Good Riddance, September!

Beware: I needed to vent!


I thought I was never going to make it out of September alive! It was honestly one of the busiest months I've had in a loooong time. Getting back into the routine of school, with Kendall in preschool and a new carpool schedule. Working more because I started a third survey for the Census Bureau (what, you didn't even know I had an actual J-O-B?), I worked about 60 hours in September and put 800 miles on my car just for work (that's about double my usual work schedule)! Even though it was nice to make the extra money, we spent a good chunk of it eating out because we were so busy. Yuck. I'm sick of fast food. Busy as ever with my calling of Enrichment Counselor, as we had our quarterly enrichment meeting and I made most of the food for the dinner, on top of teaching the first Sunday lesson as well. We also had doctor and dentist appointments all around, I reviewed a book for the school's library committee and I'm working on another one, threw out my back for a few days at the end of the month, got most of my visiting teaching done, shopped for a lot of Coupon Sense deals (I have toiletries and granola bars and Powerade galore!), did some serious reorganization in my house (kinda unfinished though), went on a Dysart bus tour (and got my picture in the paper), almost switched my kids' school, chauffered Hannah to her ever increasing activities/lessons, and just tried to keep up with the normal housework, homework, etc. Thankfully Joey helped out with a lot of that stuff, but I felt like I headed out the door almost every night after he got home and we hardly saw each other. I'm craving a family vacation or a weekend without the kids (guiltily though, because I feel like I haven't seen them enough lately). And I'm going to be just as busy with work at least through December, so I don't even know how I could possibly get away for the weekend! The good news is that I'm mostly done Christmas shopping, so the fact that the holidays are coming doesn't stress me out so much this year. And by the way, September was hot! So I'm just glad to be in a new month and looking forward to cooler weather and fun holidays.


This week Noah had to do his first book report (which he received 100% on, good job!). I sat with him while he did the writing portion of it, and then I had him start drawing the picture while I got some things done around the house. When I came back to check on his finished product, I couldn't help but laugh. See if you can figure out why:



Do you see something out of place there?

In case you couldn't figure it out, check out the "Parent Signature" line. He's hopefully not heading into a career of forgery. It gave me a good laugh though.

How was your September?

The Olympics

I have so much to catch up on with this blog, but I could not let my ugly photo stay at the top of my page any longer! I figure since it's the first day of school, I have to at least do one thing for myself today as I enjoy the peace and quiet that comes with only having one kid at home.

So I was up last night after everyone else was in bed and I turned on the TV to fill the silence. The Olympics were on and I literally stood up yelling and cheering all by myself during the men's 4 x 100 freestyle relay. It was so exciting! It was one of the first times I've been able to sit down and really watch since they started, and it reminded me of how much I love to watch them. Here's some of my thoughts on the Olympics:

*They're only every 4 years, so you don't get sick of them. As opposed to most other sports that you can see pretty much every day of the week. I often wonder why we see so little of certain sports except for during the Olympics, but it does help to make them more exciting.

*It is so amazing to be reminded of patriotism and how great our country is. We spend so much time disagreeing about so many issues that the Olympics help unify our nation, even for just a short amount of time. (Immediately following the Olympics, we have the political party conventions to divide us up again right away, don't worry!)

*Even though the Olympics encourage healthy rivalry with other countries, I think it is great to see people from around the world, reminding us that no matter where we come from, we are more alike than we are different.

*Olympic pet peeve: When the media spoil the results because of the time difference. I'm glad to see that MSN's homepage (also my homepage) allows you to hide the results if you don't want to know yet!

*The dedication of the athletes is astounding, and it reminds me that my goals are attainable also, if I am willing to put in the effort to attain them.

*My first Olympic memory: Mary Lou Retton. Resulting in several attempts at gymnastics, which I never really stuck with. But I could do a mean cartwheel back in the day.

*One thing that I don't like about the Olympics is how much attention is given to the end result. There are sometimes hundredths of seconds separating winners from losers, and those same hundredths of seconds determine whether someone goes down in history as the best ever or leaves them relatively unknown for all their accomplishments. Of course everyone loves to win, and I get that, but I do always feel bad for the losers. Maybe I'm just still bitter because I really wanted to be either the valedictorian or salutatorian of my graduating class, but I ended up as number 3 instead. I mean, they don't even give a title to number 3. I think I'll call it bronze from now on.

*By the way, if I was an Olympic athlete, what do you think my sport would be? Come on, leave me a comment and if you say Sumo wrestling I'm going private and not sending you an invitation.

When It Rains . . .

it really pours around here! So, I'll try to keep this brief and then move on to less depressing topics. Since my last post, I got really, really sick. I thought it was allergies at first, but then I ended up with 104 degree fever, coughing, sore throat, sinus infection . . . the list goes on and on. I decided to go to the doctor on Tuesday, and found out that I have an ear infection in both ears! I don't even know how the heck that happened, especially since my ears weren't even bothering me. So I've been in bed pretty much since Saturday night. I couldn't do anything fun with my kids on their Spring Break, and even though I've been up and around a little the past two days, I still don't feel back to my normal self yet. It's been awhile since I was that sick. Now I just have a lingering cough, which is still painful and annoying, but so much better than being in bed! I'm so grateful to be feeling better, though. My sweet husband stayed home from work on Monday just to help take care of me and the kids, and my dear friend Tonya helped me out so much by watching my kids twice and even bringing me groceries. She's a saint!

I haven't been able to see my dad or help out over there at all since he's been home from the hospital, and he now has an infection in his incision. We are hoping that antibiotics will treat it because if not they will have to do more surgery. Yuck. We don't want that. I'm still staying away until I'm confident that I'm better.

Also, my grandma (my mom's mom) is most likely having heart surgery next week to replace her aortic valve. She's in Kentucky, so it will be hard to be so far away and not get to see her before the surgery. Love you, Grandma!

In better news,

my handsome little brother is killing the ball and having a phenomenal senior season. I'm hoping to catch more of his games in the next few weeks. I've never known a kid who loves to play ball as much as he does. Doesn't my cousin take great photos? Here's her website: http://flickr.com/photos/paperdollimages


And for all those still wondering about Coupon Sense, visit www.couponsense.com. I can tell you more about it, but it's absolutely amazing and I can't believe I've been missing out all this time. Seriously, why didn't one of you tell me about it before? I consider it my new part-time job--getting free stuff. I love it, because it satisfies my shopping addiction and gives me great deals at the same time. The grand total for all that stuff: about $17. (Think of it this way: the razor and vitamins together would have cost $17 full price). I got a lot of it free or even MADE MONEY, and that was just my first week. I have been able to get so much more free stuff since then. I don't think I'll ever pay for shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, or soap again. Let me know if you are interested, I can have a little party and have my instructor come and tell you all about it. (And no, Mel, I haven't taken any more pictures of my groceries. I was tempted to take a picture of the 14 boxes of cereal I got for $4, but I resisted.)

Okay, that was long. Thanks for reading to the end.

Beuller? Bueller?

So we created this blog, and then were strangely absent and didn't post anything. Apparently we've been too busy doing other things. (Unfortunately, not calling in sick while synthesizing alien barfing sounds, stealing our dad's car, and going to a baseball game, but still, we've been busy, people.) So here it is, our first blog post. Momentous.

As you can probably tell, we don't exactly have it set up the way we want it yet. And in case you're wondering, "the way we want it" is perfect, and better than everyone else's. Just kidding. But I would like to figure out how to get the post title font smaller, it makes me feel like Ben Stein is actually shouting. And I'd like to change a few random other things, about which I'm sure you could really not care any less.

Thanks for stopping by. And come back often. And leave comments.