Feeling Scheduled

The beginning of a school year always comes with my determination to be organized and productive. By the end of the year I am just ready to flop and do nothing. This year has been the same. I am still watching Lydia this year, but only 3 days a week. I also now have two kids in middle school. I continue to teach piano lessons as well. Life just seems to schedule things whether I like it or not. The challenge then becomes staying organized and on top of all of these activities.

With all that being said I am also looking farther in the future and realizing that I need to do things NOW in order for everything to not get overwhelming and out of control later. Last night for example we finally decided to get our 72 hour kits into our backpacks. We have owned the backpacks for years and they have remained empty waiting for us to be prepared. So we finally decided that for Family Home Evening we would put the food into our packs. I have to admit that once it was in there I felt somewhat invincible. Bring the future ON.(last night) Or maybe not (this morning). Steve and I also tackled cleaning out every closet in the house as well as all of the toys in the basement. We finally finished on Saturday evening and I think that I need to now live in my perfectly wonderful clean closet.

I also think that the kids really should never touch the organized toys

ever again. But things just keep moving forward.

For Thanksgiving we are traveling to Todd's house in St. Louis and then in December I am going to Germany for 11 days. Along with these family events I have RS enrichment meeting to plan and several other RS activities to put together. If I really want to stay on top of things I need to start getting ready now. The problem comes with the motivation portion of the plan. Without the stress and imminent nature of things "I DON'T FEEL LIKE IT" becomes my mantra. I also have the paint the house itch again so somewhere in there I would like to paint some more rooms.

Life doesn't really set itself up for those who don't want to work hard. I guess I will just keep plugging away at it and hope that I learn some lessons along the way to help me succeed.

I got Tagged

Thanks for tagging me Emily it just took me a while to respond because our computer crashed and we have been without one for a couple of weeks

What is your current obsession?

I am determined to get every space in my house painted and organized. I dream about it!

What do you hate the most that everybody else seems to love?

organic food

What are you wearing today?

Jeans, sandals, and two shirts

What’s for dinner?

I can't answer that yet because it is still only 9:00 in the morning

What would you eat for your last meal?

Filet Mignon, red garlic potatoes, perfectly cooked broccoli, Moose tracks ice cream and some kind of fruity drink.

What’s the last thing you bought?

groceries (so what else is new)

What are you listening to right now?

Seth watching Phineas and Ferb while waiting to hear the knock that will mean Lydia is here

What do you think of the person that tagged you?

I guess she is ok. She has a tendency to come and crash at our house (Just not often enough --Luv U Em)

If you could have a house, fully paid for, and totally furnished anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Anywhere in the mountains, but not too far from Target, Costco, movie theatre and places to eat. I would want my family to have houses close by as well.

If you could go anywhere for the next hour, where would it be?

A book store where I had unlimited amounts of money to buy exactly what I want.

What is one of your hobbies?

I am definately not crafty, do hobbies include just sitting and reading? If not then I really don't have one.

What are 3 things that annoy you most?

1. Being tired even though you just woke up from a good nights sleep.

2. Snotty people who are too good for everyone else

3. grocery shopping with whiny kids

What is your favorite color?

Red

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your wardrobe?

I don't necessarily have a favorite peice of clothing, but I really like some of the new Jewelry that I have.

What is your dream job?

Working part- time (no weekends) at the library. Very different from my dream of being the next US Supreme Court Justice.

What are you going to do after this?

Fix lunch for myself and the kids

What is your favorite fruit?

Fresh pineapple. (It is GREAT on pizza too)

What inspires you?

Seeing people do things well. Especially when they have a cool system to do it.

Who was the last person you kissed?

I kissed Seth this morning. I also kissed Lydia's boo boo better.

What are you currently reading?

Jennifer George--Detective Lynly novel

What delighted you most today?

I was glad that there were a bunch of kids at the park so we could play all morning.

Describe your personal style.

I don't have any fashion style, but home decor style is craftsman. (think Ethan Allen) not that my home really reflects anything except that most of the furniture was free.

By what criteria do you judge a person?

How they treat people-- especially their children.

Now something totally unrelated to the previous nonsense. Here are the pictures from the first day of school. Todd is in 8th, Hannah 6th, and Joseph 2nd. (Hey Cindy do you remember 2nd grade!!)

Chocolate

.At the end of the school year I chaperoned the 5th grade trip to

Hershey Park. (It has been such a long time that I thought I should finally at least post the pictures)

Hannah and her friend Danelli

were in my group. Other than about 1/2 hour of pouring rain in

the middle of the day we had such a great time.

This month is such a special one....

Hannah's birthday was August 5th just four days after Joseph's. Her birthday celebration actually started on July 31st when we went to pick up Sandy (her best friend that moved away at the beginning of the summer) Sandy was going to stay with us for a week and celebrate Hannah's birthday. By Monday

night she was so homesick that she decided to be picked up on Tuesday unable to stay even one more day even though Hannah's birthday party was on Wednesday. That evening told me that having just one girl could be a real blessing. Sandy was crying because she was homesick and felt bad about it and Hannah was crying because Sandy was leaving and was going to miss her birthday. What a fun evening we had.

On Hannah's birthday I took her and three of her friends to make bracelets at the Potomac Bead Company in Hagerstown. (Steve's mom lives close by so I picked her up so she could help me.) This store was filled with every bead you could ever imagine wanting or needing and they were very nice with the girls. When we were done there we went to our favorite ice cream store for cones and presents. The ice cream store is the best--the cones are so big that you can hardly eat the whole thing and eating it is only half the problem....you first have to decide what kind of ice cream to get. It is a wonderful place!!

That evening we ate Hannah's favorite dinner of rice and gravy and opened her gifts from the family. All in all it was a great day (even without Sandy).

I can hardly believe that she is 11 and will be starting middle school.

Joseph turns 7

Joseph and Banana

On Saturday Joseph had his 7th birthday. We had a really good time. We went swimming in the afternoon. It was a pool that has fountains, buckets, water slides and other activities.

Joseph loves the water and has really become a fish this summer. When we were done we drove to the mall in Tyson's Corner and met Emily. We didn't tell Joseph where we were going until we walked up the the Build a Bear store.

Joseph had a really good time picking out and building himself a monkey. (I had originally picked this present because he really likes frog and the store had frogs, but apparently that was a limited time offer animal and they didn't have any more left) Joseph got to pick out an outfit and Emily bought him some accessories to go with his monkey.

He named the monkey Banana. We then went out to dinner and let him open the rest of his presents.

He was one happy but tired little boy when we got home.

Oh what do you do in the summer time?

Here are some the of the pictures of stuff that we have been doing this summer

Being a rock band

Picking and growing flowers.

Rocket launching.

Swimming

Scout camp..

Time just seems to go so fast when school is out. How come it doesn't seem so quick when school is in?

I LOVE THE SUMMER!!!

Bad boys bad boys whatcha gonna do?

On Thursday morning I came downstairs and noticed that there was a car sitting in front of our house. I saw that there was people sitting in the car so I assumed that they were waiting for someone. I didn't think too much about it. An hour later I noticed that they were still there. It looked like they were sleeping in the car. Another hour passed and they were still there. It was starting to make me nervous so I decided to call the police. I was a little bit nervous, but I looked up the number and called. I don't know what I thought was going to happen, but it was surprisingly easy. Ten minutes later a police car showed up. The cop took the driver out first and did all of the things that you see on TV. He made him put his hands on the hood of the car and spread his legs. The officer then patted him down. (All of this happened with me looking through a slit in the blinds and making the kids stay away from the windows.) I continued to watch as the officer did the same thing with the passenger and proceeded to administer all of the touch your nose with your finger etc. Then the officer searched the car and started pulling out stuff including a full open bottle of liquor. After about an hour and a half another adult (which turned out to be the driver's mom) came and got the kid and left. After it was all done the police officer came to the door and asked if I was the person that called. I said yes and he explained that the kids were probably sleeping it off. (Though why they parked out in the open in front of my house I don't know)

It was an exciting morning. While this was all going on the little neighbor girl came outside to see if Seth could come and out and play. She didn't make it as far as our house because when she saw the police officers she went in the house yelling that she wasn't coming down here because the police were arresting people. Her mom didn't believe her until she went to the window and saw the cops. She called me a few minutes later wondering what in the world was going on. We had to laugh because her little girl was worried that the police had come for us.

Life just has limitless experiences just waiting for us!!