A Time For Everything

 

Let's catch up a bit. I've been remiss in my blogging duties since the beginning of the year. Blogging wasn't high on my priority list while I was preparing to be gone on the cruise as well as while on the cruise, you know?

Once we came back, things went down with my daughter's life partner--which you saw in my previous post. Life feels like it's on fast forward right now--hockey playoffs aren't helping--and time is at a premium. There just doesn't seem to be enough time (or energy, quite frankly) to get ALL THE THINGS done. So I've had to prioritize.

I flew to Colorado mid-April to help my Brown-Eyed Girl get her car and her cat to Texas. She returned to CO to finish packing up the household stuff she wants to keep and transport it to Texas. My house looked as if a moving van vomited in it. And that wasn't even all her stuff. Just under half went into a storage unit!

So what have I been up to in between prepping for vacation, being on vacation, and dealing with a family loss?

A bit of home improvement!

I worked on one of my hall closets...all my random lap / dog blankets were in a stack in a laundry basket. But it was a huge pain in the butt to get to any of the blankets at the bottom of the pile. What you see are actually shoe racks. Walmart had them on sale, so I got two for the price of one. This is soooo much better.

On a smaller but similar vein, my charger cables were all hung on a single hook and I had to juggle up to 8 to 10 cables to find the one I wanted. So I made my own cable sorter. I already had the small clear hooks which are very small but have enough room for the diameter that most cables come in. I've since added a couple of extra hooks to this. This started off as a magnetic white board for lockers and cost me all of $3! This was very handy while on the cruise. Cruise cabin walls are metals, so my cable sorter had a place to live.

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On another front, I've been wanting to plant flowers to bring pollinators back into my world. It took me a while to get to it, but I finally did so. I'm not quite done, but I started and I'm excited. I started with gladiolus bulbs several weeks ago and they're growing well.

Then a couple of Sundays ago I finally got my flower pots filled. I planted petunias and sweet william from seeds, but -- !! When I was picking up more potting soil from The Home Depot, I saw and bought pale purple vincas! I really like vincas. They're easy to grow and harvest seeds from, but I've only ever seen white and pink ones. The price was right so I bought three plants and replanted them in the American flag planter I bought years ago with...guess what?...vincas in it. :0)

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And now it's playoff time, so DD and I have gone to games and watch parties.

Have a super week. Catch you later.

 

 

If you're a mom, I hope yesterday was as good a day as you could have had. I know it can be a challenging day for some for various reasons, so I don't expect that it was a happy, delightful day for everyone.

But I had the day I wanted, which was basically doing whatever I wanted. That included working on hockey book five, napping, and having cereal for every meal. Yes, indeed I did.

This past Thursday, May 11th, was National Eat What You Want Day, so I combined the two and opted to eat whatever I wanted on Mother's Day and everyone else followed the menu.

My challenge was choosing between cereal and pumpkin cake, but I opted for cereal because there's no prep other than buying the cereal and the milk and because I haven't had any cereal other than Cheerios since last year.

And let me say, my Frosted Mini Wheat with chocolate milk was DEEEEE-licious!

I also received a wonderful, much-appreciated gift from the brown-eyed girl and her soulmate: a puzzle easel and a puzzle.

From DD, I got a cross stitch frame (to hold projects while you work on them) and a set of three wooden patriotic gnomes. And of course, she's my hockey partner in crime.

Sonshine gifted me with a phone call.

DH left me to my own devices.

Rascal and Waldo gave me their usual love and affection.

The weather was wet and on the dreary side, but that meant that no yard work was calling my name and allowed me to stay housebound guilt free. Not that I would have felt guilty anyway. :0)

Here's to a great week... Catch you on Thursday.

 

The jury's still out on what I want to be when I grow up. :0)

But as I was going through boxes in preparation for the new home office desk...I came across a couple of school papers from my two youngest kids.

They were both surprisingly...accurate. DD and I both got a laugh.

DD was probably in third grade when this happened.

And Sonshine was probably in Kindergarten when he made this.

DD isn't an official teacher, she only has half the required degree; but she has enough of one to teach the 2s and 3s at a faith-based school as well as provide after-school care. But for the point of this post--close enough.

Now, short order cook at a local sports bar isn't anywhere close to "chef on tv" but he cooks food for money, so we're in the vicinity. He used to watch cooking shows when he stayed home sick from school. I'd encouraged him to pursue chef-ery post-high school, but he declined... And now... Well... 

**shrugs**

I too wanted to be a teacher and even started my education toward that end, but then I became a mom and my life took a detour. At this point, I'm mostly happy doing what I'm doing (office manager / bookkeeper; hobby enthusiast), so I think I'll stick with it for a little longer.

Have a great week!!

No, Christmas hasn't been decorated for. I'm terribly lazy about it. Well, it's not the putting up, it's the taking down that kills it. But that's not what we're here to talk about...

I've been crafting!

My sister-in-law and my niece made some snow globes which I saw while visiting for Thanksgiving and which I thought were cute. So I hunted them down during my trip to Michael's and found the little globe. I also a found a cute little figurine to go in it.

But did I open the globe and read the instructions while at the store? No, of course not.

So fast forward an hour-ish and I'm sorting through my purchases. I open the globe and read the instructions. I also needed glycerin and a box of some sort of water-proofing solution. Okay. No problem. I'll go back another time. In the meantime, I open the figurine package only to find one of the birdies' little wings has broken off. It was disappointing, but then I remembered I have some Sculpey clay and I created a new little wing for the thing.

Now, the bird was originally while, but it's fixin' to go in a snow globe, so I'm thinking white's a bit redundant. I know, how about blue? A little bluebird of happiness! I made the water blue as it was also white. I get that if it's frozen over then, yeah, it's gonna be white. But again--white glitter/snow--redundant.  And it's my snow globe, so I'll fix it up the way that makes me happy.

So here's the repaired figurine. I'm sure you can tell which wing is the replacement!


Next step will be re-add the eyes and re-color the beak. Then I'll waterproof the whole thing. So more pics later.

One of our long-time Christmas traditions is buy or make ornaments for the kids. All three of them have an ornament for every Christmas they've celebrated, even if I was broke and could only afford to make them with whatever I had at hand. There were a few Christmases like that. Last year, they got these, remember?


This year, I bought ceramic ornaments at Michael's and will decorate them. I've found a couple of ideas on the Internet to play off of, so wish me luck. Luckily my Sharpies clean off with rubbing alcohol. The acrylic paint should wash off with water before it dries. We'll see how it goes. Pics later.

And of course, I realized I forgot a couple of people, so there will be yet another trip to Michael's. (It's a hardship.)

And after a month of not working on DD's birth sampler, I have picked up needle and floss once again.

Doing any Christmas or other holiday crafts?

...when foggy is the weather. So foggy, in fact, the fog advisory lifted only a short time ago.




The fog, clouds, and mist suit my mood just fine. Too bad I can't crawl back in bed for a few hours. It's great sleeping weather.

In other news, DH and I sat the kids down last night and had a discussion about house rules. It was made perfectly clear to them all, in front of each other, what the rules are, what the consequences could be, and what's expected of them. It was a late night since the Brown Eyed Girl had work. She has additional rules to follow. Not from us, but due to her stint through prison. Parole and probation. As a condition of coming back home she has to abide by those rules as well. She was not very pleased, but we made it perfectly clear (to all of them) that if they don't like our rules, they are free to move out. DD and Sonshine are perfectly fine with the rules. But that Brown Eyed Girl just seems to chafe under them. And it's not like our house rules are really that difficult and harsh. Sheesh.

In other other encouraging news, I have dropped a few more pounds. I haven't talked about it since the beginning of the month. I'm still ingesting more carbs and sugar than I should, but miraculously, in the last week, the weight has trickled off. Now I've got to switch from carb-laden dinners to protein & veggie rich meals. That should help me get past the line I'm straddling. One scale says 141.8, one says 139.9. I'd rather be firmly planted in the 130s so on to the next step. My goal is somewhere between 116 and 120.

Sunday breakfast plans in Fort Worth with friends are finally finalized. I'm excited about hanging out with ladies and seeing more of my city. Fort Worth Fridays will be every other Friday, probably starting February 8th.

I'm glad it's the weekend. Big plans??

First of all, my crew and I are fine. In fact, much to my chagrin, I was pretty clueless as to the severity and extent of the weather until I left work to pick up Sonshine from school (after all was said and done in my neck of the woods) and there was *no music* on any of the stations. Nothing but news reports.

So note to self: when DD texts me from home six miles away asking if I hear sirens, turn on the radio. Seriously, I could have been in the path of the largest tornado and would have been scrambling for cover way too late. Not good.

It's not that I wasn't aware that there was bad weather. I was. It was raining and windy--it was sideways, 'cause otherwise our office door doesn't get wet when it rains. :( (big clue there, Jen) I had gone to the local news channel's website and looked at the radar which did show the size and severity of the thunderstorms and the fact that most of my section of the county was under both severe thunderstorm warning and a tornado warning. BUT here in North Texas you just never know and without the radio on and reporting real time what's going on, it could have been pre-emptive because conditions *looked* favorable. Most of the time, nothing.

Luckily, no one I know suffered more than severe hail damage.

And it's sad/funny how life goes on. When I left work, I took Sonshine to the mall (to get a suit for his band contest on Thursday) as if it were a normal day.

After dropping him back at the office with his dad so that he could re-load the OS onto one of our PCs that he infected over the weekend, I headed home expecting several hours of relative quite in which to do some serious revisions. About an hour later I hear the front door open and Sonshine call greetings to his big sister.

Moments later, DH saunters in to the bedroom and asks if he can talk to me about something. This is usually never good. What else can I say but, "Sure."

So he sits on the bed and asks, "How much trouble will I be in if I spend $600?"

I ask, "On what?"

And he says," The Xbox 360 Limited Edition Kinect Star Wars Bundle?"

"But we just bought a new Xbox a few weeks ago."

"I know, but..."

Well, it turns out he'd actually already bought the damn thing.

No, I'm not mad. Since we just deposited a nice chunk of change, money is not a worry at the moment. And the kids had a blast. It was heartwarming to see these two of my kids who often times drive each other nuts and push each others buttons having such a good time together.

One other upside is that I was still left alone to revise in peace. :)

So I get a call from the kid yesterday, late morning.

"Um, Mom...I can't go back to class until I get this shot..."

Aw, crud. He'd brought home a paper at the end of last year and it disappeared and I forgot all about the shot. Until the phone call.

All right, so off I go to school to pick up Sonshine. After a quick detour to the house to get a book, we go to Care Now. Sign in. Go to Wendy's for a quick bite. Back to Care Now to finish waiting.

"Oh, excuse me, Sonshine's mom? We just ran out of the TDAP vaccination, but the Arlington location has it. I've called ahead and they know you're coming."

Lovely. Back in the car we get and drive for fifteen minutes, wait another thirty, get the shot, wait ten for any bad reactions, wait to pay and then finally drive Sonshine back to school. (What--he had band practice after school--he *had* to go back.)

I finally get back to the office and try to figure out where I left off and what I had left to do. Did I mention that I felt like I was coming down with something...

On the up side, it was a gorgeous day and I got to be out in it rather than stuck in my chilly office. :)

Well, I have my computer back. I'm still missing some key programs, like Outlook and Office, but they aren't essential as I can access them on other PCs.

But getting everything re-installed and situated just the way I like, finding all my shortcuts and bookmarks is tedious and done on an as-needed basis.

Getting back into a routine is harder. I have--well *had*--a set list of daily tasks, but because my schedule/routine got out of whack from not having my computer for a week, I am floundering a bit, trying to remember everything and get back into the swing of things again....

And, of course, the phone keeps ringing.

The weekend was good, though. Productive. I like productive. Laundry was done for the week. I got my kitchen floor and half the living room floor (the half that didn't get mopped last time round) swept and mopped. Half the kitchen counter tops were cleaned. All the dishes were done. The spare room ceiling received its second coat of paint and the walls were cut in in preparation for their second coat. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the book was read, the film watched. (Yes, again.)

And, most importantly, time was spent with the kids. We played a couple of games on Saturday afternoon. That was nice. I mean the kids are 21 and 15...so the fact that they still want to play board games is good.

Happy Monday!

Last night we met all my son's teachers. All women, all very nice. All very committed to making sure each student understood the subjects being taught. All seeming to love having our son in her class. His English/Reading teacher was impressed by his broad vocabulary--especially the big words he knows how to use. With a mom who loves to read and write, and two big sisters who were a bit older than him, he's been exposed to an advanced vocabulary since he was born.

He is also sitting first chair in band at the moment. Woo hoo!

We met the young lady he likes--a flautist and cheerleader. She's a cutie.

We've signed him up for the tutoring program--not because he needs help right now, but just to make sure that at the first sign of trouble the help is in place. The tutoring program is 34 hours over the course of the semester and provides a meal and transportation. How nice is that??

The thing that most impressed me was that all his teachers spoke well. We live in a very mixed neighborhood, more blacks and Hispanics than whites. In fact, there are only 42 white kids in this school, but I digress. As you can imagine most of the teachers at his school are also black. And a lot of the time, in my area, black people don't speak well--in that they don't enunciate and they tend to use incorrect verb tenses, etc. Not these ladies--with maybe one or two minor exceptions they all spoke proper American English. Now, the principal, on the other hand...ugh! But he seemed to have a passion for the school and the kids, so...

I keep thinking it's time to post, but I don't have a pressing topic...

So let's see...kids went back to school--two college co-eds and a middle schooler. ;)

I went back to full-time work, which I'm not real pleased about, but I do have a lot of free time to piddle, I just can't get my housework done. :(

My dogs cost me $700 at the vet because they both had viral infections under the skin. Plus they boarded at the vet while my in-laws painted the living room molding with oil-based paint. :(

My kitchen is finished, to include the four various cabinet doors that had not been installed. YAY!

My living room is 98% finished. We just need to put the vertical blind slats back up and then install the transitions in the doorways between the floorings. YAY!

The publisher I was hoping to submit my YA novel to closed its YA line. :(

There's a lack of readable fanfic for NCIS and the BBC's Robin Hood. :(

I'm getting together with a girlfriend for a brainstorming session tonight. :)

But now the lovely eye-candy that it Jonas Armstrong's Robin Hood is gone...