September Acres

LM leaves for school at about 7:40am each day. Sometimes I take her and sometimes my friend E picks her up. Today she was ready to go at 7:19. She's usually ready fairly early but this was especially early for her. She decided to spend the time outside with Smokey and a tennis ball. Here's Smokey eagerly awating the ball being thrown. He often catches the ball in his mouth before it hits the ground. Very impressive. LM got a whistle at school and wanted to 'train' him to come to the whistle. Seems he prefers to come when he is called by name. Yes, she looks a bit like a ragamuffin here, right before leaving for school. Nothing a hairbrush can't fix...

The title of this post means two things to me today. First, I will tell you what's going on with me. In a nutshell, lots. Only 3 weeks left of school. This school year has flown by - much faster than K & 1st did. But I am happy for summer vacation to be here. It's nice to slow down a bit. And, although we don't really sleep in here it's nice not to have to be out of the house everyday @ 7:40 am. I have put in my request for LM's teacher for next year. We have a new principal this year and no one is quite sure if she will accept requests but LM's teacher wrote down my request in case she does. There has been so much talk about no requests this year that I was a little hesitant to do it. But I thought, darnnit , I pay my taxes that pay the school employees salaries (so in a sense they work for us, right??) & I help out alot at school, try not to cause problems, let the teachers teach, etc so I figured I had nothing to lose. We requested Mrs. A, who was...

We are still watching American Idol around here. LM watches it some and had picked Tim as her favorite. She didn't get to watch last night so I had to break it to her this morning that Tim had gone home. Me: 'Tim got voted off Idol last night.' LM : 'What's Simon's number? I'm calling Simon.' Me: 'Simon doesn't control who goes home, America votes.' LM : 'Well, get me the federal government!' Alrighty then...

Sometimes I have strange dreams. Last night was one of those nights. I had a dream that my good friend and her husband (who live in India) invited my husband and me to meet them at a resort for a vacation, along with 2 other couple friends. When we got to the resort we saw one of the couples (no idea who they were) and the wife and baby of the 2 nd couple. A few minutes later (in dream time) the wife's husband shows up and it was no other than... Tom Brady. Isn't that funny? Where did that come from? To say I am not a Tom Brady fan is putting it mildly and I'll leave it at that. My husband isn't either but in the dream he was totally star struck by meeting him. And my friend that invited us to the resort in the dream doesn't even watch football. She may not even know who Tom Brady is. I am sure this all means something in the dream interpretation world. I wonder what that is...

My friend C is having a baby. It's her fourth but her first boy. Her youngest girl is 7 so there's quite an age difference. She wasn't sure if it was in the cards for them to have another so little by little she had passed her baby things on. At 39 she didn't think it was meant to be. But God certainly had different plans and baby J will be here in 2 weeks (maybe less). So it was time for a baby shower! The shower was yesterday and so much fun! It has been quite a while since I have been to a baby shower. We played some games, which I usually don't like but these were okay. Especially the word scramble which I won. There were some tough words. Like egranftbeside & tinroom (answers below). A couple of ladies got together and gave C the most fun gift. It was a laundry basket with Dreft , diapers, baby wipes and a clothes line with baby clothes, a hooded towel, a blanket & bibs clothes-pinned to it. So, so cute and very useful. I am not sure wh...

In our house, there is a love/hate relationship with distilled (white) vinegar. I love it. My husband hates it. He thinks it smells. It does, but not for long. He thinks it doesn't really clean. I beg to differ. I use it for everything. Mopping the floors? Vinegar Cleaning windows & mirrors? Vinegar (I can't remember the last time I bought Windex) Smelly laundry? Vinegar Cleaning counters? Vinegar You get the idea. Yesterday we went to get my husband's new CPAP machine(more on that another time). The clinician was explaining how to use it and how to clean it. He says, 'for cleaning the hose you can fill a sink with water and soap or VINEGAR and soak it for a few minutes'. My husband & I looked at each other and started laughing. Then we had to explain why that was so funny...

Today Life as Mom asked 'What do you do to save money?' I've said it before and I'll say it again (and again): the biggest change we have made regarding money has been to pay cash for our groceries . I am constantly amazed how much difference one little thing makes. I take out a budgeted amount every two weeks for groceries. When it's gone, it's gone. Simple as that. When I first started this I knew how much to take out since I had been using my debit care since forever to buy groceries. I took the total $$ I spent the year before and divided it by 26 (every 2 weeks) and took out that amount to start. I have actually started budgeting LESS than when we started because I was spending less. When I started this cash system I also was taking the $$ out weekly but found it was going to be easier to stock up on deals if I had a little extra; if I spent more this week I would spend less next - because I had enough food and because I had less money left. I als...

I mentioned how crazy-busy I was last week. I don't see it ending soon, partially due to the fact that we think my husband's secretary will be on bed rest for the rest of her pregnancy (she's due the end of June) & that means that I will be helping out alot. She has been out for 2 weeks in a row already and she is not expecting to be able to come back, at least for the foreseeable future. I feel bad for her as I know she & her husband really need the money but unfortunately these things happen. So I am scheduling everything in on my planner and hopefully that will make me feel less crazy. The extra work will put a bit of a damper on my Tuesday scrap booking day but I hope to be able to make it every other week. I plan to schedule Thursday as my 'home' day, to clean, etc. around here. Tues, Wed afternoon and Friday mornings I'll spend w/ my husband at his office. That's probably all he can handle of me! This is week one of my new plan so we...

First! I was glad to see Phil Mickelson win the Master's over the weekend. He's had a tough year personally (his wife and mother were both diagnosed with breast cancer in the past year or so) so I am sure it was a great win for him. I told my husband, "I know this is mean, but I am glad Tiger didn't win." He agreed. It's Karma, Tiger, Karma. Phil is someone we can still be happy about.

Here is LM this morning at the hotel when I was trying to get her up for her hockey game. Do you love that eye mask - ala Reuben Kincaid - $1 at Target (in the Spot area). I should have gotten one...

Yep, this is a perfect picture of me this week. So I think I am happy that it is finally Friday(almost). There are probably too many details to write about here (after all, I am thankful that anyone reads my blog and I don't want to bore anyone to death) but suffice it to say that I have missed lunch 2 days this week and I DON'T MISS MEALS. And today my lunch was a Dr Pepper and a hard boiled egg - as a general rule I don't drink soda but I needed something to fill me up. Yes, it's crazy here. But luckily none of it is tragic or life threatening - just a pain in my neck. We're off for a hockey tournament this weekend so I hope to relax a bit with a glass (or 2) of wine. Yes, that should help...

I mentioned that I was not doing my own taxes this year. They are now complete - much sooner than if I had done them. We are getting a refund for the first time in many, many years. Now, I don't like getting a refund. I would rather owe a couple bucks than get a huge refund (that whole wanting to keep my money thing). My husband, however, is thrilled. I told him not to get too excited as it is not really 'found' money as he seems to think it is. He thinks he should get to 'play' with it all. We will find a happy medium for sure but I told him we will use some of it to pay for the deductible for his sleep study . Now that's fun...