, and explained we needed them for our homeschooling, guess what? He understood, because he was homeschooled himself as a lad.

He worked some magic and made it possible for us to go in Saturday morning to pick them up. Rob went with Jack to get them, since I had an atrocious migraine when he woke me up to tell me it was almost 10:00, the appointed pick-up time. Thanks, Baby!

Most of our curriculum is online, except for Math (we use Math-U-See) and Spanish (Rosetta Stone is en route now). Oh, okay, and Art and Music... okay, okay, so only about a third of our curriculum is online, but still, it's a lot, and they all will need to be online at once. One laptop shared amongst three kids really held us back this past year, and we fell way behind where I wanted to be. Three Kindles, the content of which I can control online? Awesomesauce.

If you could see the video above, I think you could tell how excited the kids were about getting them. Even though we're not getting wi-fi until later today and they couldn't get online with them, they haven't put them down for a second, even taking them with them in the car to go mystery shopping with me. Fun, fun. I can't wait to let them really start using them!

Do your kids have tablets? Do y'all have a Kindle? If so, please let me know some great kid apps to put on there! Jack has asked me repeatedly for Angry Birds, so I'll put that of course, so I need other games and educational ones, too. Spanx!

Fin.

Sunday Stealing: The You Don't Know Jack (And Other Cheese) Meme, Partes Uno Y Dos

Jes' like I skipped out on Saturday 9 last weekend, I did the same with Sunday Stealing, so likewise I'm fixin' ta do both week together in this-here post and uh muh guh I've been reading too much Tom Sawyer to the kiddos at night...!

Sunday Stealing: The Who Are You Meme

1. What is your biggest pet peeve?

At the moment, it's Typepad. I had a long answer written out, but it randomly deleted itself. I'm not going to repeat it, because, as I once told my deaf sister and husband, "I don't repeat myself for you." Ha, I'm SUCH a B!TCH!

2. Where and when were you born?

Picture it: Sicily, 1926. Oh, wait, that's The Golden Girls. RIP, Estelle Getty. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. I don't mind sharing that my DOB is 9/8/76 which, IMHO, seems like it should be awfully easy to remember. "Should" being the operative word. I was born just outside of The Big Apple.

3. Where did your parents meet?

They met online before there was online: through a dating something-or-other, like a service or something. Yeah, that's it, a dating service. IN The Big Apple, from whence they both came.

4. Do you have any siblings? What are/were they like in four words?

I have a half-sister whom I've never met, a full sister, Stacey, who merits the occasional mention here on Ye Olde Blahg, and formerly two step-sisters with whom I no longer speak. In four words: Stacey wins by default. Hee!

5. Where do you live now, and with whom?

I live in what's known here as "America's First Region," a term which always up-cracks me, formerly known as Tidewater but now known as Hampton Roads. Futurely known as "The Place Smellyann Once Graced." Heh. I live with an almost-retired Navy sailor, aka Rob, aka Hubs, and ¾ of the children we produced together. Oh, and of late, SIX DAMN FELINES, now that I've gone and rescued these two cuties from the middle of the road in the middle of the night at the middle of ... yeah, I'm out of middles. ::Looks down:: Wait, no, I've plenty of middles...

The new babehs' first bath! Awww. (No, they didn't like it, but they both pooed all over themselves, ewww.)

6. What is your occupation?

I'm a stay-at-homeschooling mother of the afore-mentioned kids, one of whom just officially started middle school and has the attitude to match! Oy to the vey.

7. Write a full description of yourself.

I have. It's called this damn blahg. Read more of it and you won't need me to answer this question, dangit.

8. To which social class do you belong?

Go f*ck yourself. That one. Heh. I'm klassy, see? See?

9. Do you have any allergies, diseases, or other physical weaknesses?

I don't know why, but this question made me laugh out loud. Okay, so, you really want to know? All righty, then, let's have at it:

Allergies: I answered that yesterday. Scroll.

***GAK! TYPEPAD ATE THE REST OF THIS ANSWER, WHICH WAS HIGHLY AMUSING AND WHICH I'VE HAD TOO MUCH MIKE'S HARD LEMONADE AT THIS POINT TO REITERATE. LET'S JUST SAY THE LIST WAS LONGER THAN YOUR (OR ANY OF YOUR MATES' EVER) WEINER. HEHEHE.***

10. Are you right- or left-handed?

Yes.

11. What does your voice sound like?

It's high-pitched, like, shrill and stuff. When I Viggle, erm, nothing, just to rack up points, and I talk through the Viggling process, three times now it's come up with Jersey Shore as the show I'm watching. No, I'm not bragging. Heh.

12. What words and/or phrases do you use very frequently?

They all have four letters.

13. What do you have in your pockets?

Nothing, unless you count my hands, checking, a coupla seconds ago.

14. Do you have any quirks, strange mannerisms, annoying habits, or other defining characteristics?

Quirks: I tried asking my husband to list them, because I know I have a lot, but he's a freaking dumbass who can't wrap his feeble mind around the concept of limiting it to the called-for length of this post. Does that help?

Strange mannerisms: "What's the difference between a Strange Mannerism and a Quirk?" asks Hubs. I have to agree.

Annoying Habits: "You HAVE to be right, at all costs." - Hubs

"That's not true, we're still married. And I am always right." - Me

Other Defining Characteristics: "Cute as hell, smart as shit, and funny as all get-out." - Hubs. Again, I have to agree. (See, I'm funny.)

☼

Sunday Stealing: Who Are you? Part 2–The Growing Up Meme

15. How would you describe your childhood in general?

 It sucked ROYALLY after my mom died when I was seven. Before that, it was pretty blissful. She was an angel. I have her on The Pedestal of Maternal Perfection. After that, I buried myself in school to get away from my craptastic family. 

16. What is your earliest memory?

I'm three years old, happy as can be, running and laughing with my arms up in the air all the way down the hall to my mommy. I don't remember why.

17. How much schooling have you had?

I have a New York Regent's diploma from high school. I have a B.S. with a double major in Marine Science (our honor society, no lie, was Rho Rho Rho, which I absolutely loved!) and Biology (Beta Beta Beta), and a minor in Chemistry, from the University of Miami. Graduated with Honors and in the Golden Key Society.

I did an internship in Fisheries Biology at Mote Marine Lab before working for a year and a half on my Ph.D. in Biology studying the functional and ecological morphology (aka "Ecomorphology" (a wiki link, which is of great humour to me!) of elasmobranch fishes (aka sharks, skates & rays) with the premier scientist in the field, before realizing I wanted a life more than the constant publish-or-perish and writing for grant money stress, so I left, to many peoples' shock and chagrin. Plus, I felt inadequate, so it was then that I joined Mensa to re-establish myself - to myself - as an intellectual, empirically academic individual, and yes, sadly, I needed to pull out that card and look at it almost every day.

I worked on the (sickeningly - to me - less rigorous) Master's in Science Ed. program at the same school for a semester after leaving my prestigious doctoral program, but I lost my scholarship in doing so, so I needed to take some time off to earn money to return. It was during that time that I met Rob. We eloped two months after meeting and got pregnant on our wedding night, so I've never gone back. I plan to go to law school and practice Family Law until I get a judgeship in that field, once the kids are grown.

Whew! Oh, and I'm CPR-certified. Hee.

18. Did you enjoy school?

Did you read the above? Yes, it would be quite untrue to say anything less than that I adored it. I'd be the Perpetual Student if I could afford to be.

19. Stop and count, since you were born until today; how many homes have you
lived in?

Nineteen, not counting moving in and out of the same places multiple times. The number would skyrocket exponentially if I did that.

20. While growing up, did you have any role models?

My three or four best friends' seemingly normal, unconditionally-loving parents, and my grandparents filled that position.

21. While growing up, how did you get along with the other members of your family?

Heh. I may be in therapy forever thanks to my upbringing. It's a wonder I'm "only" bipolar and not schizophrenic, or have Multiple Personality Disorder, or something... although I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. :/

22. As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Forever, I'd wanted to be a marine biologist. And for a while, I can say I was...

23. What were your favorite activities 3 years ago?

Let's see. Probably: Hanging out with my family, wasting time online, and, okay, rapidly losing massive poundage, since I'd just had my surgery!

24. As a child, what kinds of personality traits did you display?

I was and remain painfully shy around those I didn't/don't know well. I'm horrible at small talk; I think it's the dumbest thing ever, sorry. I was and remain freaking hysterical around my kindred spirits. ;) I was probably bipolar from my tween or early teen years on, although it's only been six years since I was finally diagnosed. I was and remain impulsively suicidal when the slightest things go wrong, though a good cocktail of meds now help to control those impulses. As a very young child, until Mom died, I was joyous, sweet, kind, loving, and an all-around great kid. I'm in therapy to return to being that person, whom I believe I was born to be.

25. As a child, were you popular?

The smartest and funniest people in the room gravitated toward me. Especially when I was by myself.

26. When and with whom was your first kiss?

Kenny, when I was 14, at Tri-County Mall in B'ville, NY. It. Was. Awesome.

27. Describe any influences in your past that led you to do the things you do today.

I talk to my therapist about that. You don't have the time. TRUST ME ON THIS! You've already had an eyeful here, anyway. ;)

28. What’s next?

Next, Hubs retires, and we skip town the beginning of March, to wend our way westward to San Diego. He'll begin nursing school, and we'll all begin exploring our newfound surroundings. I simply cannot wait!!!!

☼

Well, that was quite sobering for me. Reflective. Memory-lane tripping. I'm off to get a Diet Coke refill and a hug from Hubs, if I can wake his narcolepic arse...

See y'all next week!

Fin.

Chloë Raine Turns The Big 1-0!

All right, so check it out: on Wednesday, my oldest baby in all the world, the one and only, Curls, aka Clorox, aka Chlo-Bo, aka Chloë Raine, turned TEN years old! This is her in the morning before we headed out to our Christian Military Homeschooling Co-op's "Not Back To School" Breakfast Pajama Party. Yes, even I wore my PJs, which were about eight sizes too big, but it was either that or the skimpy stuff, and well, you know, it wasn't that kind of party. (And no, I have never been to that kind of party.) Anyway. She was, as you can see, entirely too excited about turning ten years old. Well, "too" isn't the word. Omit that. Just plain excited is more like it. And who wouldn't be? Ten is HUGE, right??

There were myriad snafus at the party; it was just one big comedy of errors, all of which led to one giant omission: I didn't take a single picture of the occasion, even though I promised the absent-but-present-in-spirit leaders of said co-op that I would do exactly that. And we sang to Chloë and another birthday girl present at the party, and did cupcakes and the whole bit for it, and everything. Not one dang picture. Gah! But let's not dwell on that, because I took 94 pictures of the rest of her big day, and we shall focus on that. Not that I'm going to show you all 94 pictures, or this page would never load.

After the shindig ended around noon-thirty, we cleaned up our mess and headed right down to the Oceanfront to play miniature golf. My pal Ashley, for whom I have yet to assign a nickername (and I don't think she'd appreciate "Trashley,") had given me a Groupon for 4 people to play, plus two funnel cakes. What an awesome gift to start off our "Poor Man's Birthday Party," as I call our birthdays-full-of-freebies! Neither of the girls had ever played any kind of golf before, and I'm not sure if Jack has with the Cubs, but they all pretty much stunk. Know what, though? I stink at it, too. So, the four of us were fairly evenly matched, except that I had to teach them the rules of the game. The miniature game, that is. Don't ask me about the rules of an actual fairway, 'cause I haven't got a clue.

I did find it interesting that Sophia, a Southpaw, stood the same way as the rest of us Righties to hit the ball. I tried telling her she might want to try the other direction, but she wasn't interested. It's all good.

I couldn't convince Jack to (a) hold the club properly, (b) hit the ball gently when he was a foot away from the hole, (c) not stop the ball when it kept moving past where he thought it ought to be, or (d) not pick up the ball and put it back where he did think it should be. He kept saying, "oops, sorry!" every time I reminded him of any of those things, which was, like, every other five seconds. Since I was in Birthday Mood, I just laughed it off, or else the competitive spirit in me might have gotten fired up about it! Although I admit I might have said "freakin'" once or twice, as in, "Stop touching the freakin' ball, Jack!"

On this particular hole, my ball was the first (and second) to go into "the drink," as my gran'pappy would have called it - although I could have lied and said that never happened, as there is no photographic evidence of such events. But that wouldn't be "Honest and Fair," which is the part of the Girl Scout Law my Daisies and I are working on this week, so I'm telling y'all the truth. Chloë was second to have to fish her ball out of the drink. (Speaking of balls, I never tired of saying, "Stay off the green, and don't touch your balls!" whenever it was my turn to give my bright orange ball a whack and I couldn't watch the youngsters. "Don't touch your balls!" I'm so mature.) Chloë also had to fish her all out of the drink two times. Team Odette rocks at putt-putt, y'all.

Twice fishing for Jacky, too. Haha! We so suck at this game, but since all four of us sucked equally, it was fun for everyone. They had a total blast. I don't have pictures of Sophia's ball in the drink, which makes me think hers didn't go in - but She of the Amazing Strength kept whacking her ball so hard it would fly clear across three or four holes and into some other form of golf-related trouble. Once, we even had to replace it, because it was lost completely. She'd probably give Tiger Woods a run for his money!

I didn't let them win, but this is Chloë's reaction upon my adding up the scores and announcing that she won amongst the kidlets! Fair and square, the birthday girl did the best. This, even after discovering on the third or fourth hole that we were, in fact, aiming for the LOWEST score and not the highest. **Snort**

After our four balls (hee) plunked into the hole (hehe) at the end of Hole 18, the kids discovered a "pirate ship" playground, complete with a fireman's pole-type, uh, pole, which kept them occupied for about 72 days or 15 minutes or something. They really liked that thing. We'd probably still be there if it wasn't hotter'n blue blazes that day, and we were getting all sweaty. Oh, and if I hadn't conveniently remembered the matter of the free funnel cakes we still had coming to us. Heh heh. (Hey, I was bored. Maybe I shoulda gone down the fireman's pole, too.)

Here's Sophia oh-so-patiently awaiting the arrival of the funnel cakes. Not.

I discovered that the kids' hands and feet were all orange from the fireman's pole, so I sent them to wash up before the funnel cakes arrived. Jack came back first and dug right in. I admit, I didn't wait for Birthday Girl and had some before she returned, too. Mmm, mmm - good stuff!

But, it doesn't look like she minded much, does it? She got plenty and there was some to spare. Too bad Daddy wasn't with us or it would've all gotten eaten fo' sho'!

What kid doesn't love these things? I don't know, but mine go nuts for them. Nuts, I tell ye!

Love. They LOVE these fool things. (Btw, what is up with cornhole boards? Are they all the rage now or something? I seem them advertised everywhere. What's the deal?!)

I had a few extra quarters, so I let each of the kids get one of these piratey-themed bouncy balls, after confirming that's what they were and not, in fact, gum. Jack's the only one who can have gum (Sophia never throws hers away in the proper place, and Chloë can't have it with her dental appliance), so that wouldn't have been fair. In any case, all three are probably long lost by now!

Here's my eight-year-old boy saying goodbye - a few dozen times - to the super-cute girl behind the counter. Can you say "first crush"? Yeah. He's eight. Is it time for that stuff already?!

After we finally finished at the golf course, I called my homeschooling pal Jenny From the Block to have her and her kids - sickly though they were - meet us at the mall to ride the carousel. When you join their birthday club, you get to take 9 friends with you for free, not including parents, who are free anyway. Sweet deal, right? So Jenny FTB hopped in the shower, and we drove past the mall to pick up a Victoria's Secret gift card I'd snagged on Freecycle that morning while we waited for them to get ready. It was for ten bucks, and when we got to the mall, we found all kinds of perfumes on sale for - wait for it - ten bucks! So I let my tween birthday girl pick out her favorite scent (read: the bottle she found most appealing), and we didn't owe a dime. Sweet score! (And she made a point of telling me that - see those skimpy blue undies in the back? - that those wouldn't look good on me right now because of all my extra skin. Thanks, kid. LMAO)

I'd gotten a $5 birthday gift certificate in my email inbox for both Chloë and me, so I of course gave her mine, which made $10 in free money for her to spend at Build-a-Bear Workshop. We headed down the mall hall after Vicki's to spend it. She already knew she wanted a pair of rollerskates for her BAB kitty, and she kept praying out loud that they wouldn't be more than ten bucks. Lo and behold, they were only six bucks! She found these silky undies for her kitty - complete with a rose decoration that her hand is covering - for $3.50, so after tax, we owed mere pennies for these two otherwise free presents. Yep, that grin was genuine. She was having a grand day.

Team BB (Jenny from the Block and her two kids, G and M) texted me to let me know they'd arrived at the mall, so we scooted over to meet them at the carousel. There was no wait and no charge for the ride, so on we went. Sophia and Jack stayed on the lower level, while the rest of us headed to the upper tier. Here's my birthday girl on the horse she picked, looking cute as a button, no?

Whoops, I didn't realize M blinked during her photo op. Sorry, M!

My loverly friend, Jenny from the Block (who has nice teeth, I just noticed), and her adorable son, G

Sophia was already having a blast spinning her spinny thing downstairs, before the ride even started. Goofball.

As it turns out, so was Jack, in his. Goofball #2. The ride started immediately after this picture was taken, so I was stuck sitting nearby on a bench instead of on the horse next to my birthday kid like I'd planned. Ah, well. Can't win 'em all, right? No one showed up to ride - it was in the middle of a school day, after all - so I'm pretty sure they gave us an extra long turn on the ol' carousel for the birthday girl. Nice, right?

Another cool thing about the carousel birthday club thing is that each rider gets a free punching balloon - at least at our mall. Who doesn't love a punching balloon? That's like, high on my list of Favorite Things in the World. Punch, punch, punch. Chloë, notoriously immature for her age, suddenly acted the part of the growing-up tween in many ways, including this one: When M's balloon accidentally popped shortly after receiving it, almost immediately Chlo turned to her and said, "You can have mine!" and handed her the balloon. I was bursting with pride over that smooth move.

For my birthday, I got a BOGO Free coupon for Auntie Anne's pretzels, so the seven of us walked down there to get a couple cinnamon ones. Team BB shared theirs, while Chloë shared hers with her siblings. I neither got, nor wanted, nor should have had any, especially after eating the funnel cake earlier in the day. (Besides, I like the ones with crushed almonds, so there.)

When yummy snacks are involved, this oft-squabbling trio somehow manage to get along. Amazing.

I don't remember if M got any pretzel - I think she opted out - but G sure enjoyed his!

Oh, my Jenny FTB, you are so silly!

Speaking of my silly Jenny, she later texted me this image of her in the new shirt I gave her. See, I had a $10 birthday gift certificate to Torrid (because I'm a Diva), and these Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirts on clearance for $9.98 were pretty much all that appealed to me in the "get it for free" price range. The shirt didn't fit me, but I figured I could use it for a comfy nightgown around the house, y'know? So when I showed it to Jenny FTB during our pretzel-engorging time, she was all raggin' on me because it wasn't my size. Turns out it would be her size, however, so after mucho back-and-forth, I convinced her to take it as my thank-you for coming out and sharing some of Chloë's birthday fun with us, despite not feeling so hot. Doesn't it look super cute on her?! I think so, too.

These rides were right next to the pretzel hut, and I still had quite a few quarters on me, so what the heck? I treated Sophia and M to this ride, and...

...Chloë, Jack and G squeezed in together on this one. Jenny FTB tried to give me her sole quarter, but I made that big spender keep her cash. LOL!

Then we headed over to Charlotte Russe, where I'd gotten a $5 Gift Certificate for my birthday, too. Jenny FTB immediately found a wallet in that price range that she loved, and since she rilly, rilly needed a new wallet, I was all, "Here, take the $5 GC." And you know what? Giving feels really good. I felt pleased, and she was happy, and the new wallet works for her, and yay yay!

And then we went over to the JC Penney Portrait Studio to use my coupon for a free sitting fee and free 8x10, thinking the seven of us could take a silly picture or eleven together. But you know what? Unlike Sears' coupon, the JCP sitting fee apparently only covers ONE person, which is lame. So JFTB and I looked at each other, scowled, and then decided to just let Chloë get HER pictures taken. I mean, it was her birthday, right? It only made sense. I can't copy any of the pictures off the site or I totally would, but hopefully you can see them here. If Slide 1 is of a close-up of her face with the balloons around it, that's the one I ordered for my free 8x10. Which would you have chosen?

 

After that, we were pretty much mall-tired, so we all trucked down to our closely-parked vehicles and hugged each other good-day a hundred bunches of times. I'm so glad they were able to come out; it was a blast hanging out with them, and I know Chloë would agree! (And yes, I was making them say, "Happy Birthday, Chloëëëë!" for the picture, and yes, Jack was rolling his eyes about it. He was being a total punk that day!!)

We returned home, then, and woke up Daddy, so that he could come with us for the rest of Poor Man's Birthday Party. He changed out of his uniform lickety-split, and off we went again, for more fun!

First, we went to Sonic for our two free Wacky Pack kids' meals. I had a coupon for two, for my birthday and Chloë's. We let Sophia and Jack eat those. Happily, they both picked the apple slices as their sides, with no encouragement from the 'rents. Booya!

Then, we went to Ruby Tuesday for a free burger, fries and some other side (green beans?) that I got for my birthday but obviously wasn't going to eat, so that was Rob's dinner.

Silver Diner gave Chloë a free meal for her birthday, so she chose the mac-and-cheese entrée with a side of strawberries (again, no prompting!), and a strawberry shake. My kids LOVE eating at Silver Diner, but since only Chlo got a free meal, we took it to-go, like everyone else. Yep, I let them eat in car after just getting a car wash (for a mystery shop, natch). I'm a glutton for punishment. Guess I'll have to take another such shop soon!

Chick-Fil-A was right next to Silver Diner, and I happened to have a coupon for a free chicken sandwich from probably over a year ago, so I drove over and redeemed that without a hitch. I ate a third, and then Sophia ate a third, and I think the other third went into the round filing cabinet. I would've eaten it later, but whatev.

From there, we headed down to Chuck E. Cheese's to redeem Chloë's birthday coupon for 20 free tokens. Twenty isn't a lot, but they made it go pretty far and managed to spend about 40 minutes in the place, so it was worthwhile. I doled them out, giving six each to the Littles and eight to Chloë, with surprisingly no complaints. Now, looking at this picture, I'm wondering what was so fascinating on the side, there!

The three kids went off in three different directions, so I'm always thankful for their blacklight kid-numbering system when we go! Jack always heads for this shooty-thingy, so it wasn't too hard to track him down. In this picture, what I see, though, is how tiny he still is. (He still fits into some 6-month baby swim shorts, if that tells you much!)

Sophia was a little harder to track down, since she zipped right away from me and is good at finding hidey-holes. But find her I did, for once not riding the bike-helicopter ride that goes up and down. That's her favorite thing-a-ma-jig.

I pretty much followed Chloë around after that, waiting for good birthday photo ops. Found one!

Make that two! :) After this, I kicked her butt at air hockey. I play a mean game of air hockey, and by that, I mean, "against ten year old wimpy girls."

The kids all crowded around to watch Chloë play her last token, while Rob and I stood back and made jokes about honey pots.

One of the things the kids enjoy the most at CEC is feeding the ticket muncher machine. They fight over it! I'd get in the fray, too, if it wouldn't be juvenile, because that thing is F.U.N. With their 20 tokens - half spent on rides and not games - they managed to earn exactly 50 tickets. Not too shabby.

It's hard to divvy up 50 tickets amongst three children, so without my even asking, the ticket redemption counter guy said he would round it up to sixty, to make it even. Thank heaven for small favors. (Although, 50 doesn't really "round up" to 60, but I'm not complainin'!)

Sophia picked a 20-point pink rubber spider (hence the scary face). Chloë chose a sweet tarts a top, and Jack opted or sweet tarts and a sticker sheet. Hey. They were happy, and once again, you can't beat free!

We ran across the street after that, so I could redeem my birthday coupon for a free Homewrecker (well, that's what I chose, anyway) from Moe's. Welcome to Moe's! Love that place.  It took me three or four sittings to eat that thing, and I think I puked every time anyway. Le sigh.

 

The fun wasn't over yet. We stopped at AC Moore so I could run in and redeem my free birthday coupons there, and I managed to get these Crayola markers and glue sticks for practically nothing - both hot commodities around here, so woot!

Our last stop of the night was at Chili's, to get our free birthday brownie sundae. It was mine, by rights, but I gave it to Chloë, who shared it with the rest of Team Odette. Except me. No thanks, can't do it! Here she is, eagerly awaiting the treat.

I had to take this picture fast. The brownie sundae disappeared in a flash. Oh, hi, iPhone.

That was the end of our freebie tour for the day. Chloë wanted to go home and, indeed, so did I! There were mini cupcakes leftover from the PJ party that morning (and I got some ribbing for bringing store-bought cupcakes when I'm supposed to be the baker!), and I wanted to do candles and sing to her, so we did that. Only Jack and Sophia had a cupcake, though Sophia probably had three when I wasn't looking...

She's either praying or thinking of a wish. Or both.

I hope ALL your wishes come true, Baby Doll!

It wasn't really intended as a birthday present, but since I'd gotten the flute at the co-op party that morning (to be paid for later, in installments - and I got a good deal to boot) from another homeschooling mom, I presented it to her as such. She's been wanting flute lessons. I'm going to try to find a tutor from one of the local colleges, for cheap lessons, though the same mom gave me a lesson book from which to learn, too.

All you musicians out there are cringing at this picture, eh? We have lots to learn. Lots. Although I did teach her how to put her mouth and lips, because this was killing me!

All in all, it was a splendid day, and she proclaimed it, as she does every single year, "The Best Birthday EVER!" but, "And this time I mean it!"

********
As for me, I spent my 35th birthday yesterday writhing in headache pain, lying down and letting the kids chill, until it was finally time for me to get up, shower, and prepare my plan for the Daisy meeting two hours later. Thankfully, Rob came home early, so Jack could stay home with him while we girls headed to Girl Scouts for the first meeting of the year. I thought it went really well, all things considered. I only have five girls (so far) this year, which is a much more manageable number than the eight and nine we had at various times last year! I do miss my "old" girls, but I love having my five familiar little ones back again, too.

The headache lasted throughout the evening and into the night, but I was cheered considerably by the sight and sounds of Sophia reading to Chloë, with minimal help from Big Sis. And when Big Sis did help, she was pleasant and considerate, not bossy or critical. It was absolutely a wonderful sight to behold, and I loved every minute of watching and listening to them. Sophia's reading has improved by leaps and bounds in the past month, and I know she is so proud of herself, as she should be!

And that, my friends, is the end of the birthdays for 2011. Thanks for reading and commenting as a birthday present to me! Hehe - see what I did there? ;)

Fin.

 

 

Makin' Stuff

We've been in the middle of a semi-major crisis (again), which either will or won't come to a head this afternoon. Hopefully the whole thing will just quietly go away, like it should, and all my anxiety will have been for naught. But in the meantime, I've been knitting and crafting, which is what I do when my stomach (what's left of it) is in knots. So I've got some stuff to show ya, 'k?

 

This was made from the beautiful beaded silk from Artyarns that I picked up at the Loopy Ewe in St. Louis. Remember? If you're on Ravelry, the pattern is the Sagebrush Shrug, and I loved making it (although I screwed it up and kept doing 3 pattern repeats instead of 4, but I did the math and worked it out). I think I'll make it again in a less-fancy (read: less majorly expensive) yarn, just because I really like the pattern. As far as the yarn, it makes an absolutely gorgeous product, but man, oh man, is it ever fiddly. It would have to be something really special for me to work with it again. Sirrusly. I totally love every Artyarns product I've ever worked with - and there have been a bunch - but this was a total pain in my arse. Hopefully, when I wear it with the dress I made it expressly to go with (listen, it's not even 0800 and I don't feel like making that grammatically correct), I'll get some better snaps. And it'll look beautiful. And people will say nice things about it. And actually notice the beads. Because if they don't notice the beads, well, then, shit.

Hey, do you remember I was making this thing, back in November or something? I'll be darned if I didn't tag that post with any of the usual suspects, so I can't find it, but I know you remember, 'cause you hang on my every word. It's a knitted dodecahedron! How cool is that? If you're a math fan like I am, anyway. I made about 7 of the bumps and then set it aside for, oh... five months. I picked Celestine back up on Monday or so, and I finished it in the wee hours of this morning. Fun knit! I loved almost every minute of it, except for maybe that last nubby, which made my hands cramp up something fierce. No, I can't lie, I liked that, too. It made me feel alive. ALIVE! (Caffeine on board, can you tell?) Anyway, it's a big mother, compared to that chapstick there, so we won't be using it for an ornament like I originally planned. I may list it on Etsy. I can't decide. The kids love it though, so maybe I shan't. Hmm.

Oh, PS, this was also made with Artyarns, in their ultramerino flavor. I've had this yarn for ages and have made several projects out of it. A little goes a long way! Now this, this yarn, I love. It's divine.

 

Speaking of my Etsy shop, I got a bug up my rear in the middle of the night, after I finished tidying up, to do some crafting. I got a bunch of bottle caps from various people, intending to do crafts with my Daisy troop with them, but (a) I don't think we will anymore and (b) I was given a LOT more than I needed at the time, so I've been looking at them and looking at them, wondering what I'd do with them all. Magnets! And thumbtacks! That's what I made, just looking around my craft room and grabbing this, that an' the other. The one above is from the last batch.  I really like it, and if they don't sell, fine by me! I'll just use them myself.

I think these turned out really cool.  Kinda wish I had a cork bulletin board, to stick the tacks on and use... Guess I have another project to add to my (crazy long) list of... projects.

 

I love these, too!! I think they turned out super cute, and I only wish I had more flowers to make more of these guys. Well, anyway, it was a fast and fun project and satisfied my little bout of midnight mania. And I only burned myself once on the high-temp glue gun. Note to self: Restock low-temp glue sticks!

Hey, I just made a coupon code for you blog readers: If you would like to order from my Etsy shop, get free shipping with your order! Use code SSA0311 and have yourself a little gift on me. Thanks!

********

As for us, we're going to be missing our military homeschool co-op classes for the third time today in, like, six weeks. Kind of ridick, but it can't be helped. I signed up for this field trip to hear the Virginia Symphony Orchestra long before the co-op started, so that'll be nice. Think I can get away with wearing a sweatshirt to the concert? I don't feel like changing.

Fin.

You Know You Want Summa Dis

So, excuse any weird caps in my typing. I shaved off another nail yesterday! This time it's my pinky, and I REALLY hacked it off but good this time. I cried and wailed aND sobbed; it hurt a ton. And it's messing up my typing.

Friday was an interesting day. Jack slept late, and Rob came home from work late, so I didn't get to go out and do all our organic food shopping until after 10 am. I went to the Farmer's Market first, to get our seafood from Uncle Chuck, but he wasn't open until after 1400. And I never went back, so no luck there until 1 June.

I stopped at the Market's creamery after that, to see what I could find for local/organic dairy. They had some GREAT semi-local milk products (from a Maryland dairy farm), but they don't actually practice organic. They call themselves 'better than organic' since they don't use preservatives, which apparently organic still does. I don't know. It looked great, and I was going to go back, but I didn't.

Instead, I went to the organic market there, and I spent our entire $200 food budget and then some on not too much stuff. I mean, I got six big canvas bags full, plus a huge glass bottle of the most crazy-delicious organic apple juice (I guess I don't have to keep saying 'organic' about the stuff I bought there, since it all was/is) - but normally, I can fill 15-20 bags for that much money. So this 100% organic business is going to be a REAL challenge, financially, but we are committed.

To do it, we're going to keep burning through our stockpile of non-organic foods until it's all gone, while I stock up on organic whenever I can get a good deal, to supplement it. We're cutting out junk food entirely - sorry, kids - and won't be buying anymore Coke or anything like that. Of course, we'll have the proceeds from our garden - our seeds have already been shipped! - so the kids are going to have to learn to eat, and love eating, lots of fresh veggies at every meal. I'm going to do without meat as much as I can and drink more protein shakes, since the organic meat is crazy expensive. And I'm going to make my own laundry detergent when our supply runs out. Some people have reported spending about $15 a YEAR on it when they make their own!!

I'm also wanting to learn to make our own things like cheese, yogurt and such. I really want to move into a house further out somewhere, where we can keep some chickens and maybe a couple of goats. Rob would like a cow, but I don't know about that. If we end up giving the boat thing up for the time being, that is.

I don't know whether we'll still be able to feed our family of 5 organically on $400 a month, but we're so determined to try, and you know what they say, "where there's a will..."

So what did I get?

Well, here's that big, giant (as SophiA SAys) bottle of apple juice. OMG, hands-down the BEST juice I have EVER tasted. I'm absolutely in love with it AND will buy a bottle every time I shop. It costs ten bucks, though!

You can see some of the produce I picked up in the background, there: a few apples, some pears, a lemon, garlic, green onions, some oranges, and ginger. I don't know yet what I'll do with the ginger, but it's cheap, and I'm sure I'll find lots of tasty recipes. We used to make a salmon dish, new-style sashimi, with fresh ginger, when I was pregnant with Chloë. Until I started barfing it up, which is why we stopped. I got the recipe from Chef Nobu when he was on Martha's show. Muy excelente; I'll have to find it again.

These cashews were also the tastiest I've ever hAD. Seriously, so good. Really, organic food is not only healthy and wonderful for you, but it is delicious!! I picked up a bag of sunflower seeds, too. I've been enjoying them immensely, but I'm the only one, since they're not salted. 

Rounding out my order, I picked up some organic Nutella-like stuff, peanut butter, two jellies, 6 packages of spaghetti, milk, butter, lots of cheeses, 2 cartons of eggs (over five bucks a pop!!), and for Rob and the kiddies, a package of bacon. The owner of the shop, Michele, was very nice and has been running it for over 25 years. She was very helpful in deciding what to buy, and she even gave me a discount on the items I had coupons for, though they don't accept coupons. I told her I'd probably be in twice a month, on paydays, and she seemed thrilled about that. She even teaches a class on 'going organic,' which I might attend if it's free or nearly so.

So I had a great time, and I can't wait to shop again. June 1st can't come soon enough!

********

While I was shopping, Dr. A called about Jack. Have I mentioned here that he hasn't been hearing me at home? I had made an appointment with Audiology, but it wasn't until mid-June. Since I was having to shout at him more and more in order to be heard, I was growing increasingly alarmed and imagining myself having to learn (and teach him) sign language. I called Doc A when I decided mid-June was just too far away to be playing around with his hearing like that, so he called in an walk-in appointment for me.

No one at audiology seemed to be aware of this walk-in set-up, so we waited over an hour before being seen. Finally, the audiologist took us back and gave him a battery of tests. It was stupefying. He has significant hearing loss in both his ears!! (I feel like calling up his teacher/the school and saying, "Hey, he wasn't 'not paying attention,' he coulding flipping HEAR you!!!") There were no 'waves' on his ear drum test. When air is blown into the ears, there are supposed to be mountains on the chart indicating movement of the drum; instead, the line was absolutely flat, indicating lots of fluid behing them. I was pretty devastated when I saw that. 

The rests of the tests were the kinds you might remember from grade school, where you raised your hand when you heard the noise? Except he didn't hear the noise at normal decibels, 20 db and below. He couldn't hear until at least 40-45 and sometimes not until 60 db! So no wonder he would be completely 'ignoring' the teacher when she was talking in a normal speaking voice; he couldn' heAR A DAMn thing she was saying to him. That makes me so sad for him.

What do you think; should I tell her? I would be nice...

Anyway, the plan now is to go back to Doc A on Thursday and see what the course of action will be, whether it's antibiotics, decongestants, wait-and-see (not my favorite choice, since his hearing is worsening daily, I think), or something else. 

My poor little guy. He has already been through so much.

********

Saturday marked the second day of Rob's motorcycle class (take three). He was gone almost the whole day. I was exhausted, so the cleaning I planned didn't happen; instead, we watched movies and rested on the couch for most of it. Oh, well. 

In the evening, Steph came over so Rob and I could have a date. We saw the movie Date Night, which was pretty funny. We laughed a lot, although i probably could have waited to see it on DVD.  But one of our tickets was free, from ShopAtHome.com (I'm not sure why, but hey, I'll take it), so it was a cheap date.

Late at night, Jack, who had taken a long, late nap, stayed up past the kids' bedtime to help me bake some bread. I want to start baking all of our breads, sandwich and otherwise, to save even more money. We chose sunflower bread, since I've bought and loved it from the store. I found a great recipe on AllRecipes.com, and he did all of the measuring and mixing. I'd forgotten I have a dough hook for my powerful new mixer, or I'd have been baking bread every day since I got it. And boy, did it knead that dough quickly. I ♥ my KitchenAid! I wish I could get the pasta attachments for it, but they're too pricey for now. I showed them to Jack, online, and he really, really wants them, too. he is a pasta fiend!

Baking is great for many lessons. This time, the lesson was all about the properties of yeast. Jack was amazed at how much our bread dough rose in the bowl, and he liked punching it down for the second rising. Doesn't it look like nutty mashed potatoes, here?

 
  
 Our two loves came out perfectly. and oh, they were scrumptious!! Especially when paired with the organic cream cheese I'd picked up. Mm, so good. I've eaten way more than I should have. Don'tcha want a wee slice?

********

Sunday, I woke up early, around 0600, after onlyl about 4 hours of sleep. I couldn't get back, so I rose for another slice of sunflower bread. I'd added some of the hemp hearts that Michele - from the organic food market - gave me as a saMPLE. LOts of protein and omega fatty acids in those! It was just as good the following morning, too. Yum.

Rob went off to his final day of bike class, and the kids finally rose for breakfast. They couldn't agree on any one thing, so I had to play short order cook. Chloë pigged out on organic eggs and bacon and sunflower breAD WITH CREAM CHEESE. Jack had pancakes and bacon. Sophia had breAD, PANCakes and bacon. They all had the organic apple juice. They ate well, and I know it did their little bodies good. Probably cost $25 for the meal, too!! Heh.

I took a nap after that while they watched some PBS Kids-via-Netflix, until Daddy came home. 

HE PASSED!!!!!

Rob is now a licensed motorcyclist. Hallelujah!!!! Now, watch out, drivers. My baby daddy is on the road!

After i got over the excitement, the kids and I HEADED upstairs to clean. I did umpteen million loads of laUNDRY (AND AM still only half done; so much for keeping on top of that) while the kids supposedly cleaned their rooms. EVery time I turned around, Sophia had run downstairs to watch TV, Jack was lying down, and Chloë was reading. I can't blame them, reALLY; I hate cleaNING, TOO. But it has to be done, and they have to learn.

********

In the afternoon, we drove out to a new-to-us park for Tabitha's baby Lily's first birthday party. She was sassy in her little tutu and bow, eh? I love her blue, blue eyes.

None of us were prepared for how cold it was going to be. It had been hot and sweaty back at our house, but it was cold under the shelter. All the poor kids froze, as did most of us parents!

Tab had an owl piñata there for the bigger kids, so i already broke our new rule of 'no more candy or junk'. but how was I supposed to say 'no' after it was handed to them? As Jack explained to his complaining father, "It was a PARTY! You're supposed to eat candy at a PARTY!" 

I did not, however, let them eat the burgers or hot dogs. Nope, not gonna do it. Too much risk involved there.

they were pretty happy with their goodie bags, declaring it 'the best party ever.' Even though we didn't stick around for cake and the present-opening, because they were cold and hungry, they were happy!

Steph and Luke were there, too. He looked so cute in his little sun hat!

 
  
The birthday girl got her grub on; she has a GReAT APPEtite!!

After we left and arrived home, I went back to my laundry, the littles went back to 'cleaning,' and Chloë started some practice tests for the SOLs coming up this week at school. on the one hand, I really don't care about them, but on the other, I want her to do the best she can so we can establish a baseline for her skills. So we're preparing as much aS WE CAN, given the limited amount of time she has. (I'd have had her practice all day SaturdaY, BUT I plum forgot about them!)  When she needed a breAK, she came upstairs to visit and ended up having a good time being 'airplaned' by Mom & Dad. Don't her curls look AWESOme??

Of course, Sophia had to come running for a TURN! Jack was sound asleep by then (and still is), so he was a no-show for the fun.

Girls being silly

This is the face I usuALLY get when Sophia waNTS TO Have her picture taken!

Anyway, that's about it for this weekend. I think I'll go throw some more bread in the KitchenAid!

Fin. 
  

PS Sorry again for the crazy caps!
  
  

 

Just Another Manic Monday

So, I stayed up all night again last night, Sunday into Monday, so I could work on my coupons, of all things. I haven't opened the paper in three weeks, and since it's almost the end of the month, I needed to work on the database if I was going to have a chance of winning that $25 Amazon.com gift certificate for April! I hope I get it again... it definitely helps!

The plan had been to work on coupons on Sunday and laundry on Monday, but it didn't quite work out that way. Other than taking Sophia to her classmate's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese (deja vu!) on Sunday, I mostly slept. Don't know what's up with that, I've just been so tired. Between that and a wee-hours cup of coffee, I was well primed for another all-nighter. It seems like I do it once or twice a week lately. Sucks, but like Stephanie said, it's better than every night like I used to do!

 

I spent over an hour on the phone with my dad in the morning, hearing about his and Wife's honeymoon cruise, his first visit with my grandpa since my sister's wedding, his extensive home repair woes, yadda yadda. When he asked me what was new, I hesitantly told him about the kids' ADHD diagnoses and our plans to homeschool next year. He's VERY outspoken and not at all crunchy or anything like that, so I thought he would not approve... but he did and said he was proud of me! I don't live for my dad's praise or anything, but it comes so rarely that I'll take it when I can get it. He was all for the homeschooling thing, which shocked the crap out of me, but especially when I told him it was an alternative to keeping them in school and medicating them.

 

Around noon or so, I got up (yes, I worked on coupons for, like, 12 hours! But I wasted plenty of that time doing other things, too) to get ready to go to court. Today was my appearance for my naughty doggy's "dog at large" charge from last month, when Tiger Lily escaped the yard and had a nice time roaming the neighborhood until someone called Animal Control. Did I tell you about that? I had planned to fight the fine, since it had never happened before and hopefully won't happen again. She's licensed, microchipped, rabies-vaxed, and we pick up after her when she poops around the neighborhood. In other words, we're pretty responsible pet owners, and I was hoping for leniency based on that fact.

I was nervous. I dressed in a new skirt (I never mentioned that I went on a shopping spree at Old Navy after Sophia's birthday party last weekend. Everything is a size medium! I bought mostly size 14 bottoms, but 12s fit, and I should be down to at least a 10 after my abdominoplasty. And dare I say I could probably have fit into some 'small' tops, too. Exciting!) and tank top with matching sweater. I carefully did my make-up, hair, and put on jewelry. I wanted to look proper and responsible for the court.

At the court, I was chagrined to find I could bring in neither my cell phone nor my knitting. I had to trek back to my van in heels to put all my stuff back. By the time I got back in and found my courtroom - in criminal court, no less! - it was already time to go in. 

The judge was quite stern. When he was first addressing us, the peanut gallery, I was thinking, "Oh, Lordy, I'ma goin' to jail!" And then after the two people stepped up to ask for continuances in their cases, I was the first person called! I tried not to be nervous, but the judge had just yelled at the previous guy for talking too much, and I didn't want to make the same mistake. 

The animal control officer who had captured Tiger Lily and issued my citation, or whatever it is, was there. She stepped up to the bench with me and explained the case. The judge asked me, "How do you plea?" and I said, "Uh... not guilty?" He was not amused. He raised his eyebrows and looked down his nose at me, and then I said, "Your honor, I would like to ask for leniency. This has never happened before or since."  And blah blah blah, I gave the rest of my reasons. He looked at the AC officer, who basically pled my case for me, telling him I had no priors and that I was very cooperative, etc. He asked her if he should give me the benefit of the doubt this time, she nodded, and he spat out, "Your case is dismissed!"

I just stood there for a second and then asked, "Okay... do I just leave now?" "Yep!" replied the judge. I thanked him quietly, nodded at the officer, and high-tailed it out of there with a big grin on my face. It was all I could do not to kick up my heels and whoop out in the hallway!

Once in the car, I called Rob and my dad to share the good news about my dismissal - and, I'd like to add, I wasn't even the one who let the dang dog out in the first place!! I drove home and worked on laundry for an hour or so. I was so caught up with laundry so very recently, that it amazes me how far behind I am on it again already. It's ridiculous, the amount of clothes we go through. I can't stand it! But it's even worse now that I'm both changing over the kids' wardrobes to Spring/Summer and putting away Fall/Winter, as well as getting rid of all my Large/size 18 clothes and putting in all the new stuff I just got. Clothes, clothes, everywhere, and not a stitch to wear! Heh.

Anyway. Rob was supposed to go down to the bus stop to get the kids, but he fell asleep, so I had to race down to the corner at top speed to meet the bus. Just in time! All three kids bounced happily off the bus; they'd had good days. Rare for all three to have one at the same time.

Rob and I canoodled for a little while, while the kids cleaned up their rooms a little bit, and then I finally fell asleep. Just for a couple hours; I woke up just as Rob was taking Jack and Sophie to The Boy's Cub Scout den meeting. Chloë stayed home with me, to work on homework and then study for the Virginia SOL tests coming up next month. We have been really lax about working on that, and now that we're going to homeschool, I care even less... but I would like to see her do well.

When Rob and Crew returned home at 2015, Chloë and I whizzed over to the library. While she studied, I was reading up on homeschooling stuff online. There is just SO much stuff out there, I keep getting overwhelmed. I just don't feel like I know where to start. So I wanted to go check out a few books on the subject, to give me a little more focus. I found one on getting started in homeschooling, though not the one by Rebecca Rupp that I was hoping to find (maybe I'll get that on Amazon if I win that GC?), and another on homeschooling kids with special needs, and a third on what kids should know at each age and stage.

Chloë checked out a few books, too, and then we picked out an audiobook for the kids to listen to whenever there's time. We chose Little House on the Prairie, which I loved to read as a young girl her age. I couldn't find any audiobooks I was interested in there, but I'd like to listen to some while I do my knitting and such. I know I can download more from the library's website, so I'll have a look-see later to see what I can find. Have you ever listened to an audiobook? Do you like it?

Upon our return, I found Rob in the kitchen, cleaning up and cooking dinner. I had thought he'd already fed the kids before Cub Scouts, but apparently not! It smelled wonderful, but it was going to be a while, so I started the kids in on their audiobook. They sat around behind me in chairs and cuddled up on the floor in blankets, listening to the story with various levels of interest. I'm not sure Sophia is into it, but I caught Chloë reading one of the books she checked out when she was supposed to be listening, so... I'm not sure it will hold their interest!

Oh, before I went to the library, I talked a little bit with the kids about homeschooling next year, and what they want to learn. Sophia, no surprise, wants to learn more about birds. I told her I'd send her to her grandma. Next! (I jest.) Chloë wanted to focus on art and music (eek!), and learn more about taking care of animals. Jack wanted to learn about cars and boats. Shocker! That will all be fun; we can definitely do that. I just can't wait!!

I plan to be semi-structured with homeschooling. I want Sophia to learn to read more - she's definitely ready - over the course of the next year, and I want Jack to improve drastically. I will work on all the core subjects, but we will also have things like Field Trip Friday (maybe, I don't want to be too rigid about that), Library Day, etc. 

Also, I want to take a whole different approach to our eating style. I'm all into the environment, and yet I don't practice what I preach where food is concerned. As we use up the stockpile that I developed mostly in February, I want to replace those over-processed, "fakey" foods with natural, sometimes organic (but I'm not a stickler) and definitely local foods. Eating local is very important to me. We'll hit the Farmer's Market as often as we can, getting fresh meats and seafoods, produce - and there's even an organic market there, too. We'll go to the berry fields and pick our own, as well as beans and whatever else I can find. I want to learn to freeze and can our produce, and eat what's in season locally as much as possible. I'm way excited about the prospect. It will not only be great for the environment, but it'll be much better nutrition and might help with the kids' ADHD-whatever thing, as well. And surely, it'll be much more delicious than something out of a box, right?

Rob suddenly remembered that he had to go to work, leaving me to finish dinner while the kids listened to their story. D'oh! He jumped up and left, quick, fast and in a hurry. I miss him already. The kids ate well, and then I sent them off to bed, quite late. Quite late.

I'm all amped up about homeschooling right now. I feel like, with another cup of coffee, I could stay up all night researching it some more! I kid, I kid.

In the morning, Sophia's supposed to stay home with me and then go in at 0900 and register for kindergarten... but guess what? We're going to march in there and inform them of our intent to homeschool, instead! I'm sure they'll be surprised, since I had originally told them it would just be Jack.

This homeschooling thing is going to be So. Much. Fun. I can't wait!

Fin. 
  

 

 

Friday Fragments

Link up with Mrs. 4444 if you're fragmenting today!

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This has been another crazy-busy week, so I'm going to combine my Friday Fragments post with an update of what's been going on and what's to come...

Yesterday, I had to cancel most of my plans, because I had a terrible migraine all day. I slept most of it off, since I hate the way my migraine meds make me feel. Tylenol helped me get through the rest, but it's not enough. Maybe I should go back to the headache clinic and get something else.

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Jack had his ultrasound to look for, um, his missing right testis yesterday. His dad picked him from school and took him to that, so I don't kow all the details other than that they found it and it looks like the blood flow to the area is normal. That's the important stuff, anyway, right? So here's to hopefully having healthy grandchildren... in at least 20 years!

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I finally got out of the house after school yesterday to take Chloë to her Brownies meeting. It was an extra meeting, to make swaps for the girls' upcoming encampment. They made things like mini (fake) S'mores, camp-in-a-bag, and other cute things. Pretty cool stuff. I was disappointed to learn that one girl who has been in the same troop with Chloë for the past four years is dropping out after this year, to make room for other activities, but this is what happens when kids get older, I guess.

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Oh yeah, and Rob took Jack to his Pack meeting last night. He moved up to Tiger level, and got a new patch and pin! I was sorry to miss that, since the Bobcat promotion was so fun. But yay, Jack!

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Wednesday was a busy day. I went out to lunch for a mystery shop with Stephanie and her sweet, 6mo baby Luke. I can't believe that cutie is half a year old already! Time sure flies... The food was good, but our server was a dud. I have yet to do that report, oops. They'll probably yell at me for it, but exhaustion and headaches to make for good report-writing. I'll get on that right after this!

After lunch, Steph and I picked up Chloë from school, to take her to her therapy appointment. Then we went home to meet Jack and Sophia coming off the bus, before whisking them off to two hours of dance classes. The kids and I played with little Luke in the car, while his mama caught a wee nap in the backseat. I was glad she did. And finally, we went to Wal-mart afterward to pick up the kids' glasses. All three are wearing them now:

 

Sophia's are my favorite. She's still learning to keep them on her face and not play with them, so I imagine they may be broken within a week! Hopefully not... but it wouldn't surprise me.

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Wednesday morning, I saw my own prescribing doc and asked him whether he does ADHD meds for the kids, since both Jack and Chloë were diagnosed and given Adderall on Monday. After a lengthy conversation about who diagnosed them and how, etc., he scheduled them to come in next week for a much more comprehensive psychological evaluation, in order to more properly diagnose both the ADHD and Jack's apparent ODD. I feel much more comfortable with that plan, although we did start giving the Adderall yesterday morning. Chloë says it helps her, but I'm waiting to see what her teachers say. And Jack's, since I just got a note home about his behavior, for the billionth time this year, on Tuesday.

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Oh. So the plan is now that I'm going to be homeschooling both Jack and Chloë next year, while Sophia goes to half-day kindergarten at the school. I'd planned just to start with Jack, but Chloë adamantly insisted on being included in the fun. I made sure that they realized that, though we will do lots of fun things, I will expect hard work out of them, and they agreed readily. Sophia wanted to do it too, but frankly, I'm not comfortable with my ability to get her to read. I'm going to work on it, though, and hey, if she's reading before school starts, then maybe things will change. I started off entirely nervous about the prospect, but now most of those nerves have changed to excitement. We CAN do this, and it'll be great!!

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On Tuesday, Rob took the kids to Chloë's ballet class, while I attended the PTA Volunteer Banquet at the school. I did a bunch of volunteer work over the year (and might even do more), but I never log my hours, so I didn't win a volunteer-of-the-month prize or anything. It doesn't bother me - I don't do it for the rewards - but after seeing some of he goodies, I'm thinking maybe I will start logging when I'm in!

Also for the banquet, I wore a dress! I haven't worn a dress in gosh, I don't know how long. It was a black, floor-length, strappy dress. I wore a shawl around it, which Rob said made me entirely too formal for the function, but I didn't care because it covered my bra straps. I can do exposed bra straps with an informal tank top or something, but not dressed up. Tacky! Anyway, a lot of people came up to me and said how good I looked, and how proud they were of me on the weight loss (173 lbs so far). I was a bit overdressed and uncomfortable, but I do think I looked good in the dress, and I will wear it again. Soon. (I should knit myself a little bolero or something, though, because the shawl was a pain in the butt to keep positioned right. Or maybe just get a shawl pin??)

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As for today, the plans are: two childcare center mystery shops, a pancake restaurant shop (I'm hoping Rob will go with me, but I may have to go alone if he's tired from working all night), a party store shop, the Parents of Gifted Children workshop at the school, and possibly volunteering at Bingo night at the school. No, movie night. I have it wrong in my calendar; pretty sure it's movie night. I like doing the concessions - the money and popcorn part - so hopefully I can get that job again.

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Saturday is going to be crazy, too. First thing in the morning, I'm supposed to be doing a 5K-run/1-mile walk (I'm doing the walk, not ready for the 5K yet) in support of our local Girl Scout council. It's my first-ever such event, and I'm excited about it. Plus, I paid $15 to enter, so I really do want to go.

Unfortunately, just a little while after I'm supposed to be there, Chloë is supposed to be checking in for the Girl Scouts' Powderpuff Derby. Not sure how that is going to work, since we don't have enough carseats for all three kids in both cars. I wanted them to come watch me "race," and I also want to watch Chloë's car race (it's not made yet, or I'd post a picture), so that stinks.

After the races, I'm hoping Rob will take the kids to the craft make-and-take at Michaels. I'd take them, but since I think it's a Mother's Day project, I want to wait and be surprised!  I mean, it really doesn't do to help make your own present, does it?

And then in the afternoon, I'll be going to my first support group meeting for weight loss surgery patients. I have to laugh, because they're holding it at Jason's Deli. I mean, why not have it at the park or somewhere where food isn't the focus? I'll probably just get a drink...

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Sunday, we'll have a little bit of deja vu, because Sophia is going to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese for the little girl who came to her birthday party at CEC this past Sunday! And I know, I know, I still haven't posted pictures of that, but I have over 100 to whittle down! Maybe I'll just throw the whole lot up on Facebook and call it a day. Maybe. Did I mention that one of Sophie's teachers came to her birthday party? That was pretty cool; we've never had that happen. She let me take her picture, but she insisted it not show up online anywhere!

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I haven't been keeping track of cute kid quotes lately (bad Mama, I know), so that's it for me. Long enough though, isn't it?? Hope you all have a great weekend.

Fin.

TWIR: Thursday, Music & Art Night

Thursday, I wasn't able to sub, because I had to stay home with sick Jack.

Sick Jack was feeling much better, so we decided to run around a little bit, around late morning, after he'd watched a video or two on the couch.

The goal was to get both the Toy Story and Toy Story 2 Blu-Ray/DVD combo packs. And I had a VERY good deal to get them, too: Toys 'R Us had them on sale for $16.99 each when you bought both, plus I had a $10-off coupon for both from the Disney Movie Rewards website, plus each combo back was supposed to include a movie ticket for Toy Story 3, coming out later this year! An EXCELLENT deal.

Since I had been reading up on the Hip2Save website all morning while Jack rested, I knew that many of the TRU stores were out of these combos, unfortunately. However, I also knew who DID have them in stock and would price-match them to TRU.

So.

I called TRU, and the woman who answered said, "Oh, yeah, we have plenty of both, come on in."

So we came on in, only to find that they did not, in fact, have Toy Story 2. At all!

I was pissed! And I let the manager know it. He tried to tell me that the number I called wasn't his store, but I showed him my phone, pressed redial, and it rang right up to the front desk four feet away from us. So uh, yeah. Take that.

There was really nothing he could do, despite the fact that I had driven 15 minutes away ONLY because I'd called and been told they had them in stock, so he just said "I'm sorry" and sent me on my way. He could have done more than that, in my opinion, but it is what it is, so we left.

We stopped home to get the ad that I'd forgotten, and I called Best Buy to make sure they still had them in stock. They did. It was around the corner, so we rushed right over. Only, when I tried to use my coupons, for $10 off each, they balked. They called it "double-dipping" and said I couldn't use that AND the price-match. Really? That makes absolutely no damn sense. If I could go to TRU right now and get the same merchandise for that price AND use my coupons, then why should I go to Best Buy? Isn't the whole point to get me in the store with the best possible price? It makes NO sense! But they efused to let me use the coupons, so I took them and left.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take my ad with me. BUT, I get two newspapers, so I went home to get the second one. It was at this point that Jack's tummy troubles returned, and he barely had time to get to the bathroom before exploding. Poor kid! While he was in there, I called up Best Buy corporate to question them on their price matching and coupon policy, and they said it was up to store discretion to allow it. Stupid! But I already seriously hate Best Buy, for ten-hundred other reasons, so really it's not a shocker that they suck on this score, too.

I called Target to make sure THEY would allow both price-matching and coupons (they do), and to make sure they had both movies in stock (they did), so once Jack was squared away, we ran down there. I mean, I REALLY wanted this deal, y'all.  I also had 9 coupons for a free 20-oz Coke, from using My Coke Rewards points (if you drink Coke and don't use the points, why?? I mean, send me your points, please!), so I gathered up 9 bottles of soda, and the two movies.

We had to go to Customer Service (or Guest Services, whatev) to do the price-matching, which I'd never done before. I was kind of nervous. And the CSR was really quite grumpy, as they often seem to be at Target. Go figure??  But after they figured out how to ring it all up - which, apparently, they don't do very often either - I had my two movie combos and 9 Cokes for just $15 including tax - AND two free movie tickets to boot. Super sweet!!

Jack didn't know I had gotten the movies, since he wasn't really paying attention to the whole thing and was off in his own little world, so I kept that secret from him. Once home, we went upstairs so I could work on laundry and the kids' Easter baskets some more. I sent him to his room, since he was feeling better, to work on picking up all his books and laundry. He tried not to notice that I was working on Easter baskets right in front of him - after all, though I'd made it clear at Christmas time that there is not a Santa, I never spelled out the Easter Bunny for them - but eventually, he just stood there, grinning and asking questions about what I was doing. Hee. He didn't care! He just wants Easter to hury up and come so he can get his basket! 

I gave each of the girls a Toy Story DVD combo in their baskets, and I gave him a mini-monster truck Hot Wheels thing. They each received a Webkinz, a bunch of candy, a couple other small toys... and some more candy. I'm really going to have to monitor the candy intake this year. Sophia would eat all hers in one sitting if we let her, and with Jack's faceful of cavities,... oy, vey!

So.

After Jack fetched me the tape so I could get the cellophane wrapped around the baskets tightly, I was going to get started on folding some more laundry. Only... the boy came over to me and lay down on the bed next to me, and he was so irresistible, I had to lie down and snuggled up next to him... and we fell fast asleep. Sound, sound asleep. Good thing Daddy came home to get the girls from the bus, because neither of us really wanted to get p at that point!

Daddy let the two of us sleep - I think he took a picture, but it's on his phone - a while longer, while he took care of the girls. There was no immediate after-school activity, no Brownies, no dance class, nothing, but we did have Chloë's little show to go to at school at 1800. And Rob knew I wanted to get there a bit early, so he woke us up at 1715 to go.

I looked like I had just rolled out of bed - and, well, I did, but I didn't really care. At that point, I was starting not to feel too well myself. It was all I could do just to get there. So even though Chloë was supposed to dress up like a movie star, she pretty much just put on a dress, and we called it good. Most of the other kids weren't really dressed like movie stars either, so it didn't matter a bit.

The kids arrived one by one for their show, for which they'd been rehearsing for at least a couple months. I guess since they came back from Christmas break, maybe. It was called, oh, I'm forgetting now, but something to do with Hollywood. "Lights, Camera, Action" maybe?

They sang "Lights, Camera, Action" at the opening and close of the show, along with the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song, Beyond the Sea, and a couple others I'm not remembering. And I lost my program. :( Which, by the way, was most impressive in that they actually got the "ë" right in her name! That's a first, they NEVER do it at her school.

After the Third Grade music show, we walked down to the library to see the Art Show. There were maybe a dozen art works on display from each grade, and Chloë was selected to have one of her pieces on display! It was the same one as was shown at the Norfolk Airport, which, sadly, we never made it down to see. But here was our chance, and I was so glad. First thing into the library, and Sophia crawled up on the bench with the stuffies. I guess she was tired. 

But that was until she saw the elaborate spread that had been laid out, down the center of the library. Holy cow, they really went all out! There were cookies, and pretzels, and chocolate-covered strawberries, and cheesy poofs, and all manner of goodies, all over the place. SO. MUCH. JUNK. FOOD. Oh, my. And we hadn't eaten dinner yet! The kids' eyes were as round as saucers, though, as they loaded up their plates with goodies. I tried to be good and ate some cheese, crackers and hummus, but I did manage to sneak in a cookie, too. I should NOT have eaten that... but the hummus was good, at least!

 

Finally, we made it past all that food, and found the Third Grade art on display. And there was Chloë's artwork, right in the middle. And behold, it was good. Very, very good! I couldn't believe it, nor could Rob - we were both so impressed. She did such a great job. I didn't know she had it in her, really, I didn't! Awesome job, Chloë Raine!! Mom and Dad are so proud of you!

You know, she is forever telling me that Music and Art are her favorite subjects, but I haven't really paid much attention or encouraged that too much, since it seems like reading is really her thing. But now, I have to sit up and take notice! I mean, don't y'all think her "Matisse Me" is quite good??? I especially love the background colors, and the placement she used. The orange and yellows seem to be in exactly the right spot... it's really "resolved" for me. I love it. I truly do.

So after that, I went upstairs to work on the laundry, but I was utterly exhausted by that point, and starting not to feel well. I restarted the dryer, because the clothes were still wet, and then I sat down to wait for it to run its course. That was at 1930, and I didn't wake up until 12 hours later, at 0730 on Friday morning!

Next up: Friday!

Fin.

  
  

 

 

TWIR: Wednesday, Literacy Night And Lucky Me!

On Wednesday, I'd already planned to take the day off, so it was not a disappointment when I didn't get any calls to come in and sub. But now, I've figured out that I CAN work, as long as it's a short shift that will allow me to get home before the kids. I don't know, though, since I seem to be scheduling everything for that Wednesday off, I might just keep things this way.

I puttered in the morning after getting the kids on the bus - no, actually, I think I snoozed - until it was time to get up and get moving. I had a mystery shop that entailed taking our new kitty Star to the vet, way on the north side of Norfolk. It paid VERY well, so the distance was definitely worth it, and I picked up two fast food shops as long as I was going to be out that way. Might as well make it worth my time, y'know?

We were about 10 minutes late getting to the vet, because I misjudged the traffic. No one said a thing, though, which was a relief, because I HATE being late. Poor Star was meowing out of her skin the whole way to the vet, and she was yelping like crazy to get out of her kennel. When we were finally taken into an exam room, I let her out. She skulked around the room for a few minutes before finally opening a cupboard and hiding in there until he doctor came to see her. In between the vet and the vet techs taking a look at her, she'd go back and hide in that cupboard every time! Poor skeered kitty.

Everything went well, and she received a few shots that she didn't like, including rabies. I got her on heartworm and flea preventative, too - all reimbursed! Very cool. I need to pick up another shop for Tinkerbell, and then the pets will be all taken care of. Sweet.

Just after we'd arrived at the vet, the school nurse called to tell me that Jack had puked up his lunch in the cafeteria, and could I come pick him up? Well, no, actually, I couldn't... so I called Rob at his thing (he's not at work at the moment, off doing something else) and asked if he could go get his son. It took some wrangling, but finally he was able to get over there and get him. The poor kiddo had a low-grade fever and had had an accident, too. Very upset tummies. It's been going around.

So with Jack in good hands with his daddy at home, I went off to do my fast food shops. The first went okay, and then the second, oh boy, it did not. The manager came out and argued with me for a good ten minutes over the coupon that I wanted to use, that I ALWAYS use on these shops, and he basically ended up throwing the food at me and not charging me anything. It was pretty bewildering. And definitely NOT the way you want a mystery shop to go down!

I went home, saw my poor sick boy, and turned in my report. There was nothing I could do but say exactly what happened and hope they didn't fire me. Well, not only did they not fire me, but they said that although they couldn't turn in that report and would need me to reshop the location, I'm such a good shopper for them that they're going to pay me for both shops anyway. So yay! Problem solved, more or less.

I stayed home with the sleeping child, while Rob took the girls to their dance classes. I hate sitting at dance class, I really do. I don't know if he hates it, too, but he hasn't complained so far! Well, not much...

As soon as they got home, I raced over to S. Elementary with Sophia, to take her to the preschool system's Literacy Night. She was very excited to go. We've been 'invited' a few times in the past, but I never really knew what it was about, and I blew it off. Her teachers called me up and asked me to attend, though, because we're required to volunteer for 10 hours in the classroom to keep her enrolled, and I was short an hour and a half or so. This program would give me that hour and a half.

It turned out to be a lot of fun, and I'm glad we went! Initially, all three children were supposed to go with me, but that was before I knew that Rob would be on days this week and could stay home with the older two. I was glad for some one-on-one time with my little girl. There were four stations: Cooking, Music, Art, and Story Time. We were all split up into four groups, and we received a passport that had to get stamped at each of the four stations. Once our passport was full, the preschool child would receive a free book! Our first station, as you can see, was Cooking. I really don't know what it had to do with literacy... but Sophia had fun, so I don't much care!

At this station, the kids had to frost a cookie and then sprinkle their topping of choice on top. Then they made a graph of everyone's choices. Sophia picked colored sprinkles, but she just grabbed the first thing she saw, so I'm not sure if she really would have picked that if she'd seen the other choices! She ate the whole thing and was quite a mess!

(And yes, I did manage to sneak in some iPhone pictures, but I only got MY child in them, so whoever you are who complained to the school last time, go stick it up your rear.)

I couldn't get pictures of the Music and Story Time sections, because they were more group activities, but she enjoyed both of those immensely. In Story Time, she was picked by her own teacher to go up front and help act out the story, and she REALLY hammed it up. The teachers and I got a big kick out of her. When it was over, another teacher leaned over to me and said, "They picked the right one for the job. Sophia is SO much fun. You're such a lucky mom!"

 And oh, my God, you know what, she's RIGHT!

She is SUCH a handful, because she's so bright and needs near-constant stimulation, but she really is a huge ball of fun. She's a thrill and a delight a minute. As much trouble as she gets into around here - and it's a LOT, because we have to sleep SOMEtimes, and we can't lock EVERYthing up - we really are a lucky mom and dad. She is a joy. She's smart, she's funny - no, hilarious - and she makes me smile. Constantly.

So thank you for that, teacher whose name I do not know. Thank you for the much-needed reminder. I am SUCH a

lucky mom!

After she finished coloring at the Art station, she got to pick out her book. She chose a hardcover one (well, I think they all were), and I think it was "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie," or something quite similar to that. I believe it's still out in the van, where she's been looking at it when we drive. Hopefully she hasn't ruined it quite yet!

 

Sorry about all the weird spacing... can't seem to fix it! Up next, Thursday!

Fin.
  

 

TWIR: Tuesday, Subbing & Running

I don't have any pictures for Tuesday, but it was another busy one. The phone never rang, calling me to sub, the night before, so I had just about given up when it rang about 10 minutes before the kids and I left for the bus stop in the morning. Wow, I could not have phrased that sentence any worse, I think. But it's late, I'm getting tired, and I'm freeeeeezing.

Anyway.

So I put the kids on the bus, and then I went home to get ready. And by that I mean, lolligag around for another half-hour, since I didn't have to be there until 0930, and it was only just after 0800. This shift was 9:30-2:30, just long enough to be considered a full day, but short enough that I would still beat the kids home. Perfect, actually.

It was at the "alternative school," but I didn't have any idea what, exactly, I would be doing. All I knew was the teacher's name and the name of the school. The school was just a few minutes down the road from our house, but it's newly opened, and I had no idea it was even there! Half the school is a middle school, and the other half was a high school. I was to be on the HS side, on the upper level. It turned out, I was subbing in the GED prep class.

This had to be the juiciest, plum-est job available. I would take it again in a heartbeat! Really, there is no teaching involved, whatsoever. Because these are the kids who WANT to be there, more or less, to get out of school and on with their lives, they were more or less self-motivated. All they had to do was check in, work on their prep tests, and check out. They came in and out at various times of the day, got right to work, and left only for lunch.

My job was to watch them, float around the room and make sure no one was sleeping (it happened), and try and help them if they had problems on their tests.

A lot of them had problems with the math portion of their prep tests, and hey, guess what? I'm a math and sciences person. Once the other part-time "teachers" there realized this, they pretty much let me handle all the kids questions, while they relaxed and enjoyed a little downtime. I preferred it this way, much better than sitting there watching the clock for five hours.

And so, help I did. It was really very rewarding. I enjoyed the assignment a great deal. One young man had a terrible time with percentages. He just didn't get it. I sat down and worked through the problem with him, one by one, step by step, giving him little tips and tricks that have always helped me with my math work. We worked on a problem until I was sure each step made sense to him, before going on to the next one. At the end, he looked at me and said, "You have made this clearer to me than it's ever been in my life." That just made my day!

Another kid needed help with one question after another. The other teachers, I could tell - because, um, they said so, pretty much - were expasperated with his constant need for attention, but he really just needed help. They weren't sure whether he truly didn't get it - and if that's he case, he should go back to regular school - or if he just needed the interaction. As for me, it was obvious that he truly did not get it. Could not figure it out on his own. But it wasn't for me to say, so I just sat and helped him as much as he needed it. And truly, there is nothing better than watching someone who is struggling and seeing that moment when the lightbulb goes on for them. I love that moment so much.

Oh, and I got hit on at least three times, which was good for my self-esteem. Of course, these were teenaged boys, so I completely ignored the advances... but still, flattering!

At the end of the day, all the kids waved good-bye to me, and I waved at them. Good luck to all of you on your tests, out there! And good luck in life...

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Rob was there when I got home from school, or just after. He went down to get the kids from the bus, which I love.

The kids had their after-school snack, and then it was time for Chloë to go to Ballet. I'm pretty sure I took a nap while he took all three kids to dance class to let me have some rest, which was pretty awesome of him. I guess I'll keep him, even if he still doesn't have his motorcycle license!!! But let's not go there...

So after everyone came home and woke me up, I had three mystery shops to do. The kids started their homework while I got my paperwork together, but soon it was time to go.

Our first stop was at the Walgreens I'd gone to the day before, to pick up my "deals" notebook that I'd left behind, and to do a return. I'd bought two things on one receipt, both of which had a mail-in rebate attached to them (the Olay deal I neglected to mention in the last post, oh well). So I needed to return those and have them re-rung on two separate receipts, which entirely confused the poor manager, but we eventually got it all worked out.

Second stop was to the first of two party stores. It all went off without a hitch, and for my required purchase, I continued building my stash of goodies for Rob's 40th birthday bash in a couple of years (he'll be 38 in August). Same with the second of two party stores. I do those shop a lot, and apparently I do a good job on them, because they keep hiring me, eh?

Fourth stop was for dinner, at the big boobs-and-wings chain y'all know and love. Or maybe not love, but that's your call. The food is good, and cheap. We had a good time. The girls all sang to Jack for his birthday, and he had the biggest shit-eating grin on his face over that! That in and of itself made the whole thing worthwhile.

And we we came home, I crashed again, so still, no blogging.

Up next: Wednesday!

Fin.

 

TWIR: Monday, Our Boys Turned Seven

Monday was a crazy day. It was the 7th birthday of our twin boys, Jack (above) and Robby (in heaven). I'd promised Jack that I would bring chocolate cupcakes with no frosting to school, but I didn't have what I needed at home to make them from scratch, nor did I have a mix.

So after putting the kids on the bus and then dawdling for an hour at home, on the computer, then showering and getting dressed and all that fun stuff, I decided I better get off my arse and head to the grocery store! But first, I called Jack's Cub Scout leader to see if I could bring a cake to that night's meeting so we could have a little party there. She said yes! Goody... but that meant more work.

Work I decided not to do. hee. At the grocery store, I ran around as fast as I could, getting a box or two of cake mix for the cuppycakes, a huge ($17!!!!) singing balloon for the boy, plates and napkins for the Tiger cubs, and another $17 for a big sheet cake. I took that to the bakery and had them write "happy 7th birthday, Jack" on it in matching blue colors, knowing full well he wanted a "jet" cake and was going to complain about it. But you know what, sometimes, something's gotta give! And he really didn't seem to care too much about it in the end.

So I ran home and quickly mixed up the cupcakes in my loverly mixer, which took about 1/3 the time it did in my old mixah. And since he wanted NO frosting whatsoever, all they had to do was bake, and I was pretty much DONE. Sweet.

They finished baking, and I probably worked on coupons and stuff in the interim between the timer going off and having to leave for school. In fact, I'm sure I did, because it seems like that's my current obsession and when am I ever going to take the time to knit or crochet again?! Maybe - no, definitely - I'll bring my yarn up with me to Chantilly tomorrow, so I can do that in the car and while we're waiting around for 2030 to play the tag of laser.

Anyway. School. I drove over, checked in, and was immediately swarmed by 18 or 20 hungry first graders, clamoring for a cupcake. Only one or two seemed to care that there was no frosting; the rest were happy just to get CHOCOLATE!!! Jack and a little girl, A, passed them out to each of the classmates, and when they ran out of kids and still had cupcakes left over (and I only brought 24), they gave some kids doubles and a couple to the kids at the next table over. I was so busy chit-chatting with the kids in his class that I didn't really notice they had done this, but I kind of got in trouble by the lunchlady for that, because there weren't enough to share with the whole class. Oops.

Little A, the girl who had helped passed out cuppies, was SO cute. I could have chatted with her all day. She sat right next to Jack, and she kept telling him to eat his chicken, drink his milk, finish his lunch. She must be a big sister, the way she mothered that boy! He didn't seem to mind a bit, though. I think he likes being mommied.

I had my camera there, of course (that's where the top picture came from), so A asked me if she could take a picture of Jack and me together.  It's a horrible angle! My face is definitely NOT that fat. Or chinny. Not anymore. SO don't look at that. And you can totally see all the extra hangy skin on my arms. Ick. Never mind me, just look at my cute kid! Another little girl gave him the Airhead candy that she'd bought outside in the hallway from the SCA fundraiser. 

 

 
Then Jack wanted to take a picture of me, so I let him, and this was it. And then everyone wanted to take a picture, and I wanted my camera back, so I had to nip that in the bud right there!

Lunchtime was over before I knew it, so I just had time to grab one last shot of Jack carrying his not-so-empty tray up to the front. I've been letting him, and the girls, buy lunch for the past two weeks. Partly because he LOVES buying lunch, and partly because I've been too lazy to make PB&J sandwiches (I know, how lazy can you BE?), and partly because we've been out of juice boxes. But we have some now, so back to bagging it next week.

Chloë's lunchtime overlaps with Jack's by five minutes, so I popped over to see her, too. She was pretty happy about that, as you can tell. But oh! Those teeth! I seriously can't wait until they're all grown in... I didn't have much time with her before I had to leave and get on with my day. I'd have stopped in to see Sophia too, but she gets SO terribly upset when I leave, and I didn't want to wreck her day.

After that, I ran some errands. My first stop was at Walgreens, where I picked up the kids' Easter baskets, some eggs for filling with all those jellybeans I've gotten, that horrible plastic grass (I know), and a chocolate bunny for each kid. And cellophane wrap for it all. (Which makes me wonder, why is "cello" the instrument pronounced like "chello," but it's not "chellophane"? Make sense, English!) And I got these three cleansers for FREE. Or I will have them for free, after I've mailed in the rebate for them. See, they were each $2.50 on sale, and I had $2.50 total in coupons for them, making them $5, and there's a $5 SC Johnson mail-in-rebate for 3 products. Get it? Good, I thought so. Whee for free stuff!

I stopped 'round the corner at Target after that, to get some more stuff free or cheap. A beach towel for 50¢ (not huge or the best quality, but hey, fiddy cents is fiddy cents, and we only have five towels to speak of - now six), another Johnson's Soap Buddies for FREE with coupon, and another soap deal they wouldn't let me get. Eh, 2 outta 3 ain't bad.

The only reason I'd gone to Target was because it was right around the corner from Party City, where I needed to get more balloons. Every year for Robby's birthday, we get a bunch of baby blue balloons and send them up to heaven. This year, I really wanted to get a lot of people together - although I didn't know whom just yet - so I bought two dozen blue balloons. Twice what I normally get.

Rob came home, after I brought home all the balloons and things, and came up to where I was getting out of the shower and starting to put together the kids' Easter baskets. Not that it was two weeks early or anything. We decided it would be a fun idea to meet the bus with those two-dozen blue balloons and hand one to each kid coming off the bus. They could help us sing to Robby and send the balloons off to heaven!

So that's what we did. Everyone had a blast with it. The kids came running over, begging, "Can I have a balloon? Can I have one? Can I have one?" I kept hollering out, "Don't let them go yet! Don't let them go yet!" while Rob cut them apart from the knotted cluster they'd become. When everyone had their balloons...

...we sang "Happy Birthday" to Robby - although some people said "Jack" and I don't know WHAT some others were saying - and then we let them go! And I have to say, it was pretty damn awesome.

 
  
  
Up, up, and away!! Everyone stayed there and watched them go as long as they could, until they were out of sight. The kids were yelling about seeing one here, seeing one there... it was a lot of fun. Best balloons-to-Robby launch we've had yet.

Of course, not everyone "got" it, and this one little girl didn't want to let hers go. I felt kind of bad, everyone was yelling, "let it go! let it go!" but she kept clinging to it. Finally, she let go and watched it zoom out of sight.

One last look, before they arrived in my little boy's hands. Or the next neighborhood over. Who knows?

After racing home, Jack came into the kitchen to discover his huge, singing balloon. He loved it! Sophia did, too.

She liked it so much, she kept hitting it to make it "sing," and it popped! You would think such a ($17!! I still can't get over that I paid so much for it) balloon would last 'til Kingdom Come, but no.  So I ran back to Farm Fresh to exchange it, and they gave me a new one, no questions asked. I'm in there all the time, though; they know I'm honest and true. This one better last at least until Sophie's birthday next month!

The boy couldn't wait another minute to open presents, so... we did! The first one was this bag from Mom & Dad. He knew what it was... Rob put it in the gift bag, about 10 sizes too big! Thing was bigger than Jack!

He was there when I picked this up at Target - remember those coupons on their website for $5 off a $25 Hot Wheels purchase? - and this one made him forget all about the remote control helicopter he'd been asking for. Since he'd dropped that, I dropped it too, and gave him what he seemed to want. I think he was happy. Can you tell?

For a moment, he forgot about the other presents waiting, and dove right in to take out all the pieces. It's a truck that you can build and take-apart and rebuild and... you get the picture. He liked it.

But just for a moment, and then he remembered there were other packages waiting. This was another one from us, a Hot Wheels monster truck. But you know what? He didn't want it! He seriously didn't want it! I said, "Okay, buddy, then I'll give it to another little boy." He looked at me, shrugged, and said, "Okay." So guess what? I will!

Time for Grandma's present!

 

Lots and lots of books! I'm still trying to get him to read one to me, but he refuses. I know he can... he just won't. I have yet to find the magic secret that will break through that stubborn refusal and get the boy to READ ME A BOOK!!

After Jack played a while with his truck, the mailman rang the bell and brought another package, this time from Aunt Stacey (my sister). She was SO delighted that her present came in time for his birthday! The first things out of the box were these bubble wands for each of the kids, for a "Spring" gift. Rob took one look at them and joked that they were really for me, but never mind that... ;)

And this, my friends, was a score. It was just a little helicopter, but as you can tell by the loving look on his face, it's exactly what he really wanted. A chopper. He instantly declared it his favorite present, and I didn't mind a bit. As long as he was happy. That's really what it's all about, right?

She sent some Matchbox cars, too, for his little collection. His BIG little collection, I should say. I wonder how many little cars he would have if we ever got them all together. At least a hundred, maybe two...

After dinner and homework, it was time to head to Cub Scouts. All five of us went, for no reason other than it was his birthday. They had their little meeting, and I'm completely blanking on what they did at the moment, and the whole time all the little boys were focusing on the cake in the corner!

I don't know what he's doing here. Counting the candles, to make sure there were seven? No idea. I just remember concentrating on making sure no one got burned!

Everyone sang. We (I) forgot the "real" camera, so Rob had to make due with his phone. Once again, iPhone to the rescue! That thing ROCKS. I love it to death. Get one!

Anyway, Sophia, unbidden, helped blow out the candles. They were "trick" candles, but they didn't re-light. Shoot! I just threw them away, since we had nothing to take home the mess. I cut the cake, and Chloë and Miss Beth helped to pass the pieces around to everyone. I even had a smidgen myself - something I could not do this time last year without keeling over - and I did not die!  Just a little, though. It was good, but not worth getting sick over. A couple people had seconds, and then it was time to clean up and go home. 

So we did. A few balloons, a few presents, some singing and cake later, and though he didn't have the big birthday bash at the go-cart track that we'd planned on, he was still happy and satisfied. And I'd call that a success.

Up next, Tuesday!

Fin. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

 
  
  
  

 
  
  
  

 
  
  

 

Ketchup And Mustard, I'm Behind!

Phew. Another busy week.

Besides the usual (school, 3 dance classes on Tuesday & Wednesday, Brownies AND Cub Scouts - the latter of which we ended up missing AGAIN because the boy-child could not stay awake past 1800 and the meetings aren't until 1900 - on Thursday), etc., we've had lots going on.

I had a fun time collecting the money from all the other Brownies and finishing up the troop paperwork to finish the cookie sale this week. I finally made all the deposits and turned in everything yesterday, so I'm hoping I did it all right. We'll see. Last year I messed up the patches, and I'm not entirely sure I did things correctly this time! So now it's finally, finally over... well, except for the last few boxes our Leader still has, to sell. But we received enough in donations to cover those in the meantime.

Also on Thursday, we went to the Scholastic Book Fair at the kids' school. I volunteered there on Monday (think I told you that already) and was looking forward to picking out our favorites last night. I was going to buy ONE book per child, but I ended up buying 9 total!

Here's our list:

Hot Wheels: Stunt Show - (which I can't even find on the Scholastic website; weird) a level 1 Reader for Jack to read to ME. He keeps saying he can't read, but he can. He's just soooo stubborn.

Ouch! How your body makes it through a very bad day - which is NOT the same cover as the ones pictured on all the links I Swagbucks-searched for, but they must be related somehow, eh?  Jack is totally digging this book; he's very "into" what goes on inside the body and what all the parts look like and everything. I picked out this book for him at the volunteer session on Monday.

 

There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Chick! - which Jack and Sophia both picked out, independently.  

 

Skippyjon Jones and the Big Bones - Had to get this; these books are so funny, and I opted to get The Pout-Pout Fish last time instead. I'm still wishing I'd just gotten both! 

Duck at the Door - Rob picked this book for the kiddos. I haven't read it yet.

 

Barbie in A Mermaid Tale: A Storybook - most obviously picked out by Sophia, who is having a love affair with Barbie right now, and also with stickers, which it contains. She's always loved stickers, though, and she sits and goes through my sticker box whenever she thinks she can get away with it!

 

Fluffy and Baron, another book Sophia picked out, which I also haven't read yet. Apparently it's based on a true story.

 

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days - Chloë's BFF, Sammy, told me about these books at the Fall Book Fair, and I missed out, running to the library after the books had all been packed up. I really wanted the school to get credit for the purchase, so I held out until this Spring Book Fair. Sammy really likes the books and thought Chloë would enjoy them, too. I told her she could pick out two of them, since they have AR tests associated with them, and although she always has her nose in a book, she infrequently takes the AR tests at school. I'm always pushing her to do so, but it seems she couldn't care less! 

 
Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls: Stage Fright  - Instead of a second Wimpy Kid book, Chloë begged for this one. Since there was an AR test attached, I relented and let her put back one of the others. She's been reading BOTH books ever since, even though technically I only gave each of them one of their books, planning to save the other for their Easter baskets! So, I stole it back tonight and am making her read Wimpy. :P

In all, the nine books cost us an average of $5.10, after my $5 credit for volunteering on Monday. I guess that's a pretty good deal. Hopefully Sophie won't take her Barbie book into the tub with her and rip it to shreds, like she did the last time!!

Speaking of Chloë and BFFs... she came off the bus completely sobbing yesterday because another BFF, "K," had written about her that she was annoying, in her diary, and Chloë saw it. The way she describes it, it almost seems like K had meant for her to see it, which I thought was a little too "mean girl" for 3rd grade! I don't know, but we really didn't handle it at all. She came running into my arms when Rob brought her back from the bus stop (he's on days since Wednesday), and I just held her while she cried her heart out. Rob and I just looked over our shoulder at each other, while I mouthed, "I don't know what to do!" and rubbed her tiny back. She eventually ran out of steam and has seemed to forget about it, so I don't even know whether I should bring it up again. Thoughts?

Let's see, what else...

Oh! I subbed Friday afternoon, 1200-1500, for the first time. A pack of wild fifth graders, about 80% of whom were bigger than I am, or at least as big. How does that happen? I'm used to little ones. I daresay I was far less intimidated than I was a decade ago when I subbed in Tampa, freshly out of college and not yet a frequently-yelling mother, but still, it was hard to keep this class quiet. At first, they were shouting at each other, using all kinds of filthy language, and threatening to throw chairs and stuff. I even got hit hard by one kid, but it was accidental, so I didn't really do anything about it.

But all it took was starting to write names on the board - and threatening to skip lunch! - to get them back under control. By the end of the day, several of the kids proclaimed that I was the "best" and "most fun" sub ever, because I actually did things with them instead of just yelling and throwing more busy work at them. Indeed, when we got our work done early, I let them go outside and run for 20 minutes. I could tell they really needed it. And another time, when work was finished early, I let them go in front of the class and read a poem they'd written, or do a silly dance, or whatever. The whole class was cracking up, even me. So, it was an okay day. But I definitely earned my keep!

Linda and I went out on a lunch shop together on Wednesday, and the family and I did another shop for dinner that night. Both were really good; I'm trying to keep my hand in that, even with everything else we've got going on these days.

Sophia had a field trip to - of all places - Krispy Kreme on St. Patrick's Day, and they had a "green day" party. I was supposed to send in a green snack, but all I could find were Del Monte jello and fruit bowls in the snack stockpile. I'd forgotten until it was too late to go out. Apparently no one ate them, and the teachers stuck them in the fridge; I kinda wish they would send them back home, so I could feed them to MY kids!!

Also on Wednesday, I took Chloë and Jack to the dentist. Jack had two of the eight cavities filled and seemed to do well. I haven't heard him say a single word about it, so I guess it didn't hurt too much or anything. Chloë had her orthodontic records started - molds of her teeth taken, pictures, etc., - because she has a crossbite that we need to get fixed. Then, she had a frenectomy, to cut the extra thick upper frenulum she has/had (the tissue connecting the gums to the lips), which was causing her teeth to grow in funny. We had to shell out beaucoup bucks for that visit, and we're only just getting started! So I'm kind of nervous about that...

The only other thing I can thing to mention is that I'm now down 170 pounds!! I've lost about half my old self, now.  I need to get down to at least 164 before I can schedule the abdominoplasty, but I plan to lose 10 more before I even go in to try, to account for clothing and eating /drinking that morning. Hopefully another month or so will do it!

And that is the week that was. Tomorrow's another busy day!

Fin.

The End.

It's over, it's over, the cookie sale is over!!!!

I'm just a leeeeetle bit excited about that. We still have a variety of 12 packages or so to sell, but our Troop Leader took them off my hands and plans to get rid of them herself, and the donations we've received throughout the course of the sale will more than pay for those in the meantime. All I have to do now is collect payments from half the girls, submit the report, and then by Wednesday night, life can return to normal! Yippee!

In the meantime, here's what's up:

Rob worked all day Saturday. The kids were supposed to be cleaning their rooms all day while I cleaned other stuff, but I'm utterly worn-down and exhausted, so I rested for most of the day.

I'd told the kids if they got their rooms clean, they could pick ANY TOY THEY WANTED from my burgeoning toy closet. You'd think that would be a pretty good motivator, since there are some pretty sweet toys in there now, but nooo... Jack and Sophia did diddly squat. Zip. Zero.

Chloë, on the other hand, took that opportunity and ran with it. She cleaned up her room lickety-split, down to every last thing being picked up off an extremely cluttered floor. I had no idea what she might pick, so I was surprised when she chose the kitty-cat Dunk-adoo or whatever it's called, that I got on clearance at Tarjay last week.

The girl is OBSESSED with kitties!!  Sophia wanted the same thing, so she pitched a bit of a fit about Chloë getting it, but too bad, so sad - she didn't clean her room! This is the sad, pre-dunk kitty.

This toy is utterly stupid! You put it in a bag filled with water, let it soak up, and presto-chango: NOTHING HAPPENS. Except it gets wet. Haha! Chloë didn't care, though; she kept insisting it got bigger, but really? No. It didn't. At all.

We were going to go to church in the evening after Rob came home, but he didn't make it on time, and I was too tired to go by myself with the kids. So that sucked, since we are seriously trying to go more... as far as the rest of the evening, I have no idea, other than that Chloë became suddenly ill. She had a headache that I'm sure was a migraine, she was dizzy, she puked several times, and had major coughing fits. She may or may not have had a fever... but it was all-but-the-coughing gone by morning, so maybe it was just some odd bug she picked up at school?

Sunday morning, we got up bright and early to do a booth sale. Thankfully, Chloë felt fine for that, since it was the last day to sell and we had about 5 cases to get rid of. I went upstairs to shower and found our bedroom completely destroyed. Sophia was undoubtedly the culprit, and I had a conniption about it. Seriously, I was beside myself!  I f**king hate that. It makes me crazy that she ruins her own stuff, doesn't take care of anything, lets it all go to pot... but stay out of MY room and don't touch MY stuff!!!! Needless to say, the locks are now back on the doors. 

When I get my energy back, hopefully by Wednesday when I plan NOT to sub, I am going to go into their rooms (including Chloë's which is now a huge mess again! WTF!) and Clean. Them. OUT. Anything that is broken, has parts missing or is just plain a stupid toy, I'm getting rid of. Anything I never see them play with, into the Freecycle pile. Trash, Freecycle, look out - here I come!! They have way too much crap in there, so it's kind of understandable that they might have a hard time keeping their rooms cleaner, but they ... eh, really, never mind about that. I'm sick of talking about it right now!

********

So, back to the booth sale. It was at Kroger, which has two entrances, so to maximize our chances of getting rid of all the cookies, I split the two girls up. I had two tables, so we just divvied up the remaining cookies evenly, 30 to each girl. After the two hours, Chloë had manage to sell all but one of hers, including a couple that we ran down and pilfered from the other girl's table! L. had sold all but 8. So, it was a pretty successful last-day sale, I think, since SO many people turned us down for having already purchased their limit.

After a quick run around the corner to deposit some mystery shopping pay checks and mail-in rebate checks (they really do come, so do those!), we drove to the church where the Brownies meet with the remaining 9 boxes. The church was letting us sell there, but I couldn't stay because Sophie had a birthday party to attend. I handed them over to our leader and went off on my merry way without a SINGLE BOX OF COOKIES to worry about selling. Yee-haw!!

In the end, I sent Rob with Sophia to the birthday party, at the bowling alley, for a little boy in her preschool class. I was still so mad at her, for destroying our room, so I didn't want to spend the entire 2-3 hours with her yelling and being upset. Instead, I sic'd Chloë and Jack back on room-cleaning duty and took a nap.

Jack has been asking for this remote-control helicopter for his birthday for the past couple of weeks. I've been reluctant to get it, because (a) I already have some toys for him in my stash and (b) I don't want to shell out the $$ just to have him break it, so I made him a deal: Clean up your room TODAY, and I will get the helicopter you want. Don't clean it TODAY, and you don't get it.

Long story short, I am NOT buying the helicopter. I would have been more than happy to if he would just clean up his farging room, though!!

After my nap, during which time Rob and the demon-child returned, I got to work on the killer deals at the drugstores (CVS, Wags & Rite Aid) for this week. I knew there would be some good ones, and I didn't want to miss out like I have for the past fortnight or so. It literally took me five hours to assemble my coupons, make my lists, and get ready to go. When I think about that, it's kind of redonkulous - but I wouldn't do it if I didn't completely enjoy "the game"! 

By 9:30 PM, I was ready to go. That's right, I went out that late, and stayed out 'til nearly 0100! I had to use Swagbucks to research all the stores in my area and see which ones would be open until late-o'clock, so I didn't go to my normal stores. Which was kind of good, because I had a lot of deals to do, and I didn't want to irritate the cashiers who see me all the time. Hee.

That went well, and I only missed out on the deals I couldn't do at all because I'd run out of printer ink. Pretty much everything else was in stock, so it bears repeating for the umpteenth time: Try to go on the first day of a sale! I plan to get some ink tonight after Rob gets home, and then hit up Wags again for the remaining 3-4 thigns I couldn't get.  Stay tuned for my Steals and Deals post, next.

********

Today, Monday, I didn't sub because I'd signed up to volunteer at the kids' school all day. I've received at least three calls a day since I got my official letter, so hopefully I'll get called for tomorrow, my first planned day to sub (after Friday didn't work out). I've called SubFinder all evening, but there aren't any jobs yet. Fingers crossed - and that it turns out to be an elementary school, my favorite age group!

I got to school about a half-hour late, since I overslept. I didn't even get a chance to shower or change my clothes or anything! Just grabbed my things and walked out the door.  I guess I passed muster, though, because at least half a dozen people told me how great I looked! I think it was the clothes I was wearing today; they were rather figure-flattering for me. Everyone wanted to know how much weight I'd lost, and the compliments kept flowing all day. It was pretty great, self-esteem-wise!

Unfortunately, I missed Sophia's class. They were leaving just as I'd arrived. I caught sight of Soap looking around, and I'm sure she was looking for me. :( I'd told her last night I would be there, so I felt bad. When she finally saw me, she smiled but didn't say a word, because her class was expected to be quiet as they walked out the door. She didn't cry, though, and she never mentioned it after school, so I imagine my little booboo wasn't too soul-crushing for her.

On the other hand, when Jack came in... Things started off well, anyway. The librarian started off pairing him with another helper, but everyone jumped in to remind her to send him to his mom! He was quite demanding about it, so it was just another little petal off my he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not flower. He was asked to pick a buddy to also be paired with me, and he picked a little boy who was basically mute and had the personality of a shoe. He refused to talk, refused to look at or touch the books, and had no expression on his face. Poor kid; something is obviously "up," there. I sent him to sit down without putting a single book on his wish list. Oh, did I mention that's what I was doing? We volunteers were there to help Pre-K through 1st graders fill out their Book Fair wish lists.

Jack went through the motions of filling out his list, but he really wasn't into it. Instead, he cranked about wanting to go home, hating school, hating to read, blah blah blah. I guess it just wasn't his day, and when he saw Mama, he gave up!  I even showed him some truck and car books, but he had no interest. And then I remembered a book I'd looked at earlier, a bigger and more expensive book that wasn't on the cases the childnen weren't "allowed" to pick from for their wish lists. It's all about the body human and what goes on inside, as well as germs and other things that affect us. A pretty cool book with lots of detailed pictures, and since Jack is always inquisitive about that stuff, I thought he would really enjoy it. I was right. I showed it to him, and he brightened immediately and shouted, "I want that one!!" It's only $10, and I get a $5 credit for volunteering, so completely worth it. I'll pick it up on Thursday, the Book Fair's Family Night, and either stick it in his Easter basket or give it to him for his birthday in a week.

(Holy cow, he's going to be SEVEN in one week!!!)

The rest of the time passed quickly. I really enjoy this particular volunteer opportunity the most, out of all the things I've done for the school. Especially when the neighborhood kids come in and request to be paired with me! That makes me feel good. This one little boy, John, who came up to me at the Burger King cashola night last week and said I was beautiful, walked up to each of us women there and said, "You're beautiful!" He was a riot; we all got a real kick out of him.

Afterward, I had about an hour and a half before the kids came home. I'd planned to clean and be productive, but after talking to my gran'pappy for a half-hour (he'd had another 4-day hospitalization recently, which I was unaware of because of being so busy with cookies) and assuring myself he was fine, I crashed again on the couch. If I didn't absolutely HAVE to get up and got to the bus stop to meet the kids, I would have stayed there, too. It was hard to pull myself up!

After they came home and had a snack, I let them put in a movie so I could lie down some more. Sophie and I snuggled up tight under the blankets on the couch, to watch The Swan Princess, and I fell fast asleep again. I was hoping she would, too, but no such luck. I was vaguely aware that they put in a second movie, Aquamarine, when that ended, and feeling grateful that there was no Cub Scouts meeting tonight. Homework and dinner could therefore be delayed, and my nap extended.

Until, that is, our troop leader showed up to bring me the rest of her daughter's cookie money. Oops! I had a hard time shaking the cobwebs out of my brain, but she was completely understanding, since she's in the same boat with the exhaustion right now. (She's got four kids ranging from 5 to 16 or 17, and her husband is deployed, and she is constantly busy with both Boy and Girl scout duties.) We chatted for a little while; I enjoy her loud, outgoing personality a whole lot. It's easier for me with that kind of person, when they are not a close-close friend, since I tend to be more quiet and reserved in those cases. Plus she's really just very nice!

When she left, Sophia popped in a Veggie Tales and opted to ignore my requests to clean up the living room. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have stood for it, but I was too tired to demand it. Chloë and Jack worked on homework in the kitchen, so I could help them while I made dinner for them. Jack did really well tonight and got his done quickly, but Chloë took forever and a day to finish all her work. She has a science test tomorrow, but by the time she finished all her homework, it was half-past-bedtime, and I didn't want to keep her up to study. That really aggravates me, though... so, I'm not expecting a fantastic test grade tomorrow.

I really have a ton of things I could be doing, but I'm going to blog last night's deals instead. I'm too tired physically, and mentally, I'm once again in Effexor withdrawal mode. Rob picked up my prescriptions the other day, but somehow or another, they have gone missing. I discussed this with the kids, none of whom seemed to know what happened to them, but I gave them the "this is life-or-death for me" speech.  Still, none of them knew where they went. So, it's a mystery, but at least Rob managed to get another emergency fill for me this afternoon. Hopefully he'll be home soon to give me one and get me back on track, but in the meantime, I'm virtually useless. Bah.

I'm off to eat a quick salad and then post about the deals. Sayonara, arrivederci and ciao!

Fin.

 

The Week In Review

So it's been another busy week, and I haven't had much time to post. I'm going to give you the abridged version here, since even though I have some time now, it's already almost 0200, and I have a trillion and one emails and blog posts to catch up on, too!

Tuesday

Okay, seriously, I don't remember what I did during the day, because I didn't put it in my calendar, but I know I was busy every day but today! Chloë had math tutoring after school, but like most days, I had to pick her up early for Ballet. (Once, she told me that her tutor said, "How are you supposed to learn anything?!" but really, no one asked me if Tuesdays and Thursdays worked for us - and they don't!)

I was going to bring my crocheting to Ballet, but I couldn't find the red I was using (thanks to the cat, I'm sure), so I just played Scrabble on my iPhone and read a magazine. Jack napped, Sophie played. After dinner and homework at home, we worked on laundry. Yay.

Wednesday

I had an 0900 appointment to pick up cookies from the cookie cupboard, which I did. I hate to pick up more cookies at the end of the sale like this - it's over on Sunday night - but we had orders to fill. Hopefully we can get rid of the remaining cases tomorrow, but I'm worried about it. We have a booth sale at Kroger, plus the church where we hold our meetings is going to recognize Girl Scouts that day and said we could sell cookies there, PLUS Steph is going to hold a booth sale with her troop and said she'd take some of our cookies to sell at that, too. So, fingers are crossed!

At home, Rob was just getting ready to leave to take the kids to school. Their tardiness has been an ongoing problem since he has been on that job. After that, I decided to take back the job and let him sleep. After all, he has been getting home around 0300-0500 most days. And while it's true that I usually stay up the entire time to wait for him, and it's also true that he can usually go right back to sleep after bringing them to the bus stop/school and I can't, I don't have to stay awake until he gets home. So from now on, I plan to go to bed when I'm tired and get the kids up for school - on time! Except when I don't, like today - but somehow he managed to get them up!

While he was gone, the contractor who we called to get an estimate on some home repairs we can't afford came. I had just gotten out of the shower, so I ran down in my towel and asked him to wait five minutes for Rob, which he did. The fecking homeowner's association, which I absolutely hate, is now fining us $10 a day until we get it fixed. Our only hope is to do the repairs and then appeal to the HA to waive the fines. Only, we still haven't gotten that estimate... guess we'll be going with someone else! As for why Rob doesn't do the work himself, he spent $40 to rent a super-tall ladder (since all the problems are on the second story; he's done the first-story work) from Home Depot, only to get it home and not be able to extend it himself or with my help. That thing was a bear! I was super-pissed about the 40 bucks thrown away, too. Argh.

After he mostly bullshat with the contractor about motorcycles, we went to my 1015 doctor appointment with the shrink who prescribes my meds. Rob usually doesn't come along for those, but since we rarely spend time together these days, what the hey. Everything's going well with my current drug cocktail, so we didn't change anything. Haven't for a long while, now. Hopefully things will stay good going forward, too. Lord knows I need some mental stability, even if it has to come in the form of a pill or three! Anyway, apparently one of the drugs throws off cholesterol and blood sugar, so I have to go in and get more labs drawn for that.

We drove down to Oceana (another Navy base in town) to do a mystery shop at a restaurant in the Food Court. Rob got a steak sandwich, and I had a tuna wrap. It was SO good, and huge, so I took most of mine home. Rob brought the leftovers in the house, which I assumed meant that he was going to put them in the refrigerator... so I was really mad that night when I found my bag of food on a kitchen chair, pushed under the table! Hello!! More money down the drain.

After that, he went to work, and I did whatever I did around the house. I actually think I took a necessary nap until the kids got off the bus. Then the girls went to dance class for two hours, and I still couldn't find that yarn, so I played more Scrabble and read magazines. And played with the kids. It was a really nice day - we've had weather in the 70s this week!! - and the kids wanted to go to the park. I should have taken them, but I was so tired. I remember now, I didn't read, I mostly lay back and snoozed while they played games on my iPhone and listnened to kids music on my iPod.

When we got home, I started making dinner (just mac & cheese and some green beans) for the kids, when Stephanie showed up to babysit. I didn't feel like bringing the kids to Bunco night this time - after all, it's supposed to be my "break time" from them, a night out for ME! Steph and I had negotiated; instead of paying her cash, we were going to swap babysitting for the six My Little Ponys and a Schick razor I'd gotten from my deals and steals shopping recently. Works for me, and for her!

So after we chit-chatted a little while, and I held the wee cute man, she reminded me that I needed to bring dessert to Bunco. Oops! I was going to bake chocolate chip cookies, but I'd forgotten and no longer had time. I sent her up to our very messy bedroom to get something for a snack out of the snack stockpile bin. She came down with two packages of Keebler cookies, and we called it good. (They were not a big hit; I'll have to stick with baking!) Tabitha teased me about bringing cookies that weren't of the Girl Scout variety... I didn't even think of that!

I carried the five chairs she (Tab) asked met to bring, and the cookies, out to the car, said goodbye to the chillens, and left for a couple hours of fun. At Bunco, I had two cups of full-caffeine Diet Coke, which I normally don't drink, so I was in rare form that night! Everyone was laughing at me - I was cracking jokes, dancing, and generally being silly and a bit obnoxious, too. But it was fun, lots of fun, as usual.

Steph and her boys (Tim had come to pick her up) left right away, so I gave Jack his shot and sent the kids to bed. I got more of his meds in the mail, so he's back on the nightly injections again and not liking it one little bit!

That night, I didn't go to sleep at all. The caffeine had me COMPLETELY wired, and I was hyper all night long. I hadn't had a chance to go deal-shopping, so I stayed up and worked the weekly deals for Target, CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens. Several of you have asked me to keep doing those posts, so I will continue just for y'all! ;) (And hopefully I will get to your emails this weekend, too.) Look for a post on that following this one.

Thursday

Rob got home really late, like 0500, and I was still up, so I got the kids ready for school. Unforch, I couldn't find any more juice boxes for their lunches, so I had to wake him to get some out of the stockpile for me. I also had to write a quick letter to Sophie's teachers, so that the neighbor-lady can get her off the bus on the days that I substitute teach, now that I'm good to go.

After they left, I showered and got ready to go deal-shopping. The stores I go to are near Little Creek (the Navy base in town where I go to the doctor), so I was going to go get that lab work done, but then I remembered I was supposed to fast. I hadn't done that... it'll keep 'til next week, I suppose.

I hit Rite Aid and was pretty successful there, and then CVS across the street. Another good trip, although that store is always out of half the deals I go in for. The other CVS in town is too far away to go to on a regular basis, and I don't know if Wags and Rite Aid are nearby, so it's not really cost-efficient to do that. But, I saw recently that a new CVS is coming in just down the road, in the same shopping center where I used to work at Harris Teeter. Woohoo! I can't wait; am I silly for being excited about that? ;)

I did a super-fast Walgreens trip and missed out on half the deals there (go on Sunday, I'm telling you! I keep saying it but not doing it, gah), but still made out pretty well. When I got back in the car, where I'd left my phone, I saw that it was 1257 - and I was due at the school for a meeting at 1300! Eek! I quickly called up and said I'd gotten stuck but was on my way...

Everyone was waiting for me when I arrived. Oops. Couldn't really tell them I was out shopping, so I made another excuse. The meeting was for Jack's IEP eligibility meeting. I had hoped that Rob would be able to attend, since this was the first time he'd had the full scope of evaluations done since he was a two-year-old. After a synopsis was given of the results by his regular teacher, his special ed teacher, his occupational therapist, the social worker, the counselor (not sure of her actual title) who ran his IQ tests, and the vice principal, it was determined that Jack is no longer eligible for services, because he doesn't qualify as "disabled." This is a good thing - it means that the little tiny 31-week preemie who was so far behind at two years old is all caught up now, five years later!

His intelligence testing showed, suprisingly to me and his teachers, that he his completely average across the board, except for slightly above-average in spoken language. We were kind of expecting him to "pop" on the gifted testing, because he really shows an incredible depth of thought in the questions that he asks. To have him be "average", well... I admit, I was disappointed. Hard to say why, exactly, other than that his father and I are both quite intelligent, and it's natural, I suppose, for us to expect that our children would all be the same way. On the other hand, Jack is in no way your average boy, and he certainly has his own gifts. And shortcomings! As do we all.

The difficulty, now, lies in the fact that he is seriously underperforming to his abilities. He seems to possess, I believe, no intrinsic motivation for getting his work done and done well. Granted, he's not even 7 years old and will hopefully develop that over time, but there is no sign of it at this point. He has a terrible time attending to directions given and focusing on task. So, our next step is to get him in to his pediatrician, with the assessments his teacher and I have filled out, and see about a dx for ADD. I'm extremely loathe to medicate him - I really don't want him to be a zombie! - but we will take it one day at a time and see what's what. If he needs help, I'm damn sure going to get it for him, but it won't be without many reservations. Stay tuned...

Halfway through the meeting, I started getting weepy. Not outright sobs or anything, but my eyes kept tearing up like crazy, and I couldn't get them under control. I just feel thoroughly responsible for any of the issues and problems Jack faces, like it's 100% my fault he is the way he is. I don't know whether that's completely irrational, but it's just the way I feel. I don't think Rob has any such ideation, so maybe that's just the "Mom Guilt" that all of us mothers have. It was completely embarrassing to be crying in front of a room full of professionals, though. I hate that! I am so emotional, and I can't stand it. I felt like saying, "I can't help it, I'm bipolar - just ignore me!" but of course I didn't. Everyone was really reassuring, too, telling me they'd be more concerned if I was unemotional about it and didn't care. And when I said that it seems Jack butts heads with me more than anyone else, and it's the hardest for me to get him to "do" things, like his work and reading and stuff, they all reminded me that this means he is most assured of his mother's love. I'll always be there for him, no matter what - and they won't. That helped.

Anyway...

In tears, I left and called my father back. He has long been telling me that he and his soon-to-be-fifth-wife, Kathy, would come up for Jack's 7th birthday this month. First, it was going to be the weekend right before his birthday. Then, they planned to get married that weekend and would come the following week. So I finally booked his party for the following week, only for Dad to call and tell me that they'd come the first week after all. What! I asked him to make up his damn mind (not in so many words) so I could get the invitations out... only to talk to him today and find out they're not going to come up until April now. Watch they don't even come at all. Whatever. I've long since learned not to tell the kids when he plans to come...

I didn't have much time until Jack and Sophie got off the bus - another tutoring session for Chloë - so I puttered until then. After the arrived home, I whisked them off for more deal-shopping! We went to the Walgreens down by Target to see if I could hit some of the deals that I couldn't get earlier, but I only got one thing. Oh, well, that's the way it goes, especially when things are on clearance. We ran to Target after that, where I had quite a long list as you will see. I managed to get all but two "deals" off that list in about an hour's time. Chloë had nothing after school, so I'd told her to stay the whole time and come home on the late bus. Normally, it takes an hour for her to get home on that bus, after dismissal, so I was counting on that. We raced home afterward, but she still beat me by a few minutes.

Luckily, I'd left the door unlocked just in case that happened, but I really need to go out and make her her own key. At 8½, we feel she's more than ready to be home by herself for very short periods of time, and she was completely fine when we arrived home. She bounced out of the house to help carry in the bags, smiling and talking all about her field trip that day do the Chrysler Museum in downtown Norfolk. She'd enjoyed it immensely!

Since I'd stayed up all night, I was tremendously exhausted by that point. I'd had Rob make me some coffee in the morning, which I haven't drunk in over a decade, and wowee!! That sure did the trick for long into the day, but it wore off. I fixed the kids a quick dinner out of some food from the Target trip, and then sat down on the couch to watch a movie with them. I forgot all about doing Jack's homework, and I fell sound asleep during the movie. Next thing I knew, the kids were heading upstairs for their bath and bed, kissing me goodnight. Such good kinders. (Not really; they can be so naughty! But they were good that night, at least...)

Friday

Rob got up with the kids, since I was dead to the world. I'd fallen asleep around 2000 Thursday night, and I didn't rouse until just before noon Friday. I had no idea what time it was, because my phone was dead, so I was worried I'd missed the kids' bus! I stayed awake for an hour after that, but I could barely keep my eyes open the whole time, so I went right back to sleep until bus time.

It was actually a big disappointment for me, since I'd planned to take my first subbing job Friday. I remember being called three times during the morning call-out period, but I just couldn't wake myself up enough to take a job.  Hopefully I won't pull any more all-nighters anytime soon. If it means taking my sleeping pill, I guess, so be it, because I just can't do that anymore. Not a spring chicken, y'know!

After the kids came home and had a snack, we went upstairs and worked on our rooms from 1600 'til 2200. Jack napped most of that time, but the girls helped me with the laundry and putting away all the stuff for our toiletry and toy stockpiles. I didn't even stop to cook dinner! I just sent them down to eat some of the huge yogurt stash we have going on... the girls were willing, but Jack fussed about it. He wanted mac & cheese, dammit! But no, nope, and nuh-uh, so yogurt it was. I even ate it myself, plus some salad. The Littles went to bed around 2100, but Chloë stayed up a little later to help me with the laundry until she was practically falling asleep sitting up! She wanted to keep helping, but I steered her toward her bed, poor sweet thing!

I kept working until Rob texted me at 2200 to say he was on his way home. Woohoo! I was supposed to host the 2300 hour in my monthly crochet-a-thon thing online, but I begged for someone else to do it so I could spend some QT with my guy. They happily took over, so I fixed him a quick dinner of salad, dirty rice and turkey sausage, which was a surprise when he came home. Usually he's left to fend for himself and has a bowl of cereal or a can of soup. We smooched a whole bunch, too - I'm so happy he's here!

Of course, the reason he came home is he is to go right back in to work all day Saturday (today), so not too thrilled about that. But the good news is, he's qualified to be promoted to Chief on the boards he took in January, which is GREAT news. He didn't think he did well on the test at all! Hopefully the rest of the qualifying stuff will go well, and he'll actually get promoted this time as he should. Fingers are tightly crossed and prayers are being said!

Also, he may be getting his LPO job back and switching back to days in a few weeks. More great news!! I seriously can't wait... the kids miss their daddy, and I miss him - and the normalcy, too.

With that, I'm heading off to bed. I was going to post the deals, but I'm tired now. Even though we've got no Saturday plans for once (woohoo), I still want to get up at a decent hour and be productive all day. So look for that post tomorrow, if it interests you!

Have a great weekend, y'all.

Fin.

P.S. Can you believe this was originally intended to be a "bullets" post! Pshaw.

Just Another Manic Monday

I'm going to be brief. Ish. For me. No pics, because my camera's being a pain, and I'm really not in the mood to upload a dozent times right now.

Today was pretty crazy. I crashed - without making that banana bread - at around 0500 this morning, but Rob woke me up at 0730ish to get the kids ready for school. He had to go to the doctor or he would have done it for me. I made their lunches and got them out the door on time, as he'd already given them breakfast.

I would have loved to go back to sleep after that, but I had a meeting at the school at 10. It was 0815 by then, so I just stayed up, had some caffeine, and puttered until it was time to take a shower. I got to the school on time, but the social worker I was meeting with was running late. He soon came in, all rush-rush, and took me back to the conference room.

I was there to give him all the social history on Jack, who is being re-evaluated for special ed services. We talked at length about the boy-child, filling in those pieces of the puzzle. It will be really interesting to find out the results when we have a meeting about them in a few weeks, because it has long been debated whether he is actually disabled or just a stubborn little punkass!!

After that meeting, I got Chloë's records to try and find out what her gifted and IQ testing showed. I couldn't really decipher anything - other than that she's in the 98th percentile for verbal skills and something like 57th for nonverbal, which sounds about right! - so I'll need to call down to the testing center for more information. I'm just curious, really.  The gifted cluster teacher came down and talked to me, but she isn't trained to read all those numbers, so she couldn't help me too much. She was very reassuring, though, about all my concerns with Chloë's progress in school.

Education is a high priority for me as well as for Rob, so it's of the utmost importance to me to do the right thing for all three kids. Should we homeschool or keep them in the public school? I don't know. I go back and forth in my mind every single day. I just wish I knew the right thing to do!

Anyway. As I was leaving, I talked to the special ed teacher who helps Jack every day, and she said he has been making tremendous progress lately. Good news is always welcome. My take-home message for the day seems to be, "Don't worry so much, Mom!"

After leaving the school, I stopped by the bank to deposit a huge chunk of money from the weekend's cookie sales. It's always such a relief to get all that cash out of my hands and into a safe place!

I went home and found Rob home from his appointment, cleaning the kitchen. I really wanted that banana bread, so I immediately started throwing the ingredients together in the new mixer. Using it is such a pleasure, I almost made five more things right after that. I stopped myself when I realized we either didn't have the ingredients or wouldn't be able to use them up before they went bad!

The bread finished just minutes before Rob had to leave for work, so I wrapped up a big piece for his lunch. He texted me later to say that it was really good. I'm just glad he had a treat today in his pack.

After that, around 1400 or so, I fell asleep. I had intended to lie down just for an hour, and be completely recharged after that, but it didn't quite happen that way. The kids normally get home on the bus around 1515, but their school day is now extended by 20 minutes each day to make up for all the inclement weather we've had lately.  I guess I slept right through my alarm, because the next thing I knew, Chloë and Jack burst through the door yelling at me, "Mom! Mom! Sophia is still on the bus!"

I jumped up, shouting, "Oh, shit!" and ignored the urgent need to pee so I could run the kids down to the school to pick her up. Well, Chloë neglected to tell me that the bus driver was going to swing back around, in case I had been confused about the new drop-off time. The bus driver had my number, thankfully, and she called me to see where I was. I was halfway to the school, and traffic was insane, so it took me a minute to get back to their corner. Sophia came flying off the bus and into my arms, happily. I was worried she might be upset. I apologized to the driver, who laughed it off, and then we zoomed off to the kids' dentist appointments.

While we waited in the lobby, Chloë and I went over all the different choices for summer camp programs for this year. At first, she was adamant that she didn't want to go to camp this year, but I told her I would read her the descriptions and then let her decide. In the end, she was really excited about four different programs! Two for sleep-away camp in Williamsburg for a week (the bookworm and arts ones), and two for day camp in Chesapeake for a week (the spa and dance ones). I decided to let her do one of each, and we chose the bookworm and spa ones. She's really excited, and I'm glad she's decided to go after all. I think it's good for her.

I filled out all the paperwork for that, and started reading all about the coursework and opportunities for being a Daisy leader for next year (yay! I'm thrilled now that I've decided to do it), while they were in with the dentist. Thankfully we've qualified for financial assistance from the council for camp every year; hopefully this year will be no different, although of course they only cover part of one session.

The dentist's report was NOT good this time, oh my. Sophia was fine; we just talked about how long she would be without her two front teeth. It could be another two or three years, and it's already been almost two. Poor kid. I can't WAIT to see her with teeth again! We also talked about getting some of that nasty stuff to help her stop sucking her thumb. She is thoroughly attached to it and frequently tells me how much she adores it.

Chloë has a crossbite, which we knew, and the doc said it was time to start gathering orthodontic information on her. I'll have to make an appointment for that, as well as one for a frenectomy. Did I mention that last time? Her upper frenulum is really thick, and he wants to cut that so her teeth can come into the proper position. We both think she'll do okay with it in his office and a little numbing, so hopefully we're right!  Also, she had that black stuff on her teeth again, so they had to scrape it off again.

Jack was the worst. None of our kids have ever had cavities, but he came back with EIGHT cavities this time!!!!! Oh, my word. I nearly fainted. We'll need to get started on filling those right away. Hopefully they'll call me tomorrow to schedule that. The doc said that if it were Sophia, who is very nervous in his chair despite liking him a thousand times better than our last dentist, he'd do it all at once at the hospital under sedation, but he doesn't think Jack needs to do that. Instead, we'll break it up into about four different appointments, attacking one area at a time. Poor kid. He brushes - I swear! - so there's just no telling sometimes.

The kids were starving after that - it was nearly 1800 - so we went home and had dinner. Which consisted of Cheerios, but oh well. It was better than nothing, and it's what they all wanted.  I had a troop dad pick up some cookies, and then we got ready to go out to Jack's Tiger cub meeting.

Instead of meeing at the church as usual, tonight's meeting was down at the local police department. A very nice officer gave us an informative talk and tour; I have lots of pictures that I'll share tomorrow when I'm (hopefully) in the mood. The boys were freaking hysterical with all their questions; we parents were in stitches most of the time! My girls had a good time, too. The hour and a half visit was a well worth the time.

On the way home, we delivered Chloë's last box of cookies. She's all paid up, yay!

When we came home, the kids were hungry again, so I gave them each a bowl of ice cream and realized we'd forgotten entirely about homework! Oops. I wrote notes to the kids' teachers, since it was already 2100, and I wasn't going to keep them up another hour or two for that. No way.

I went upstairs and helped them get ready for bed, and then I sat there outside their rooms for a minute, playing Scrabble on my iPhone (thanks for getting me addicted, Mom!!) to make sure they went right to sleep. Normally, I just go downstairs and have to holler up, "GO TO SLEEP!!!!" every ten minutes, because they play. I wasn't in the mood to deal with that, and guess what? All three were zonked out in minutes. Guess I've got a new bedtime strategy.

Welp, I had a billion trillion things I wanted to do tonight, but I'm freezing, exhausted, and unmotivated. I suppose I oughtta go to bed at a semi-decent time for once. Night!

Fin.

 

Like It's Going Out Of Style

{Forewarning, this is gonna be a super-long post. Grag a drink and put your feet up.}

Spending money, that is... We got our big ol' tax refund Friday, and I've been paying bills and doing some (very necessary) shopping. I'm going to rub the magnetic strip right off my debit card soon!

The kids worked on addressing their valentines Thursday night, as they all had Valentine's Day parties in their respective classes on Friday. Did I ever show you their cards? Let me know if I didn't and you want to see them. I got a set of 25 free V-day photo cards (4x8") for each of them, from SeeHere, and they turned out really well, except that the words weren't printed on Chloë's cards for some reason, and she had to write them in. Jack complained about addressing his envelopes at first, because I made him read the names to me intstead of just copying them down. He's a very lazy reader. Who knows how much he can actually read? He pretends he can't, when really it's "don't wanna try." Today he asked me, "What does 'Sprint' mean?" after seeing it written, when no one had told him what it said, so I know he he can read words longer than 3-letters! He acts like he can't, though.

Sophia only wrote about four of her envelopes out, before she got bored and started drawing pictures instead, and then she gave up entirely after two of those. She's a mirror-image left-handed writer, so I always have to guide her to go from left to right instead of the reverse, and then face her letters the correct way. She still couldn't do it, so I wrote it out for her and told her to copy. We're hoping that she'll figure it out during her kindergarten year. I still think it's really cool, though. I'm ambidextrous, and when I write left-handed, I write mirror-image, too. Otherwise, it's not nearly as neat. Like Leonardo da Vinci!

I just practiced. Actually, it's just as neat going both ways. But I haven't done it in a long time; I used to try to write lefty a lot more often and could do much better. But who cares?

I didn't get a picture of Chloë writing hers, because it was too dark where she was sitting, but she gave me this Valentine on Wednesday. I absolutely freaking love it!! If you can't read it, it says "Dear Mom, I sure love you. You rule. You're my girl. Mom, u r mine. You're my true love. You have a ♥ of gold. Ask me something. Tell dad I love him. Email me. Got love? Love, Chloë" Is that cute, or what??!  Sadly, the kids picked off and ate all the glued-on candy hearts shortly after I took the picture, but at least I have this!

So I never went to bed that night, because I was too amped up about finally paying some bills when the refund came in at midnight - together with Rob's mid-month pay. All that $$ was so exciting to me, and I couldn't wait to pay the bills! Everything is paid for, and we're still well in the black. I made several phone calls and managed to get many late and over-limit fees removed if I paid in full, and stuff like that, so it was kind of fun seeing how I could whittle down the amounts.

And then, around 0600 or so, I went to pay our car insurance premium. It renews this month, so I was looking over the documents. The amount actually went way down, so I was trying to figure out why, when I came across the driver history section. There, I found two incidents listed under my name for 2009, for speeding - and I hadn't gotten any tickets!! I was incensed, I tell ya. I immediately called up Progressive, who told me that they had just pulled up that information from the state to get our new rate, and that it was coming directly from them.

The hell you say! So then I had to wait three more hours (well, I took Rob's say-so that they didn't open 'til 0900, when really I found out later they'd opened at 0800. Buggers), all antsy and irritated, before the DMV opened. Imagine my surprise when they told me that not only do I NOT have three points on my license, but I had three PLUS points for my good driving record, soon-to-be four plus points when the 2009 record hits! I made her reiterate it three times before I took her word for it and hung up.

Back to Progressive. The lady (and I use that term loosely) I spoke to gave me the brush-off, telling me that their information was from the state, and that's all there was to it, buh-bye.

Back to DMV. I talked to someone new, who told me the same thing as the first person, and that sometimes the insurance companies get their information from other sources than DMV, but that they were the actual-true-real-deal authority, and I definitely didn't have any points on my license. (I knew for a fact that I didn't get those tickets, because for the first one, I had JUST had major surgery and was still heavily drugged, and the second one happened in North Carolina, and I definitely was not there in June, but still! It was very ... bewildering, this whole thing.)

Progressive again. I asked straight-away to speak to a manager, and that person came on the phone immediately, as sweet as could be. I gave her my story, and a few minutes later we discovered that they had my license number wrong for the record inquiry! What a huge relief that was, ... we were thinking my identity had been stolen, although fat luck to that person trying to use my credit! Heh. The manager pretty much bent over backward apologizing for the mistake and the rude person I'd talked to prior to that, and then she went over everything with a fine-toothed comb to make sure we were getting all the discounts we should be getting. We weren't, because we hadn't gone paperless yet, so of course I immediately agreed to that. After that and the error fixing, the premium went down another hundred bucks or so. Sweet! (It initially went down because a lot of Rob's accidents finally fell of their three-year record. Yes, he's had a lot of ... driving issues. ::snort::)

So. That out of the way, and Rob was just back from getting the card for taking his motorcycle safety class, way back months ago. He lost the card, and he couldn't go take his road test without it. Why he waited all these months to get a new one is beyond me, but let's not go there. We've had words.

I wanted to go out shopping after that, so he went with me. He'll go get his road test on Tuesday, hopefully.

Our first stop was at Walgreens, to pick up the developed pictures from the kids' disposable cameras. I haven't looked at them yet; Rob ran in to get them. Apparently a lot of them were cruddy, and he got credit back for those (do you know you don't have to pay for bad pictures? Just give them the ones you don't want, and ask for credit). They're from our two trips to Great Wolf Lodge last year. Then there was this photo collage - no clue why it won't scan properly - that I got free for Valentine's Day. Did you get one? Sign up for emails from Walgreens Photo! Or read those deal blogs; the code was on there, too. Anyway, this one is, of course, all the pix from Jack's Derby, and it's just in time, too, as we really need to start his family scrapbook for Tiger Cubs. This will be his first entry!

We went to Target after that and got lots and lots of great deals! I took smaller photos of individual deals, to break it down for you, but I never got around to posting about that last night. If you're interested in knowing, I can still do that.

It was funny, because I overheard someone saying, "She's doing the same thing we're doing," in one of the aisles. So I looked up, smiling, and asked her if she was a couponer. She was, so I asked her if she read the coupon blogs. She did, so I asked her if she reads "Hip 2 Save" (look it up on Swagbucks!) - and she does!  We, um, high-fived each other in the aisle. Rob just shook his head and called me a dork. It's true. I totally am.

We spent way too long shopping the deals at Target - I'd somehow wanted to go there, Walgreens, CVS, and out to lunch for a mystery shop before he had to go to work, ha! - and he was checking his watch every five seconds at the end. I ended up getting him home about 15 minutes late, oops. 

I still had about three hours before the kids were due home, but I knew that wasn't enough time to go out and do the mega-grocery shopping trip I wanted to do at Walmart. I've been printing out loads of internet coupons, and they were all set to expire Saturday. I didn't want them to go to waste. But there wasn't time.

And then I remembered Chloë's Valentine's Day dance as school! I only just found out about it on Thursday night, when she was in tears about not going. Huh??? I told her I would go to the school and buy her a ticket, and I'm so glad I remembered at 1400, because they were not sold at the door. 

At the school, they told me all about the dance, because I knew no details. It was from 1900-2100 (rather late for 3rd-5th graders, don't you think?), and parents were absolutely NOT invited, along with younger or older siblings. Humph. Some kids would dress up like debutantes, some would dress way down, and everywhere in between. Chloë wanted to wear her pink gown from iPOP, so we were just hopeful it would still fit. (It's a 4T, and although she is eight, she mostly wears a 5T. As does her 4yo sister!)

First things, first, though.

Hello, what's this??

I'm gonna get you, sucka!

Is that not the most gorgeous mixer you have ever seen?! When Williams-Sonoma emailed me and said this special-edition KitchenAid mixer was on sale for this weekend, oooh, I wanted it baaad. Rob was out somewhere at the time, I think at Wal-Mart getting stuff like a new headlight for my van, when I got the email. He had asked me if I wanted anything for Valentine's Day, but we agreed that, well, he's buying me yet ANOTHER surgery, and I'm getting him five pairs of (cute and sexy, we hope) jeans, and that would just be swell. But then, hey, wait a minute, this mixer that I've been eyeballing for the last, oh, 70,000 years is on SALE, and hello, it's RED!!! I ♥ red. 

So, we texted back and forth, and I batted my lashes electronically as hard as I could, and he kept saying, "we'll see." We'll see, we'll see. Aaaghhhh! 

Well, he tried to buy me the mixer right there at Wal-mart, but they didn't have it. Aw, so sweet.

The entire time he was gone, I sat at my computer and gazed at the pretty picture. And, well, I shopped around for it at Amazon and the Navy Exchange site, too, but only Williams-Sonoma had THAT one and THAT price. I coudn't put it out of my mind.

And then, I had this dinner mystery shop to do Friday night, before Chloë's dance. I swear I didn't plan that it that way, because I'd had the shop for two weeks, but it just so happened to be right down the road from the Williams-Sonoma actual physical STORE, people!! So, all innocent and just checking, I called up the store to see if they carried that mixer, the one on sale, you know the RED one - and they did. But they only had two left, and they were flying out the door, so I better hurry if I wanted one. 

I wanted one.

I called Rob and told him. He said, "Okay, get it." Wooooot!!!!!!!! I love that guy. All we've talked about is paying off this and paying off that and making lists of the things the kids need and he needs ... but he let me have this one splurge that I really, really don't deserve.

Except that I do. Because I use my mixer a lot, and it has recently gone to mixer heaven, and I've been bereft without it. I mean, I've been mixing by HAND people, and I have early arthritis! Poor, poor me, I know. It's not that bad. But it does hurt.

So, we stopped at WS, and I ran in and asked for the mixer, and they just looked at me like I was nuts. Which I am, but that's beside the point. Turns out, they only had the one on display left, and the couldn't find the box for it. So I had to wait and wait, all the while anxiously watching the time, because we were going to be late for the dance.

While I waited, I looked around, and of course my eyes lit upon the lemon poppy seed quickbread mix that Rob absolutely adores. Aha! The first thing I will make in my mixer, a little thank-you present for Hubs. And then I wandered over to the Wüsthof knives, to see what Rob was missing from his Wüsthof collection that I've been amassing for him over the years. He loves those knives, man. 

Well, he really wants a cleaver, I think, but I just don't see a lot of meat chopping happening in our kitchen. And, we're still using the same crappy set of steak knives that I got when I moved into my first apartment a dozen years ago, a Kmart special, so I have been wanting to get those for him. Only, have you ever priced a set of Wüsthof steak knives? I have. Not so cheap.

But... I found the Gourmet set of four, which is still a nice knife, but not as hefty or, well, good, as the rest of their knives, at a workable price point. I decided to get a set of four for him now, and then another set of four down the road, and then we could always upgrade further in the future. Right? Only, they didn't have any in stock, except for the two that were on display. Big bummer, I really wanted to surprise him with those.

I was still excited, though. The salesman carried out my new mixer to the car, and the kids haven't stopped talking about it. They're just as excited about it as I am (well, probably not)! It really is a beautiful sight to behold. Thank you, my love!!!

Then we went to dinner. I'd told the salesman to call me if they found the other two knives, as I would be just down the road, but they never called. Still haven't. Ah, well. Dinner was fun. The kids ate really well, even Jack, which surprised me since it was Tex-Mex. The girls always like a quesadilla, but you never know what - or if - Jack will eat. Besides chips. He's always good for chips.

So he asked for an all-chicken burrito. No cheese, no tomatoes, no lettuce, NOTHING but chicken. When they served our food and he bit into his burrito, he instantly started sobbing because everything was on it. Argh. I brought it back and reiterated, JUST CHICKEN (dammit)!

When it came back out, I thought he might eat two bites and then be done, but no! He scarfed the entire, adult-sized burrito down in five minutes flat. Boy was hungry. Mom was thrilled. 

Back at home, we got Chloë dressed as quickly as possible. I'd already made her take a shower, so her hair would be clean and curly, but she decided she wanted an updo for her "ball," as she called it. (A ball! At eight! How cute.)  She wanted a bun, plus one of the headbands I'd made. Sho' thing, sweetness. When she asked for a little make-up, I was hesitant, as that's something we reserve for dance recitals only. But then I figured, oh, why not? What would it hurt? 

I always love putting mascara on her. She's got her father's amazing lashes, and BOING, they just pop right out with mascara.  Can you see?

While my lovely little lady searched for her tights, I had to do some spot-cleaning on her dress. There were brown streaks and dots all over it. It's been hanging in my closet since iPOP two years ago, so who knows what happened to it?? Probably Sophia, she likes to hang out in there. Fortunately, everything came right out with just a little water, and it didn't leave water stains. Doesn't she look like a little princess? She said she felt like one, too.

At the dance, after she walked in, I could hear people murmuring everywhere, "Look at Chloë! Look at Chloë!" and she glided around, obviously feeling like the belle of the ball. She felt very special, I just know she did. I grabbed this quick photo with her two teachers (she's team-taught), who were busy running the concessions (oops, forgot to give Chloë any money for snacks), and then she was off. I barely got a chance to kiss her good-bye, tell her to have fun, or remind her to call me if she needed me! She was just off, into the dance, without a wave.

My big girl.

Meanwhile, I drove the Littles home. Sophia was crying because she just wanted to stay and watch, and the more I explained that neither one of us were allowed there, the harder she sobbed. Which was all it took, because on the drive home, I got more than a little teary-eyed myself. My oldest daughter's first real dance...!!! In ten years, she'll be in college. Make it stop, make it slow down!!

Back at home, the Littles and I had at ton of work to do. The house, as usual, was a disaster, and I wanted it cleaned up for two reasons: I had to pick up cookies the next day and needed the space, and Linda would be coming to babysit them while I did so. I hate having people over to a messy house!

After taking the new mixer out of the box and admiring it while they had some dessert (just candy from their school parties), and then admiring it for a few minutes longer, we got down to business. I swept the floors while they cleaned up toys, and we got everything cleared out, put away, and cleaned up. Except the kitchen and bathroom, which I never did get to last night. Oh, well, c'est la vie.

Finally, it was time to pick up Chloë. Actually, who am I kidding, the time flew by in a blink. Two hours really isn't that long when you have two other kids to keep you busy! Still, I was excited to go see the girl-child and hear all about the dance.

I couldn't find a parking spot, so we parked in the middle of the (what I call a) "go-way" and dashed in to get her. Lots of people were leaving, so I had to hurry. I couldn't find her, and then I ran into the cafeteria ballroom and saw her with a group of people dancing, mid-twirl. Great! Only, then she stopped and started chewing on her shawl thingy. I can't think of what it's called... Wrap, duh. Her wrap.

And then I got closer, and I could see the tears. She was crying!! Oh, no!! I ran in, grabbed her by the shoulders and rushed her out, away from the crowd, to a far corner. The whole time I was telling her, "Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry in front of everyone, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay," because I thought she was just having an I-need-my-mommy moment, and maybe she would rather be a big girl in public, but my baby in private, you know?

Plus I didn't want her mascara all over her face in front of everyone. 

Except what I didn't know was, she was hurt! Someone had accidentally just hit her in the throat while they were dancing, but I didn't see that. She was clutching her neck and trying to keep from sobbing, poor thing. I calmed her down, we shook it off, and turned to face the teachers who were coming over to check on her. All was well, I assured them, and then we dashed back out to the car before someone keyed it. I was parked BAD. Not badly. Just BAD.

Otherwise, the dance was great, and she really enjoyed herself! She had asked me if she could have a date if a boy asked her, but I had told her no, she was too young for that. So on the way to the dance, she told me she was hoping that a certain boy would be there. I asked if she liked him. Yes... Did she like him like him? Yes!! Oh, my gosh, my daughter likes a boy!  I have to see this kid. Oh! I just realized, I could check him out in last year's yearbook. Oh, please let him be cute. ;)  I told her that it was all right if she danced with a boy, but absolutely no kissing!

So I found out after, this particular boy was not at the dance, and she was disappointed, but she did dance with two other boys. She even held hands with one - and he's a fourth grader!! I was beside myself. This growing up stuff is crazy. One minute they're saying, "ew, boys are gross," and the next, they're holding hands and dancing. Oh, I could cry just thinking about it. Too late, I am!!

Man. What a big night.

Everyone, especially Mommy, was exhausted when we got home, so the kids went right to bed. And then I did, too. Zzzzzzz

********

I know this is really long, and I haven't even done Saturday yet. I thought about breaking it up into two separate posts, but hey, I'm on a roll here. If I stop, I'll probably go take a break and then never come back. So this here is your intermission. You go take a break; I'll be here when you get back. Ready? Go!

********

Saturday.

Thank God the kids were up late and were really tired, because I hadn't slept the night before, and I was exhausted. I was barely aware of Rob coming home from work that night, and leaving for work again the next morning. Poor guy. I slept like the dead, for twelve straight hours. Thankfully, the kids slept in, too, so no harm done.

At ten, they woke me up, all excited because Miss Linda was coming. They had seen her on Bunco night, but then they were too involved with Tabitha's puppy and the toys to really pay much attention to her after that. They didn't want breakfast, they didn't want to get dressed - they just wanted Linda!

I was still tired and moving really slowly, so I hadn't gotten any further cleaning done by the time she showed up three hours later. I really didn't care, though. Hope she didn't!

I had an appointment way out in EBF Chesapeake to get to, for picking up the cookies for our troop, so I didn't really chat with her much. I expected to be gone two, maybe three hours, judging from how it went last year.

I was so wrong!! This year's team was super-organized and efficient. I was back home within an hour, and the drive itself took more than 20 minutes. Maybe 25! They asked my troop number, told me where to back up to, and loaded my van. I signed my papers and that was it. I was off!

Linda offered to help me unload the cookies from the van, and so of course I wasn't about to turn her down. I hope she wasn't just being polite! I carried the boxes from the van to the house, and she and the kids carried them into the office and organized them by type. Last year, they were all jumbled, and it was crazy trying to fill orders. And this isn't even half of them - the rest are on the other side. I ordered 79 cases, so hopefully they'll do well at booth sales. Our first one is this coming Friday night.

Then she asked me if I wanted this bookshelf that she had in her truck, that a friend was selling. Did I want it? The price was really good, and it's exactly what I have been wanting for their books for ages now! I paid maybe 30% of the cost, and it's in excellent condition. The kids absolutely love it and set right to work filling it with their books. I'm just so excited to have the books out of the cramped cabinet and actually on display for them to see what they have!

Then I shooed Linda away, because the kids and I had a lot of things to go do. Our first stop was to get gas, because both my "change oil" light and "get gas" light were on in the van. Glug, glug, glug, that was a quick pit stop. We drove 'round the corner to the place where I like to get Vanna's oil changed, but they were packed solid. He told me it would be a long wait, so I said, sayonara bitches! Not really, I just said I'd come back Monday morning. No time to waste!

We went back to Target after that, because I hadn't gotten one of my canvas bags, containing a bunch of TP wipes and the catfood my girlies were starving for. Also, the cashier had charged me double for the light bulbs. We took care of that, and then of course all three of the kids needed to use the bathroom. At least it was all taken care of at once this time!

On to Wal-Mart. I did a shopping trip like I've never done before. I brought my entire coupon box, instead of just the ones I needed, because Wal-mart doesn't really run a regular grocery ad (that I know of, anyway), so I had no clue what deals I would find. And I wanted to use up as many of those internet printables as I could. So, we went section by section through my coupon box - except for toiletries and cleaning supplies, which I'm stocking up well on at the drug stores - and spent literally EIGHT HOURS at the store, grocery shopping. We filled FIVE carts, averaging about $200 per cart (before coupons)! 

I only did this for two reasons: our food supply was super-low, and we actually had the money for once to do it. So, it was time to get that stockpile really going. 

The first thing we did was go to the eyecare place. Jack's glasses are all kinds of crooked, and I wanted them to fix 'em. But they were really busy, and I figured we could go back later. I thought we'd be in the store maybe three hours - definitely not eight! Oh, my word.

Then we hit the deli. Jack has been asking for turkey sandwiches for his school lunches, because he has been sick to death of PB&J and refusing to eat them. We haven't had the money for deli meat, so I kept having to tell him, "next time, buddy," when I went shopping. At the deli, we ordered a ton of food. Turkey pastrami for me (four pounds, for freezing, because it's so cheap and I love it so much!), and they let us eat a piece to taste. Chloë loved it, so I'm glad I got the four pounds, because Rob loves it, too. Then I saw the bologna. The kids have never in their lives tried it before, so I had no clue whether they would like it. They tried it; Chloë thought it was disgusting (uh-huh), but Jack and Sophia absolutely loved it. So a pound of that, then ham for Rob, and then some mozzarella (girls' choice) and meunster (mine) to top things off. Yum!

While we were at the deli, my kids made a friend with a little girl they'd never seen before. She was very friendly, and they were instant pals. They played a game of make-believe while their parents all ordered from the deli, and everyone around watched them with sweet smiles on their faces. It was really cute.

I started texting Rob when my cart was half-full, because he was supposed to have gotten off work already, and I knew I would need him to join us at the store. My cart was overflowing, and still no Rob. Hurry, hurry! He finally showed up, but I forgot to have him take Jack to get his glasses fixed, because Chloë really needed to go potty again. She was going to explode, I think! Naturally, all the kids had to go at the same time, again.

I shopped and shopped, coupon by coupon. When Rob first got there, we were in the dairy section. I was buying up all the yogurt in the place; my kids eat it like, well, like it's going out of style! And there were lots of great deals. Good prices, of course, are the only thing that bring me into Walmart. He kept telling me, there was no way I was going to fit it all in the fridge and freezer. We have a deep freezer too, but it's a smallish one. 

"Not going to get it all in."

"Oh, I'll get it in."

Then we went to do the freezer stuff. And the meat. And his cart started overflowing, too. 

"Not going to get it all in."

"Oh, I'll get it in!"

When his cart was full, I sent him and a now-sleeping Sophia to buy that stuff and keep it out in the car - it's cold enough - and then come back and keep shopping. A lady stopped me and said, "Hey, are you selling cookies this year?" I was all, "Huh? Who are you?" and then she explained she was a neighbor who had bought from us last year, and she'd recognized Chloë and then me. We hadn't gotten to her street yet, and she was waiting for us. That was cool. I gave her my number, so hopefully she'll call today and order a bunch!

We kept shopping, and shopping, until all the coupon categories were gone through, and we had four carts full (not including the stuff in the car from the fifth one)! It was quite a trip getting up to the cash register. I sent him to go get six huge bins for storing our stockpile, since all we have is one lousy little pantry that doesn't hold too much. While he was gone, a man in the next line was eyeballing my carts and watching me unload it all. He seemed relieved when I said something to the cashier about my husband bringing another cart, and he said, "Oh, good, I was worried you had done all that by yourself!"

Well, Rob came back after that man left, and then he had to go back and get something else we thought we'd forgotten (but hadn't, and then we bought it twice). The man returned and came up to me, saying, "I came back in to help you, because it's a lot of work..." I told him my husband would be right back, but thank you, that's very sweet!

Rob thought it was creepy. 

I didn't get creepy vibes from him at all, but I coudn't tell if he was hitting on me or just being nice. Was it weird??

Anyway. We spent a buttload of money, but we saved a good deal with all those coupons, too. I apologized to the two women behind us for taking so long, but they were really sweet and wished us a good night. Then began the ordeal of getting everything into the van, the second time it had been packed full that day. My back was absolutely aching, so Rob let me sit it out while he packed it up. When we set off, we started for home and then he remembered his truck! Oops, we hadn't driven over together, so I had to go back.

On the way home, I praised the children up and down for their absolutely wonderful behavior. I mean, eight hours at the grocery store is pretty darn outrageous, but they behaved like absolute angels!! They were so good, and I thanked them and told them I was so proud of them. I could tell they were pleased with themselves.

 
 
  
The kids, of course, were absolutely starving out of their minds, and they were freezing, too. Especially Jack. He was too cold to walk to the kitchen and had to be carried. Too cold to eat his soup and needed a straw. Poor guy was miserable. I could relate. They all ate a pretty good dinner and then went down to the couch to watch G-Force while we put away groceries. Sophia was wide awake, having napped at the store, but Jack and Chloë were out like a light in just a few minutes.

It took three hours, but I filled the six bins and reorganized the whole pantry, so now we have a real, working stockpile. From now on, I can just buy stuff that's free or almost free! Our bins are full, and they are labeled according to what's inside for easy access. I hope this all works out and isn't more trouble than it's worth.

After I put all the dry goods away, Rob finally brought in the cold stuff. My eyes went wide. I had definitely overbought! Definitely.

"You're never going to get it all in."

But guess what?

I got it in.

Fin.

P.S. Yes, I was proud of myself and did the happy dance. It was a lot of work! 
  
 
  

Shenaniganizing

I was a trouble-maker at the doctor's office today, but you know what? I don't care.

After I posted last night, I ended up soaking in a tub that Rob says was very hot but felt like lukewarm to me. It did the trick, though, and I was able to stop shivering. And crying.

When I got up to go to the doctor this morning, I put on layer after layer after layer to keep warm. It worked. I looked like the Michelin man, but I was warm, dammit!

So when the nurse or whatever called me back, and took me to the scale, I half-jokingly asked if it was really necessary to be weighed, since I had about ten layers on and was just there last month. She looked at me and said, "Well, you'll need to take them off..."

"Oh, no," I returned. "I'm not taking it off."

"You're not taking it off?!"

"I'm not taking it off."

"Okay, then. Let's go," she muttered, walking me to the exam room. Then, she told me I had to take all my clothes off so she could check my vitals. I took off my coat, but I told her I wasn't taking anything else off.

"You have to take it off!"

"No, I don't. My blood pressure is good, really good, like 110 over 60 the last time I was hear, and I promise it hasn't changed. I'm freezing, and I'm not going to get naked in here."

"Listen, you can't just come in here for a weight loss follow-up and not be weighed, not have your vitals checked..."

"I'm not in here for a weight loss follow-up!"

"Well, that's what your paper says!"

"Then the paper is wrong!"

"Listen, they don't just write down any old thing, they write down what you tell them!"

"I didn't write it down, they can write down whatever they want, but that doesn't make it so!"

And 'round and 'round we went, until she huffed out, muttering under her breath, and into the provider's office next door. Still bitching; I could hear her for several minutes. I didn't care. I was NOT going to take off all my clothes and ruin the good warmth I had goin' on, you hear me??  One layer, and that would have been the end of it. Chills and shivers all over again. No thanks.

The provider (he's not a doctor, but I'm not sure if he's an NP or a PA or just what) came in after a few minutes, shrugging his shoulders and telling me he's sorry it's cold, but it's standard procedure to take the vitals of every patient, for every visit.

I said, look, all I need is to get my referral to my surgeon updated, and maybe some chelated iron if you can prescribe that. You don't even have to look at me.

He agreed, wrote "refused" on my chart for the vitals, and told me that the next time I needed this same referral, to just call him up - I didn't even need to come in! So I could have saved myself the trouble of dealing with the angry nurse.

Who was probably in a fine mood until I came in wearing my ten layers, but whatever.

I stayed warm, people!

I relayed the above to Rob after I got out, and he called me a trouble-maker. Laughingly, of course. So the word "shenaniganizer," I think from Cloudy With... has been in my head all day because of it.

********

The Girl Scout cookies are coming in this Saturday, so to make room for dozens and dozens of cases in the office, here, I planned to finally get clean it up and clear it out. Well, that didn't happen. I was so tired after I got home from the doc, after being up all hours of the night taking a bath, that I just needed a nap. And so I did, for two hours, until the kids came home.

Chloë didn't come home, though, because she started back to the math tutoring today. Jack and Sophie played and snacked, until it was time to pick her up. I was going to let her come home on the activity bus - last time I picked her up each time - but between Ballet lessons every Tuesday and Brownies every other Thursday (the two days of tutoring), it's just not going to happen too often!

We picked up and intended to rush right over to dance class, but we sat in traffic for ages instead. So she was ten minutes late. Have I mentioned that I hate being late?? Hate it.

While she pranced, the Littles played in the back. I made their dentist appointments and my follow-up with the plastic surgeon (for this morning at 0830, which is why I'm still up instead of trying to get any sleep), and then I read a magazine. Pretty uneventful, which is why I'm telling you. I think you need to know every breath I take, don't you?

The rest of the evening went quickly and calmly. The kids wanted pizza (groan) for dinner, and they ate the entire thing. At least they're not sick of it, and it's somewhat healthy...

Homework was done - but not without Jack getting pizza grease all over his math paper, ugh - and everyone washed up. They took a shower, I worked on laundry, The End.

After they went to bed and the laundry was all folded, I finally got the motivation to do some work. I swept the floor and then got out the CARE Package bins containing donated items for the layettes (the vast majority of which came from Rob's mom).  There was a lot more going on in there than it may look like; my office was covered with knit, crocheted, sewn and quilted goodness!

I'm glad I went through the bins. I found this cowl that I knitted a while back and promptly forgot about. I wore it for over an hour, until I was so hot that I had to strip down a few layers to a single one! And I found the kids' tooth pillows that have been missing for over a year (did I really need to buy three? What's the likelihood of three kids losing a tooth on the same night? Probably nil), along with all those nice dishcloths and towels that I made to sell at the craft shows. But didn't. So, they're ours now, and now I don't have to make more! I never did do that last night...

I worked for hours assembling packages - stopping only to cook yet another pizza for Rob's return from work, and ew, don't eat the buffalo chicken one. Too spicy! - and printing out cards to put in them. Each package gets a sweater or gown or other body covering, a hat, a pair of booties or socks, and a blanket. They also get a card with information about our charity on one side and suggestions for what to do with their baby as they're saying good-bye on the other, our business card, and a "CARE" silicone bracelet.

I've long wanted to include disposable cameras, but of course we don't have the budget for that. I've been meaning to write to the various camera companies (Kodak, Fuji, etc.) and see if they'll donate some, but I haven't yet. Then I got the idea tonight to see if Ziploc would sponsor us, too, since I use a great deal of their bags for the packages!

I do have lots of gift bags from baby showers, but I haven't started using them yet. First, because that would only be a temporary solution as I don't plan to buy more when they're gone and don't get a lot donated, and second, because it doesn't work well with the way I like the packages to work. You can't really see what you're getting through a gift bag, and my stickers labeling size and sex might not be seen as well on the gift bags. So... I don't know. Maybe I'll just give them to the hospital and let them deal with them?

In the end, I was able to assemble exactly 30 complete packages for donation to the children's hospital, without having to lift a needle or hook myself to add something! This is exciting; usually I have to work for ages to make booties or hats to finish half the packages, but I had everything I needed and more. Thank you, to all of you out there who made this possible!

There were a surprising number of items in the packages that I did make, though, just not tonight. Beautiful sweaters out of Rowan yarn, and Malabrigo, and other fancy stuff. I love to squish and squeeze those soft, fine wools. Ohhh, how I do.

The hardest part of the night was assembling two or three toddler packages. I would just sit there with the items on my lap, pouting and frowning and trying hard not to think of the child who would need to receive them. So very sad. Of course, they're all sad... but the longer you have your child with you, I think the harder it is to say good-bye. Just my theory, anyway.

Remember this Baby Suprise jacket that I made? Probably not, it's been a LONG time. I never put buttons on it! Sorry, Steph, I had to take your job tonight, and these are the buttons I ended up with. Not too exciting, but they'll do. They'll do.

And that was the last item for the 30th package. Tomorrow, after I get home from plastics (and hopefully scheduling my abdominoplasty!!), I'll call up my contact at the Children's and see if I can arrange a drop-off. I haven't talked to her in over a year; that's how long it's been since CARE Package has made a substantial donation. We've mailed out packages to parents here and there, but this is the first one in a while, as I took 2009 off to mostly do what I felt like.

I'm ready now, though, to get back into working hard, full-time for our charity. I do have to make some longies - or shorties, now that Luke is almost 4 mos? - that I promised Steph, but otherwise, I am going to pick up hooks and needles for CARE Package again. I'm excited!!

Fin. 

P.S. I keep forgetting to add that I got a letter Monday, saying that Chloë had some artwork chosen to be put on display down at the airport! Her artwork will be exhibited throughout February. I can't wait to go and see it. She asked me not to, though, very modestly saying it was terrible and that she's "not creative." Whatever! She is SO crafty and clever. She thinks it's a clown, of which she doesn't seem to be very proud, but she's not sure. Will keep you posted.
 
 
  

Goodies From Grandma

Hey again, y'all. I'm yawning like crazy here, but I think I slept well enough that I really don't need a nap. And besides, I have stuff to do and the kids only have a half-day and it's 1100, so I really can't take one even if I did require a little more sleep!

Anyway.

Tuesday night into Wednesday, I didn't get a lick of sleep. I was just wired! For no reason that I could think of, other than maybe I'd slept so much during the day? Duh, yeah, that has to be it. Damn those naps.

I got super sick of eating all this DiGiorno pizza we've been having (and I don't think I've lost an ounce in two weeks because of it), so I decided to actually cook something real for dinner instead. Plus, I had three about-to-expire containers of sour cream to use up, chicken legs aplenty in the freezer, and a desire to send Rob to work with something more than a can of soup and a Coke.

So, after some serious SwagBucks searching for a recipe with chicken legs and sour cream, I decided to make this. It was 0500 and at least 12 hours from dinnertime, but who cares? No time like the present, I say. Okay, I really don't say, but I did say this ONE time.

{First, speaking of SwagBucks, I have two things to tell you: I just redeemed them for my first AND second Amazon.com $5 Gift Cards! I had 44 and did a number of searches with no luck to get that last one for the 45 needed to redeem, so I decided to complete a couple of free offers. Less than an hour later, Bam! $10 in free money. Sweet, right? My goal is to earn two $5 Amazon cards every month by Christmas, and I'm well on my way!

The second thing is that I did a LOT of searching for all kinds of weird things to earn that last buck, and I ended up getting hit with the "rules" page the last few times. I finally figured out why: when you do a lot of searching like that, it picks up on what you're doing and stops you in your tracks. Their FAQ tells you this. So... don't think you're going to be able to search all day and get loads of SwagBucks. I usually win twice per day, as do most folks. So, be aware!}

Back to the dinner. The first thing was to cook the chicken. I had just taken out six drumsticks from the freezer, but I was itching to start cooking, so I had to defrost them in the microwave. I hate defrosting meat that way, but I'm the impatient sort and, well, that's the way it goes sometimes. I think it's the "mania" part of being bipolar when I get in the mood to do something in the middle of the night and have to do it Right. This. Second! You know?

I probably should have taken out more meat than that, but after all, we are trying to stretch the buck these days. After thawing the meat, I had to boil it. Now, I'm a little embarrassed to tell you, but I have never in my life boiled chicken before. I didn't quite know what to do. So I put the thawed chicken in a big pot, added two cans of Campbell's chicken broth and filled the rest of the way with water, to cover the chicken. I added two bay leaves and a small chopped onion, some salt and pepper, and that was it. Brought the chicken to a boil and then, like the recipe said, let it boil for 20 minutes. I crossed my fingers the whole time that the chicken wouldn't be nast-ay!

It wasn't! Oh, my gosh, y'all. I boiled it skin-on, but I removed the skin after cooking (it's easier that way, don'tcha know). As I was taking the extremely moist and appealing meat off the bones, I started salivating for a taste. (So did Tiger Lily, at my feet, and she was not disappointed.) So I sampled once, twice, thrice... so good!! I will definitely be boiling chicken this way again soon, even if that's all I do with it instead of further recipying it up. Yummay!

So after feeding Lily all the bits that I deemed unacceptable (ie, toughened from being nuked) for my dinner casserole, I mixed up the rest: a whole pint of sour cream, and a can of cream of chicken instead of mushroom. Because mushrooms are gross, y'all. I don't like 'em. It seemed like a really low chicken-to-cream ratio there, and I was kind of worried it would be nast-ay, once again!

The topping was super simple. I used a box of generic stuffing, since it was older than the Stove Top I also had on hand, a melted stick of butter, and another can of chicken broth. Good thing I'd stockpiled broth recently! Patted that all on top of the creamy stuff, covered it with aluminum foil, and refrigerated that baby for later.

Fast-forward to dinnertime, after the kids had been begging me for pizza all day (apparently they didn't get the memo that I was sick of it), et voila:

The kids were complaining that they didn't LIKE chicken casserole as soon as I told them what we'd be having. Well, guess what folks, you've never had it and you ARE going to try it. Jack cried. Sobbed, even. He wanted pizza. The girls were equally dissatisfied, but at least they tried a bite. They all hated it. I told Jack if he was going to pitch such a fit, to go do it in his room. He left and wouldn't taste one bite. Hmph. 

So I was thinking dinner was going to be a big FAIL, but you know what? I don't care. I liked it just fine. There was plenty of chicken in it after all, and if I made it again, I'd still only use about six chicken legs. Rob ate two plates of it when he got home from work at midnight. We both liked it just fine. Did we love it, was it the best thing we ever ate? No, not at all. But we both agreed it was good enough to make a second time, and that works for me.

********

As for the rest of the day, let's see... I slept after premaking dinner, finally lying down at about 0751. The kids were on a two-hour delay from school WITH a half-day, so they were only going to be there 1030-1430. Rob got them up and off on the bus, and then he woke me to make sure I had an alarm set for 1430 to pick them up. I assured him I did (I really did).  

Well, guess what, folks. Either it didn't go off, or I slept right through it, and I popped awake at 1445!! Aaah! My bladder was completely overloaded, my hair was a mess and my mascara was running down my cheeks, but ther was no time to worry about any of that. I flew out the door with my coat open and my boots barely on and not zipped up, and ran, ran, ran to the bus. Which was already there, having barfed out all the kids from our stop except Sophia. They won't let preschoolers go without their parents there, which is a pretty damn good idea except this particular preschooler's parent is late half the time!

Thank goodness she stopped and waited for me, knowing I'm always late for the bus. I always think she's going to be there at 1515, which she usually is, but sometimes she shows up at 1512. Luckily it's only a 30-second walk to the bus stop, but still, I bet she's tired of waiting for me! I think I'll make it a point now to get out there by 1510, even if i am freezing. Yeah, that's the ticket.

What now? I forget what I was talking about. Oh, yes, so I got the kids home and then burst through the door just in time to pee all over the floor. Not really, I made it to the bathroom, but I sure did not have any extra time to get there! Whew.

Aren't you glad you read this post today? Now I really DO tell you everything, including when I have to go pee. 

Enough of that.

None of the kids have homework this week, because it's such a short one, so we didn't have to worry about that. Yay! There wasn't a lot of playtime before it was time to leave for dance class. The only thing was, we were still late getting there, because I'd forgotten all the dance clothes were in the laundry! And Sophia couldn't find her ballet shoes. Agh, those things are always going missing, even though I'm constantly yapping at them to put them away IN the dance bag and zip it up. Fracking ballet shoes.

So, they danced in tights, t-shirts and shorts, with my apologies to their teachers who have strict rules about what to wear to dance class. Ah, well. It happens.

Jack, who had been extremely grumpy after school, fell asleep on the way there, to my utmost relief. He snored through Sophia's Creative Movement class. Chloë had brought a book with her, so I took that opportunity, once again, to take a nap! Only, I didn't sleep at all. I was tired but too cold.

When Sophia came out and Chloë went in for Jazz, I was hoping for more peace and quiet. The first thing she did, as is typical for her, was to bug her brother and wake him up! I'd warned her to leave him alone the second beforehand, too, so I was really annoyed when he woke up screeching and complaining. For an almost-7yo, he really does behave more like the 2yo he appears to be outwardly, at least when he is tired!

I tried to get him to settle back to sleep, and I brought Sophia up to lay on top of me and be quiet. I got my daily warm fuzzies from the feeling of the weight of her body on mine, and her little blond ponytail tickling my nose. I held her for most of the hour, with Jack grumbling in the back seat, until it was obvious neither of them were going to snooze at all. That was fine, because I really couldn't, either.  Whatever, I had enjoyed my time snuggling with The Little Girl, as I like to call her.

********

After dance, we ran to Farm Fresh, since it was Double Dollar Wednesday. I didn't have stockpile-worthy coupons and didn't take a picture, but I did manage to get my $23.20 order down to $5.61, a savings of 77%. For that little bit of cash, I got another box of Wheat Thins, two boxes of Crackerfuls, a can of Ro*Tel tomatoes, two packages of 7-ct Hebrew National hot dogs, a 4-pack of Yoplait YoPlus yogurt, and two gallons of milk for the kiddies. Not too shabby.

The hot dogs came in handy at dinnertime, when the girls scarfed five (!!) of them after refusing the chicken casserole. Whenever they refuse to eat dinner, I like to have something like this or a PB&J sandwich or something available. I will not let them starve, but I'm not going to make them a whole 'nother time-consuming supper, either.

Jack never came down to eat. Tsk, tsk. I would have gladly given him a hot dog or twelve if he'd returned, but he fell asleep. Guess he needed some sleep more than food last night.

********

When we got home from dance and the store, two packages were waiting in the rain, on the porch. I don't understand it. The row of mailboxes are right across the street from our house, and at the end of the row are two large boxes, presumably for packages. When I lived in apartment complexes, and there were packages to be had, the mailman always left a key to one of those large boxes in our regular mailbox, so we could fetch the package out of it. Not once in seven years here has the mailman utilized those big boxes for our packages, instead of leaving them on the porch to be stolen or rained upon. I wonder why??

I didn't get a chance to open the packages - both from my MIL -  until after the kids went to bed, so they haven't oohed and ahhed over everything with me yet. I'm sure they will in an hour, when they're home (another half-day).

The first box contained crocheted goodies for CARE Package. MIL has been our most ardent supporter from Day One, a fact that pleases me greatly. Who else can you count on, if not the grandma? No one, that's for sure. I get an email at least every other week, from someone saying they want to make things for the charity, but after I email them back with details, I almost never hear from them again! Guess that's the way it goes. Here's what Grandma made:

 

This little boy's set is so soft! Very squishy, and yes, I did give it a few love-squeezes before putting it away. So cute!

I always have the hardest time deciding whether color schemes like this one are appropriate for being unisex, or are just for girls. I usually decide on the side of unisex, but my Assistant Manager, whose job seems to entirely consist of helping me make these decisions - as well as underwriting a large portion of the cost of running this enterprise - always decides they are just for girls. So, you help me decide - could a boy wear this? And is that not the most perfect pompom you have ever seen?!

 

This is definitely a boy's outfit, right?! ;) I kid. How cute are those little teddy bear buttons? I love them.

Another supersoft outfit, and I just LOVE the buttons MIL chose for this outfit. I'm turning into a button-lover lately. Sweet set, and thanks so much for all your hard work, Mom!!

The second box contained goodies for the other kiddos in the family:

A Hallmark T-shirt, which I assume is for me because it would float on Rob... although I'm getting to the point where it'd be too big on me, too! After my abdominoplasty, I'm hoping to be in mediums for everything. Yay!

Three Valentine's puzzles for the kiddos, which will be great for the newly-growing game stash (did I tell you that the kids destroyed all the games and puzzles we have? They're no longer able to have free access to them. Shame).  A Valentine's craft, which they love doing, and two books from Rob's childhood! How cool! Finally, another recorded book with Grandma's voice. They went absolutely fargin' NUTS over the one she recorded for Christmas, especially The Boy, so I know this will be a hit, too!

Thanks for all the goodies, Mom!

********

Welp, I was going to go take a shower before the kids got home, but Rob just did and surely used up all the hot water, so it'll have to wait. Instead, I'm off to finally watch The Hangover (we've had it at least two weeks from Netflix) and work on the long-ignored kimono. Maybe I'll finish it by the weekend. Hope so.

Fin.
 
 

Thursday.

Whew. It has been a busy few days! You can tell, because I missed Friday Fragments, Aloha Friday, Saturday 9, Six-Word Saturday, and Sunday Stealing! No matter, they'll come back 'round again next weekend.

On Thursday, I went to the kids' school to meet with the Assistant Principal, Jack's teacher, the social worker and school psychologist, and the special ed teacher to discuss testing for Jack's future status as a special needs student. Because he's turning 7 in March, he will soon no longer qualify for services under the "developmentally delayed" label, so we're going to have to find him a new label if he's going to be able to continue to receive help.

There was a lot of discussion about his temperament. He can be a very sweet boy, very loving and really silly, but on the other hand, he can be very challenging! If he doesn't want to do something (his schoolwork, his homework, talk to you, etc.), then he just will NOT do it.

Because of that, it's been difficult for his teachers and parents to assess his actual skill level when it comes to schoolwork, because we don't know where the ability part ends and the willingness part begins, you know? He asks such intelligent questions a lot of the time, and he's very inquisitive, so everyone was joking that he'd be the surprise kid who popped on Gifted testing later this year! It wouldn't shock me, really. Rob's mom said a while back that he'll probably end up being the smartest one of the bunch!

So when he goes in for his referral back to endocrinology later this week, I'll have the doc give him a quick physical so the school doesn't have to do that part of the testing. And then they'll give him a full battery of tests to see how he does in other aspects, like social, psychological, intellectual, etc. He'll get an IQ test, and I look forward to getting the results of that and everything else. The last time he had this full assessment done, he was two! So the picture is quite different now.

I can't think what else to share about that meeting. Let me know if you have questions (Mom)!

I hadn't had any sleep the night before, so I was a little nervous about the Brownies meeting after school that day. I had to give not one, but two training presentations about the Girl Scout Cookie sale that started on Saturday. They both went really well, though, and I was able to get through them without being too scatter-brained. Our Troop Leader keeps telling me that I'm a leader, too, but I've never thought of myself as such, and my abilities in public speaking are a lot of the reason why. But like I said, it went very well, and I was pleased. I am glad it's over, though!

As for the girls, they worked on studying the meaning behind the World Trefoil Pin (am I getting that right? I could be mixed up as usual) before having a chitty-chat about the upcoming Thinking Day. They don't have their country selected yet, so I don't know which they'll be representing, but many of the girls are hoping for Russia!  They all look so grown up to me here, especially when I think back to kindergarten, when many of them were in this same group as Daisies. Time flies...

And here's Baby Vivian once again, getting so big! She's such a cutie...

*******

Later that night, we went to a steakhouse out in Chesapeake for a dinner mystery shop. We had never been to that restaurant before, and it the food was okay, but our service was outstanding. I gave a really stellar report - if I do say so myself - but then ended up getting the shop excluded (meaning, no pay), because I goofed and used a coupon for our appetizer. Damn it! I'm such an idiot. Oh, well, at least the dinner was really cheap - $25 for appetizer, 2 entrées, drinks and 3 desserts (one for each of the kids)! Not bad, not bad at all.

And that was Thursday. Stay tuned...

Fin.