Schools Out!

No more recess
No more books
No more teacher's dirty looks!


I survived the first year of working at school! I LOVE my job. I would be lying if I didn't also admit that I am REALLY glad it's summer vacation time! Working with kids all day can tend to wear a person out and the thought of 3 months of downtime is pure bliss. Of course, my own kids started fighting the first day off.

I caught the blooming of my peonies this year. All three plants bloomed. This was my favorite. They smell so lovely, I wished they bloomed year-round. My gardens are an absolute mess and I don't feel much up to rectifying the situation. I didn't even grow any tomatoes this year.

My garden is a good indicator of how I feel right now. Kind of disjointed and disorganized. With gas being so expensive, and food being so expensive and just life being so expensive it is feeling a bit overwhelming lately. I am trying to take comfort in the fact that everyone is feeling the pinch these days and I am most definitely not alone.

We do have some upcoming fun. This Father's Day we will go to Safeco Field to catch an M's game. I have never been and now that I really understand what is going on in baseball (well, there are a few rules on outs and stuff that I don't quite get yet) I am really looking forward to it. T's Cub Scout group was given tickets from a generous company here in our town so that all the boys could go and take their families.

As to my other summer plans, I am going to try to learn to use my camera, clean out closets, clean up my craft space and keep up with my Weight Watchers. That's been a struggle lately. We have been eating a lot of junk during baseball season and I am trying to kick myself back into gear to lose weight.

I will write more when I am more coherent. I'm just feeling very disjointed today.

Wherein I am outed as the Easter Bunny

Like all good things, I suppose this too must end...

I thought we were going along just fine. B. has never questioned the Easter Bunny. He has blissfully enjoyed his chocolate rabbits, cheap toy chickens that lay jelly bean eggs, Whoppers until he is sick to his stomach-you get the idea.

Oh sure, he probably heard rumors at school. Kids will talk. I am sure he thought to himself, "Hmmmm.....could it be true? Could Mom and Dad be behind it all?" But this kid has got it goin' on. He knew he had a good thing and he wasn't going to screw it up. Consequently we have had 11 good years.

Along comes T. Now T. is fully as smart as his brother was at that age but there is one thing T. hasn't figured out yet. When it comes to the Easter Bunny you just keep your mouth shut and play along.

My dear boy gets up early. I know this. It's not a big surprise. I dutifully set my alarm for 6:15 Sunday morning. I figure that will give me a good 40 minutes before any child wakes up. But NO. T. hears me moving in my room and gets up to go to the bathroom. I knew he was awake at that point but it was still pretty dark in the house and I thought I could pull this off.

While he is in the bathroom I run out of the house as quietly as possible and start hiding eggs. All the time I am thinking, Gotta hurry, gotta hurry, gotta hurry. Then I start thinking, How am I gonna get in the house? How am I gonna get in the house? How am I gonna get in the house?

I get the eggs hidden away and quietly slip back in. I think I have pulled it off. Victory! Whooo Hoooo! One more year of the fantasy.

Alas, it was not to be...

After we go out and hunt the eggs C. takes me aside and says that T. saw me through the window hiding the eggs. NO!!!! We go through half the day and T. doesn't say a word. Finally he comes in and wants to tell me something.

"Mama, I saw you hiding eggs."

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did."

"Well I was just helping the Easter Bunny because he was running late."

"Huh-uh. I saw you."

"You're crazy. (yes, I know it's despicable to call your kids crazy but it can be an effective diversion-of course not this time...) I just had to help the Easter Bunny."

"You're the Easter Bunny."

"NO, I AM NOT!"

Somehow we make it through the rest of the day and as I am tucking T. into bed Sunday night the last thing I hear as I head out the door....."Good night, Easter Bunny."

"Good night, T."

The one statement you should NEVER make

Know what it is? I'm sure we have all uttered it at one time or another. Wanna guess?

"It just can't get any worse."

I didn't actually say it but I have to admit I am thinking it inside of my head and the little things just keep piling up. I must admit, this is all very minor in the grand scheme of things. Everyone has their health, my family is safe, the bills are paid, food in the cupboards, etc. Mostly it's just that I have been bombarded with little nitpicky things that are making me insane.

We've all been there. It makes me wonder how drama queens thrive in that kind of environment. You know them. Whenever you talk they always have 15 things going wrong, all at the same time, their life is totally falling apart and they seem to be blissfully flourishing in their mess. Me--I'd like to head straight for the Valium. Speaking of which, why don't they hand that out to us moms like they used to in the old days? I've had Valium once in my life when I was having terrible muscle spasms in my back and have never had it since. But from what it sounds like they used to give that stuff out like it was candy back in the day....Progress? I'm not so sure.

So what has me so crazed? Like I said, it's nothing big. But the list of little things has been piling up....

1. The alternator went out on my van exactly 10 days after my warranty expired. Is there some kind of timer that goes off telling a vehicle it is time to fall apart? You would be hard-pressed to convince me otherwise. And while we are on the subject, did you know that the dealer (it's a Kia Sedona-not that I would recommend you buy one) charges $1100.00 to put in a new alternator? Did you further know that the alternator actually only costs $170.00? As I told my husband, this is why I married a mechanic. Two days later and he has it fixed for me. I really need to tell that man I love him.
2. A student asked me if I was a hunchback.
3. Another student called me the mean teacher.
4. A third student read the word "daydream" and asked me what a "wet dream" was. Yikes! I think I did a pretty smooth save on that one though. I told the group we had a lot of words to read and we really need to keep moving. Ack.
5. Forgot to pay some bills on time. This was after asking dh to pay them then changing my mind and telling him I would take care of it. I have this nasty little habit where once I say something it is POOF, gone from my head and I figure it is handled.
6. B. is having a birthday this weekend.
7. I just found out I am not going to get to go to my craft night because dh has a meeting.
8. Moving the clocks ahead has ruined me.

So you see, those are minor things. Oh, I forgot maybe the best one. I found this cool show on FitTv called Shimmy. It's belly dancing lessons. I taped a couple of the shows to give it a try. B. happened to catch me practicing and went screaming from the room yelling, "My eyes, my eyes! They burn!" Brat!

The very next day here is the comic I found... Zits

I hope you can read it. My mom called me specifically to tell me about it. Thanks Mom. It is pretty funny. B. got a big giggle out of it.

I'm off to sleep. I have to try to wrap my brain around being a nicer person.

New camera

Here I am sitting down to type on the blog when I should be going to bed. Oh well, tomorrow's Friday, right?

I got me a nifty new camera today. Now the obvious thing to do would be to display a beautiful picture that I took with this new camera, wouldn't it? But Nooooooo, that's not what I am going to do. I am still trying to figure out how to use the darn thing.

Can someone explain to me WHY a simple DVD player has 98 pages of instructions but a camera with a number of features only has about 7 pages of instructions? This thing didn't tell me how to put the battery in, how to put the memory chip in, how to make a video, nothing. Nada.

All the booklet basically has is a legend showing what all the little symbols on the screen stand for. Mind you, it doesn't tell you which buttons to push to get those little symbols to show up on the screen, just what they mean if you ever happen upon them in your frustrated efforts to take a picture. So we will see what comes of that. It's a cute camera though, if that counts for anything. Let's see if I can find it. My camera (but mine's in red). Hey, that website is pretty good. Apparently there's a "fun" feature on my camera. Whatta ya know, Joe?

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On to other topics. Lost another pound tonight. Brings my grand total to 16.4. This has been a long week with some emotional baggage from my job and I will be glad to leave it behind. Looking forward to some R&R this weekend and maybe some knitting.

Spring? Are you out there? Spring?

So this seems to be more of a seasonal blog than anything else and that's ok. It is what it is, right? I think I am just plum tuckered out and most of my computer time is spent on mindless drivel these days.

Work is going well. I just started Weight Watchers about 3 1/2 weeks ago. 12.4 lbs. gone so far. I have a long way to go (and a short time to get there)--sorry, I just broke into a Smokey and the Bandit song. Don't tell C. I swear to him that I HATE that movie. Along with Rudy, Red Dawn, anything with Sylvester Stallone in it, Ahhhnold, etc. I swear, that man will sit through a movie he has seen nine million times if he comes across it on cable. He doesn't even care that he comes in at the middle. He just sits and enjoys it at whatever point it starts at when he gets there. Humph!

Oh yeah, I was saying....Weight Watchers. I've done it before online but for some reason it skeeved me out to be losing the weight. I started having panic attacks and garbage like that. Why? Who knows. Obviously I have some issues with keeping the weight for "protection". So I think that means I really have to do some work this time around to make sure I am not my own worst enemy. I am going to meetings this time too so I am hoping if I run into the mental health roadblock I can talk it out with other like-minded souls.

In other news, it is Pinewood Derby race time. Everyone in the family, sans moi, has a race car. This weekend they are going to take them to a tournament? race? event? I obviously don't have the lingo down. At least they are all excited and it has been pretty cute to see C. working on these cars. I'm not sure the boys have actually been allowed anywhere near them but, you know, that's how it goes.

Soccer starts next week and baseball soon thereafter. With the start of soccer we will now be booked 4 nights out of the week, leaving only Friday, Saturday and Sunday night free. No wonder I am tired.

On the knitting front, I am knitting a simple fun fur scarf for a co-worker. It's red and I am dragging my feet on it for some reason. I need to get it finished this week. I am also working on a dropped stitch scarf for myself. It will be a year-round type of scarf. My secret pal at work gave me a ball of Hempathy yarn in a beautiful sage color (sage #07) that I wear often. I have been really thinking about how best to use this yarn and found this little gem on the net. It's not super difficult but you do have to pay attention to it. I am intrigued by it and think it will turn out lovely. I can't wait to find out who gave me the yarn because it really was so perfect.

I better scoot. I am suffering from a bit of insomnia. Not sure what that's all about. LOST is on again and it is better than ever. If you don't watch it WHY? Watch an episode then come back and tell me what you think.

Christmas Is Coming

Christmas time is here,

Time for hope and cheer....

Non-stop Christmas carols are playing in this house. Well, as non-stop as I can make it with a killjoy husband who can't stand Christmas carols. What kind of person can't stand Christmas carols?

The house is decorated and most of the presents are bought but apparently I have committed a cardinal sin this year. We don't have a tree. Well, that's not entirely true. We do have three mini trees but we don't have the big tree that one normally associates with Christmas. Why, you might ask? It's not as if we have anything against trees. In fact, we usually get one every single year.


So what is different about this year? Me. Having a job. Usually the men in the family go to get the tree. It's a tradition that started about 7 years ago. It has worked out rather well for me. I sit home, get out ornaments and lights and wait for them to come home with their prize. Most years it is a beautiful specimen smelling like the great outdoors. One year it was this...

Seriously. That.

I don't know if you have ever gone out into the wild to cut your own Christmas tree. As a child we did it a time or two. I don't think my husband ever did this as a child. So I told him the few "rules" (if you will) about choosing a tree in the wild.

1. Objects in nature appear smaller than they actually are.

2. Walk all around the tree MANY times to check for bare spots.

3. Objects in nature appear smaller than they actually are.

They cut down this tree feeling it was the PERFECT Christmas tree. At that point C stood it up next to the boys and realized it was about 30 foot tall. Perfect for the White House, maybe. Sadly, we live in a house with 8 foot ceilings. Oh well. They tie it to the snowmobile and drag it to the truck. Bring it home and cut most of it off and the beauty up above is what we were left with.

It was so fragile I couldn't hang 95% of my ornaments on it. Looking back, I seem to recall that we were only able to put one string of lights on it. And of course I told my boys that it was the most beautiful tree I had ever seen. I know karma is going to come back and bite me for that whopper.

Back to the point of why we do not have a tree this year and how it ties in to me having a job. I have been so busy trying to accomplish life on the weekends when I am home that I kept putting off nudging the boys out the door to go get the tree. Last night I realized that with only one week left until Christmas there really was little point in shelling out $50.00 for a tree that would only be up for about 7 days. I think the boys will survive since I told them they could each decorate their own mini tree in any fashion they desired.

With that out of the way I am now looking forward to only 5 more days of work and then I will have 2 full weeks off. I can't wait. This week will be filled with candy and cookie making and next weekend we have a Christmas program and a dinner to attend and then all of our responsibilities are fulfilled and we can snuggle in at home and enjoy each other.

I'm sure my tune will change after about 3 days of togetherness but for now the visions of familial bliss are dominant.

Feliz Navidad!

Thanksgiving Feast

We are just over a week away from the big feast and I am getting excited. I'm not exactly sure why I am excited. After all, I have cooked Thanksgiving dinner for any number of years now (at least 10) and there is rarely anyone here besides the four of us and my dad. But once again, I am excited.

Maybe it's the thrill of pulling it all off once again. Or is it cooking a huge, homemade meal? So much of what we eat these days is prepackaged, preserved, oversalted foodstuff. It seems like every night I make something from a can or a box or frozen in the freezer. So that might be the allure of the big turkey dinner with all the trimmings.

And all the trimmings for us means the bird, potates, gravy, oyster dressing, rolls, pickles, olives, cranberry sauce (from a can, jellied only please, and score extra points if you can get it out of the can with all the little can indents still intact), sparkling cider and some sort of dessert. Sometimes it's pumpkin pie, sometimes pumpkin mousse, sometimes chocolate cream pie. Yum.

Beyond that, we have our nephew's birthday this weekend and I don't think I wrote about it but my grandmother passed away on October 28, 2007. I don't know how to even begin to describe my grandmother so I will just say that she will be missed greatly. I loved her and always will and while she may not have been a "famous" person she was a person who knew how to love unconditionally and always find the good and we will all miss her. She was 93 years old and she went peacefully. What more could you ask for?

I love you Grandma!