September Acres

Remember to keep a deck of cards in your desk, just in case!

On my bedside table : "Elsewhere, USA" by Dalton Conley. On my TV : Nothing now. Usually if it's on during the day it's on the Fox Business Channel On the Menu for tonight: Shrimp Alfredo, salad On my To Do List: Work, steam the grout on my tile floors (this will be on the list a while - very time intensive) In the craft basket: Gift tags to make. Looking forward to: Hockey this afternoon w/ my daughter - the semi-warm fresh air while she is practicing. Homemaking Tip for this week: Steam clean your grout - it is so gratifying and it will look like you have a new floor. Favorite Blog Post of the week (mine or other): Putting my husband first by Monica @ The homespun heart. Wonderful post and great comments! Favorite photo from last week: My daughter enjoying her new scooter. Lesson learned the past few days: Keep the kids' birthday parties small. We had way too many kids at the party and although it was fun it was quite chaotic. Next year, we...

We went to Kmart today (breaking my 'no shopping on weekends' rule) so my daughter could spend her gift card from her birthday. I wanted to bow out and just send Little Miss with her dad but he wanted me to go since he was gone all weekend. Very sweet. Well, who knew they STILL had Christmas items lingering among the shelves? For $6.14 (regular retail value: $34.93) we are now the owners of this cute vinyl kids Christmas table cloth, curling ribbon, the oh-so lovely tree skirt for the tree in my daughter's room (only a 7 year old would love that one!) and the finger tip towels (which I think will be cute in gift baskets next Christmas). Christmas wrap was 90% off!!! It was hard to resist but I bought some at 75% off and just couldn't see getting more as I still have some wrap from 2 yrs a ago. Please excuse the blurry photo. My daughter ended up getting a Hannah Montana doll which came with a locker and provoked the question: "Why don't we have lockers...

to say that I LOVED Michelle Obama's dress she wore yesterday. You know that I voted for McCain but style is style whether you are a democrat or a republican! Love the dress, love the Jimmy Choo's. Now if I were to be lucky enough to have somewhere to wear the dress I would order it in navy as yellow is not my best color. Are you reading this, Isabel Toledo?? The ball gown from last night was lovely but I wasn't totally wowed by it. I felt there were too many pleats on the skirt for my liking. But it was very pretty. And the little girls looked too cute in their colorful coats. I spent inauguration day in my DKNY jeans and Eddie Bauer t-shirt. Hmmm....

We had a PTA meeting today at 3 pm. Our school superintendent was scheduled to be there so I thought it would be standing room only. Boy was I wrong. With the exception of the 3 board members I was the only parent there. Yikes. I am glad I went but really disappointed with the turnout. We were given a presentation about the override renewal which is up for vote this November. They want to get the word out that it's not a new tax, just renewing the old. The override pays for all day kindergarten, music, art, PE, nurses in every school -things like that. It was defeated 5 years ago and then passed 4 years ago. I was unaware that it needed to be renewed. I am hoping that come November people will pass the renewal. I am not totally sold on the need for all day kindergarten but the other things are nice to have and important, in my opinion. I also found out the we have yet another fundraiser coming up next week. We are selling See's candy which will be ready for deliver...

I have recently started making my own salsa thanks to a friend who made it for my husband's birthday party. I watched her make it one weekend and thought "I can do that!" It is soooooo much better than even the best jarred, bottled, containered salsa you can buy at the store and you can just taste the freshness. 2 tomatoes (regular old tomatoes - use 5 or 6 if you are using romas.) 1/4 - 1/2 onion handful of fresh cilantro (to taste) handful of banana peppers (in the jar) with a little of the juice added salt to taste Chop the ingredients to desired size, mix together and you're done. You can add or subtract the amounts of the ingredients to taste. It is the yummiest! The other benefit is that I find the chopping process theraputic. I try to make it when I have to time to enjoy chopping. And like with anything homemade it's a nice feeling to serve something healthy to your family and friends. This post is taking part in Living Simply Saturdays at Keeper of the Hom...

does Starbucks coffee taste so much better when purchased already brewed at Starbucks than it does when I brew it at home (Starbucks brand)? can I not seem to keep a white shirt clean? In 2 days I have worn and gotten dirty 3 white shirts (dirty as in I needed to pretreat them before washing them). Yesterday's shirt got dirty when the dog fell out of the back of the car (poor dear, she is fine) into a puddle after getting a bath. Lovely. Today's shirts got dirty with coffee (home brewed Starbucks, see above) and the cheese mixture from Aunt Annie's shells and cheese. are bakery cookies so expensive? I took Little Miss to order her birthday cake today and pick up some cookies to take to school for her birthday tomorrow. She has 27 kids in her class (don't get me started on that) so I would have to get 3 dozen cookies at $5 a pop. Not likely, so we are now the proud owners of 'gingerbread donut holes' purchased for $6. Still way too much but better. I just wasn...