Wednesday, April 30, 2008

WEIRD DOG!!!!!!!!!!

This dog is gonna drive me nuts. Those of you who know her will be wondering what in the world she could have possibly done to make me say such horrible things about her...well here it is....

when we are gone I believe that the dog naps the entire time...but if she isn't napping she isn't drinking water. I'm not sure if she won't drink the water because she's afraid of her water dish, or if she's asleep...whatever

What I do know is that when we return she will go and drink a lot of water! So much water that it makes her sick!

And the last two days she has barfed up water(and some food too) luckily she has done both on the floor right near the back door...so at least she is trying to get out when she does it...but she isn't quite making it.

Lilly isn't a barf eater normally... but after I mopped up the water with a towel she did go and eat the food...whew! I really wasn't looking forward to cleaning up the food. BLECH!

The only solution I can think of is to not use the water dish that we have (it has a tank on the top that scares her when it burps) and limit her water drinking...1/2 cup of water here, 1/2 cup there. Because it doesn't look as if we are going to be able to stay at home with her for at least a few more days.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The Bagg Lady wrote me back...

I finally heard back from the bagg lady...here's her email...

We have a few bags left--small plus in sand ultraleather, large vertical in navy and bone ultraleather, and some original small wallet packs. We will keep our website viable with updates if there is going to be any changes.

I was actually interested in the Wallet Pack. But it would be so much nicer if I could see them in person. I did consider the Vertical (above) but I was more interested in the small one.

You may be thinking "BOY is she picky!" and seeing what is available I kinda think that as well. But I figure if I'm plunking down that much money on a PURSE of all things, I should have exactly what I want...right?

I looked online for someplace that would just make me a purse the way I wanted it...but the only place I found didn't really make the purse you wanted (even though that's what the claimed.) Instead it had several designs for you to choose from.

I found another one that said if you sent them a drawing of what you wanted they would make it...but they only showed one example of their work and plueeezzzee! I could sew that with my eyes shut!!!

and speaking of sewing...that thought has crossed my mind a few times. If I thought that I could do a decent sewing job, I would try it. But so far my sewing skills have not in my mind gone past making some really cute costumes and a few bags for Darly. Which by the way I need to get myself up to the sewing room and make her a bag for her Webkinz.

So I think for now I will keep looking. Perhaps me not being able to find the perfect purse is God's way of saying "you don't really need a new purse." I know that I sure won't be praying for a purse.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

ARGH! Why can't I find anything that I want???

Well when I clicked on this window to start a new post I wasn't going to go with everything, but now that I'm here and I've written that in the title, I might as well go ahead...

BTW: Darly's party went very well. She was mad at me over the scavenger hunt (her idea that I should make all the clues) but she got mad at me cuz she got stumped on the first one and then she didn't win. She came in second...what more should I have done???

anyway, back to the problem at hand.

For the past couple of weeks I have been searching in vain it seems for a replacement for my current purse. For the record, I've owned current purse for several years now and I really like it, but I am worried that perhaps it might not last for much longer, so I'm trying to find it's replacement before the end.

There's a picture of my purse here. But I'm afraid that doesn't really show you the purse. That part unzipped to the right of the picture is the attached wallet. I just LOVE this about my purse that it came with an attached wallet. I love it so much that sometimes I stuff too much in the wallet and become in danger of a George Castanza's wallet. I have to go through my wallet on a regular basis and take out receipts (they're only in there a month!) & old coupons or the wallet part will push in against the inner pocket of the purse and I loose that room.
The center pocket also has the zippered pouch for hiding stuff. Then on the other side of the purse is another zippered pouch and then a pouch that sticks out from the purse. Another great feature of this purse (you can see this in the picture) is that it has both a shoulder strap AND hand straps.
You may wonder why having both straps is a good thing...well I'll tell you. When you go to put your purse over in the seat next to you in the car and you don't have the hand straps you strain out your shoulder strap. And carrying the purse by just hand straps is not good on your back. So having both is a very good thing.

Well apparently this was too good for the manufacturers of this purse and all others because I cannot find another version of this purse...anywhere! I looked at Dillards (actually got the sales lady to talk to me there!) at Macy's (I didn't see any sales help at all there...but also didn't notice if they had self check out.) And of course I can not find my purse where I originally bought it at Target or at WalMart either. I've looked on line everywhere and can't find it.
I did find this person calling herself the Bagg Lady who makes purses...but I'm thinking she isn't in business anymore cuz she hasn't answered my email.

Sigh!

And then today I went shopping with Darly for spring/summer clothes for both of us. We found lots of cute shorts for Darly and even a nice dress...it needs to be taken in though. But I didn't find a thing for me!!! I keep telling Darly that the designers must want us all to dress UGLY this year as all the styles are UGLY!!! I've noticed this trend for the past few years. I haven't found anything that I really like out there. And don't even get me started on size.

Can you find your size in something that you'll really wear out there?

Friday, April 25, 2008

Re: the cleaning before the party...

yah, we'll be cleaning AFTER the party... but there's a lot to clean up before the party.

My friend Jen has this wonderful sign that I need for my front door. "Welcome to our Home. You may touch the dust, but please don't write in it." And our house has a lot of great dusty writing surfaces!

I was just looking at the kitchen counter thinking, if I leave all the junk there I won't have to dust it! The kids won't care.

But it's not the kids I'm worried about...it's their parents. So today is a major dust & vacuume day.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Rumble at the park!

Yesterday was a lovely warm (maybe too hot) day and so we headed out to the Park to see all our homeschooling friends.

Darly and her friends were playing in the trees and all was well in the world. One of Darly's good friends had a brother and he was playing nicely with the girls ... UNTIL his male friends showed up!

One of the boys is... well he's all boy. Darly does NOT like this boy (she's not all that fond of ANY boy, but this one just pushes her buttons too far!)

I don't know exactly what all happened, but from what I can peice together from the two versions of the story ...

Darly was up in the tree trying to get away from the boys...and the boy got a stick and poked her. He poked hard enough that she lost her ballance and fell from the tree but tried to hold on. Well the holding on caused her to scrape her arm up a bit (nothing too serious...just read, no bleeding.)

So I took Darly over to the boy's mom and told her that he had injured my child...so all 3 of us went to confront the boy. Boy's mom handled it very well! The boy of course denyed any wrong doing and ended up in a time out for his actions.

But here's the kicker... WHY DID I FEEL BAD ABOUT CONFRONTING BOY'S MOM??? I don't know. I now feel as if I should email her and let her know that I appreciate how she handled it. I really like Boy's Mom a lot and want to make sure there aren't any hard feelings. Perhaps I should just let it lie because we did talk about things other than the incident later and she seemed fine with me.

anyway...

Well Darly woke up this am throwing up...but it was just for a bit and she's been sleeping ever since...which is totally normal for her at this time of day. I emailed her party guests to let them know in case we have to cancel the party tomorrow and one of them reports back that her child is also feeling crummy. Oh boo! I was hoping that it was just food poisoning...I'm still hoping for that, but I know that Darly didn't share any food with friend...unless they ate something they found at the playground...EEEEWWWWEEE!

Oh well, I must go clean this house.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

oh my, oh my!

Well the Excelent Adventure went really well. All the kiddos did an awesome job and Darly's bit had some jokes thrown in so the crowd got an education with a few laughs too...Juliette Low was a tomboy and there are some really funny stories of her childhood.

After the Adventure we headed to the mall to get some lunch and kill some time before ice skating. On our way to the mall we were being followed by Jen. Had I remembered to charge my cellphone I would have called her to ask if she was stalking me! LOL! It turns out that she needed to go to the PetCo accross the street from the mall.

While at the mall I searched in vain for a replacement for my purse. I looked just about everywhere (except Nordstroms! hate Nordstroms) for a replacement. The current purse is okay but I would like for it to also have a place for my cellphone. However, it seems that purse manufacturers have realized that if you offer a purse with a built in wallet that gals will LOVE it and not buy a wallet! You can't have that...so now, no more wallet purse. BOOO! I want my wallet purse! I also want my purse to have hand bag handles for ease of getting the purse in and out of the car AND a shoulder strap so I can wrap that baby over my head and not have to worry about it. Well finding all of that in one bag is nearly impossible! But I haven't given up the search yet.

Next we were off to ice skating. I managed to stay inside the rink area (usually I'm way too cold and must retreat to outside the area!) for the entire lesson. Darly is improving, but still needs some warm up time with each time on the ice (sounds familliar!) so I think for next week we'll have to hit the ice before her lesson to get her warmed up and work on her skills (she can teach me how to snow plow!) and then send her off to her lesson. I'm just hopeing that the skate rental guy doesn't make us pay for her skates twice.

now for the extra crazy busy part! I finished up with dinner and got most of the dishes in the dishwasher by 7:25...then zipped into the office for my night of fun. LOL

I first put the message board on maintenance mode...this locks everyone who isn't an administrator out of the board. The maintenance mode made it so I could unlock all the posts/classes and set the board up for a password. Course while I was trying to get that done Heather starts trying to IM me. She did offer to help me, but there was really nothing she could do to help, it was all administrator work. Jen called me to see if she could help as well...Jen has the power to help, but at that point I had it all under control.

Then at 7:50 I started watching the clock... as soon as my computer said it was 8pm (I was watching the second hand!) I took the board off of maintenance mode. It was funny to see how many people were waiting to get in. At 8 it was like an explosion of people posting to each class. (see this is where everyone gets to sign up for the classes that they want to take...some of the classes have very few spaces and everyone wants to make sure they get their class. Kinda like the really cool classes in college!) So after about 5 minutes or so, it was then time to keep track of how much space was available in the classes. THEN Jen could help me. We had to click on each post and count how many kids had been signed up vs what the "instructor" had said they could take. There was this one field trip to a Llama farm that filled up right away. The instructor is going to see if we can get a second trip. Once a class was close to full I would modify the title to show how many seats were left...once a class was full, I would modify the title to show it was full and put a wait list on it.

Then we had to watch the clock for when it was time to take the password off. As it turned out, Jen had to go take the password (which was needanap btw!) off the board so the rest of the folks could get in.

I finally was able to get off the coop board by about 10pm and off the computer by 11:30 last night. I went to watch some TV and fell asleep very quickly. Then Lilly woke me up at about 2:30. Something really odd was going on with her. She doesn't normally wake us up like that. I had no idea what was going on, so I just headed for bed. Once I got upstairs I figured out quickly what Lilly was trying to tell me... the battery in the smoke detector right above my bed was low and needed to be changed.
Have I mentioned how much I HATE the smoke detectors in my house??? Well this time I made DH change the battery. That was a BAD idea!!! I'm not sure if he was being so annoying about it on purpose so that next time I'll do it or what.
First he just lays in bed, hoping that it will go away. Then he has to put on some clothes because the the ladder is in the garage...then he has to use the restroom...then he goes into Darly's room to explain the situation...then for some odd reason he is opening the back door?!?!? I still don't know what was up with that. Finally he comes upstairs with the ladder. Then he turns on the bedroom light!!! I hid under the covers. Finally he gets the battery changed and puts away the ladder. I might have been asleep by the time he got back to bed.

If I had taken care of this job...I would have grabbed the ladder...got the smoke detector down and hid it under some thick blankets until the morning. Job done in about 5 minutes. DH has to take 30!!!

I'm sleepy and need a shower. Oh and since I was on the computer last night, I didn't set the dishwasher to go off at night while we were in bed...so DH set it this morning to go off right when I needed to get my shower.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Kind of a busy day today...

I should go drag Darly out of bed soon. It is almost 11am and she's still snoozing and as my title suggests we are going to be a bit busy once we get going.

Today at 1pm we will be going to J & S's Excellent Adventure. This is where the kids will be dressed up as someone famous and talk about their life. Darly will be Juliette Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts. I helped her pick since she kept coming up with obscure women from our Famouse Women in America book. I also thought that perhaps there might be a few things in her Girl Scout handbooks that would be helpful for us. She'll be dressed in one of my dresses with a few pins in the back...it kind of looks like a picture of Juliette when she was 10 (hey! That's Darly's current age!!!) I thought that perhaps we should have gone for Juliette's Girl Scout uniform, but one it was soooooo ugly and two I had no idea where I was gonna come up with one other than making it and I didn't want to spend the $$ on something she's going to wear for less than 5 minutes...know what I mean?

It will probably take us about 35 minutes to drive over to that class. I have no idea how long it will take, but there are 15 kids signed up to do it with about 5 minutes or so each.

I don't know what we'll do after this, but we'll need to kill some time before heading to Darly's Ice Skating lesson at 5:30pm. It would be great if we could get in some time on the ice, but public skate is from 1pm to 2:30 and that's when we'll be pretending to be Juliette Low. LOL!

Oh burr that predicted cold front seems to be coming in as I just got a chill.

On the way home from Ice Skating I'll pick up something for dinner...I'm thinking a roasted chicken. I really could use a trip to the grocery store.

Then at 7:30 tonight I'll have to jump online to get our Homeschool Group's coop board ready for registration tonight. First I'll have to put the board on Maintence mode so no one can get in. Then I have to set the password...then watch the clock for 8pm and take the board off Maint mode so they can get in. Hopefully this time I won't be getting phone calls since I sent out an email explaining how to do this...but I'm sure I'll get at least one.

Sometime after 8, I have to register Darly for the classes she wants to take.

Then at 9 pm I have to take the password off so the rest of the group (which is about 6 people) can get in and register too.

Remember that huge list of coop classes I posted? Well we let folks who offer more than once class get in early with the password. Folks who only offer one class have to wait until 9pm.

After 9pm I'll be able to rest.

and tomorrow we have our Yearbook pictures to take and gymnastics...our last classes at 5:30pm. Oh and Darly wasn't the only kid who didn't switch to the other class (see I wasn't the only smart mom in the class!!!) The other girl who didn't switch was one of the two girls that I felt might have been ready for the move. But like us she is waiting until the 29th to move up.

Oh Darly woke up a few minutes ago...on her own. YAY!

Saturday, April 19, 2008

"Um, DH? We have a problem..."

This past Wednesday night while I was on the computer IMing a friend, DH hollers from upstairs for me... he wants to know when I plan to do the laundry (must be close to out of underwear again)...I told him I would to it the following day.

So Thursday I start the laundry...and when the first load should be done from the dryer, I check it and it's all ice cold and damp. Huh??? I though perhaps I had let it set too long (it was a very cold day.) So I ran it again... and again, it's still ice cold and damp, I tried switching the setting, but it was no good...no heat. The clothes were now dry enough to go ahead and take it out, but still not really dry. So I spread most of them around on the furniture so they could finish drying and I didn't start any more loads. I also told DH that the dryer was not working. So he goes in there and starts monkeying around with it...after he complains about the mess of stuff I've got piled up in the laundry room.

Yeah, my laundry room not only serves as a laundry room and a dog's bedroom...it is also a catch all for everything that needs another place to stay. So I moved all of that for DH so he could work on the dryer.

Friday was a nice and warm day (funny Colorado spring weather!) so I ran my clothes through the wash and hung them outside (swingset to the fence clothes lines) to dry. But unfortunately the sun went down way to fast for me (I didn't get started until 4pm) so I had to hang the clothes up in our spare bedroom closet on hangers.

When DH got home he took apart the dryer and found that the heating element had come undone...so he put it back together and it heated. We put the dryer back together (dh got his finger sliced twice!) ran it again with heat...I run to get some clothes to put in it...load it up, turn it on and NO HEAT??? WHAT? I take my clothes back up to the spare bedroom closet in defeat.

So today DH pulls the dryer appart again and the heating element is now broken. boo. So I call up the appliance part guy (the same guy I bought that element from two years ago.) and I go get a new heating element.

DH installs it. and is currently working on putting the dryer back together. hopefully he can get the drum back in without me cuz it's a pain to do it with two people. So maybe by tonight I'll have my laundry finished.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Homeschooling???

Who says that homeschoolers stay at home??? This is a list of the co-op classes that are being offered so far (they have until tomorrow to add more!) in our super duper cool homeschooling group.

Co-op is where each family offers one (or more) class(es) to the group in exchange for getting to take as many of the other classes as they want to.

5/02 More Mornin' Chores on the Farm
5/07 Colorado History Day at Elitches
5/08 Physics Night at Elitch Gardens
5/08 Longmont Cultural museum
5/08 NCAR - Cycling Nitrogen
5/09 Ice Skating
5/10 Mother's Day Craft
5/12 Friendship Bracelets
5/13 Robots for Younger Boys!
5/16 Scrapbooking Mania(Adults)
5/17 Pysanky for Parents
5/19 visit a llama ranch
5/20 Assets Protection at Target
5/21 Beginning Scrapbooking (Children)
5/23 Weave a Headband
5/26 Secrets of the Underground Railroad
5/27 Duct tape wallet
5/28 Roxborough State Park Geological Study
5/29 Art in the Park!
5/31 All Day Scrapbooking
6/03 Presidential Election Process Lapbook
6/05 Tropical Fish Field Trip
6/06 Flower Fairies
6/09 Genealogy Seeds
6/10 Pool Day!
6/12 Ghost Town Wild West Museum
6/13 Sport speed cup stacking
6/16 Fun with Balloons
6/17 Zoo in the Morning
6/19 Spy School
6/21 Book Binding Class (Adults)
6/23 Rock and Bowl! #1
6/24 Adventures with Atoms
6/26 Princess Tea Party
6/30 Fun at the Westlands Park - #1
7/07 Sundae Monday
7/08 Gilpin Historical Society (2 Museums!)
7/10 Teddy Bear Picnic Day
7/11 Safety and First Aid
7/14 Fun at the Westlands Park - #2
7/15 Aurora Reservoir Fun in the Sun
7/21 Painting Fun Day
7/22 Poetry Slam!
7/24 7pm Grown-up Book Club, Nineteen Minutes
7/28 Beading
7/28 Fun at the Westlands Park - #3
7/29 Cross Stitching
7/31 Hiwan Homestead Museum
8/06 Flowers
8/07 Oragami
8/08 Get a Clue with Nancy Drew
8/12 Tennis Lesson
8/14 Berry Patch Farms
8/16 (Almost) End of Summer Track and Field Event
8/16 Mother/Daughter Sex Ed.
8/18 Alderfer Three Sisters Hike
8/18 Rock and Bowl! #2
8/21 Cake Decorating
8/22 Home Fire Safety
8/25 Fun at the Westlands Park - #4
8/28 Visit South America
Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt

Now Darly & I won't be signing up for all of this of course, but with what we choose we will also have Girl Scout Camp, VBS, Nephew's Baptism, more camping, gymnastics and ice skating. I think we're in for a busy summer.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The Birthday!

Well today is of course my little girls's 10th birthday. And officially we are holding her birthday party on the 25th to take advantage of the Webkinz Extravaganza.

However, we couldn't just let this day go by without doing anything. Right?

So I called up her buddies' moms and asked if they were busy today. Nope they were both available...so we went ice skating!!! Darly was thrilled.

Friend #1 (F1) had never been ice skating but does roller blade.
Friend #2 (F2) had never been on any kind of skates before.

So when we got the skates strapped on, Darly showed her friends how to fall and how to get up. Then they were off! After them doing a death grip on the walls of the rink for a bit, I decided to ask for some "walkers" (metal bar things that look a bit like a walker for the kids to hang on to while skating). This worked out perfectly for F1 and really well for F2. It gave both of them the time to find their legs and for Darly to try to show them a bit of the stuff she's learned in her ice skating lessons. I'm not sure how long the girls used the walkers but eventually they decided to try on their own. There were lots of falls (even one by me! I tried something I had no business trying in these jeans!) but all in all I think they all had a great time.

After the skating we went home and got some snacks..and then the playing commenced. Yes... Haus von Renee Room of Darly is destroyed! I'm so sad as Darly had just finally cleaned up that mess. Oh well, she mentioned that yesterday she played with some Barbies and then put them away...so perhaps she'll put this stuff away too. Not holding my breath though.

F2 went home and Darly went to her gymnastics class (F1 came too). Today Darly had a private lesson!!! Her regular coach worked with just her...all by herself! It was great! Darly had a chance to perfect some things that she really needed to work on. However, her coach came out after the lesson and claimed her "all caught up and ready for the Pre-Team class!" LOL! Silly girl! Does she really expect me to fall for that load of bull? Yes, Darly did very well in class by herself, but no...in order to move up they are supposed to do the skills consistantly. We have 3 more lessons at this level before they suspend the class...I'm sticking with it unless Darly beggs asks to move up.

So F2 and Darly had a lovely Pizza dinner tonight (DH & I did too). And then Darly wanted her presents. DH had got her some games to play outside when it ever decides to warm up...and I got her yet another Webkinz. LOL! DH seemed a bit miffed at me, but didn't say anything.

More playing commenced and then for dessert we had ice cream sundaes! Unfortunately the jar of cherries in the frig were too old so they have to go in the trash. :( they had been in the frig for a very long time.

I don't know how long these two will be up tonight. But I'm bushed! I sure hope that hour and a half of ice skating was enough exercise to burn off this ice cream... I know...wishful thinking!

April 15th 1998

I was sitting at the computer (much like I am right now today) surfing the web and checking my email account. I kept feeling as if I needed to use the bathroom, but I was ignoring it because the computer was much more fun and lately it seemed every time I went was a false alarm.

So finally I got up to go and I had a sudden gush of liquid in my pants. I turned to the only living thing in the room other than me (our dog) and said "I think my water just broke!" The dog of course just sighed and put her head back down.

I waddled to the bathroom and yup! My water had broke and there were green chunks in it! EWWWEEE! Luckily I had been wearing a pad because the doctor had stripped my membranes two days before and that had been causing spotting. So I cleaned up that mess and then went to the phone to call up the maternity ward.

They asked me a few questions and said I needed to get there but I didn't have to hurry.

Do y'all really want to hear the entire birth story??? I'm thinking not.

Well at any rate...Darly was born at 7:38pm that day. She was all healthy and everything...after an hour of screaming at us, she finally settled down to nurse and has been doing great ever since.

Our plans for today are to meet up with two of her bestest buddies at the Ice Rink for a bit of FUN teaching them how to skate, and then come back to Haus von Renee and destroy the place!!!

Wish me loads of luck and sanity! And thanks to everyone who has already sent birthday wishes for Darly. I guess I will allow her to turn 10.

Monday, April 14, 2008

no title

I don't know what to title this.

I know that I should go see my doctor, but I don't want to. I hate seeing the doctors. I'm not sick and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with me...I'm just getting older and should go for those yearly checkups...but honestly I don't do them yearly. It isn't that I'm afraid of what the doctor might find. I've always been healthy and anything that might have been a concern has turned out to be nothing. What I hate about seeing the doctor is the hassel of it. I mean first I have to figure out what to do with Darly. And then I have to find some time to go. And then I have to actually go...and put up with the doctor. I haven't yet found one that I got along with. I don't want medications...I want to be fixed.

That was soooooo not where I was going when I started this post. I was going to complain about how my cycle is getting shorter. But I'll save you all of that. Just know that the hormones are ruleing this body and brain for right now.

This morning I woke up to a very RUDE awakening. It seems that somehow the message board that I manage was set so that only the administrators could post a new threads. Well this morning was also when everyone was supposed to post stuff...so since they couldn't post it as a new thread...they posted everything as replies to a thread I had on there!!! YIKES! It took me forever it seemed to figure out where in the ADMIN functions of that silly board there was the one magic place to change so that they could post their new threads. And since I could post it had the NEW THREAD button showing for me. I should suggest on the help board that they make it so the ADMINs can see what the members see. I had to call and ask a member to tell me what she saw until I figured out where everything was at. oy! (and while I'm complaining here...the battery on my phone is dying!!!)

So after I fixed that little error, I got to cut and past ALL of the comments into their own threads. Then I had to go in and edit each one (add links and set the date for the class offered) then I had to put them on the events calendar. So I've had quite the fun morning... meanwhile Darly is still asleep.

We both stayed up very late last night. Me watching "Up Close and Personal" again and she reading. I was going to take her ice skating today (she has a lesson later) but I think she needs the sleep. Tonight we will retire much earlier.

Tomorrow is the big day... my baby Darly will reach double digits! April 15th 1998 Darly made her appearance (with the help of pitocin and a vacuume extractor!) and has graced this world ever since.

Unfortunately there won't be much of a party for her tomorrow. We have decided to hold her party on the 25th because she wants a Webkinz party and Webkinz is having an Extravaganza on the 25th...so we will take advantage of all the FREE Webkinz partying. LOL! Am I smart or what?

Thanks to everyone who stuck through all that post. no comments necessary...just send chocolate.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

and so it continues *where's the eyeroll smiley?*

Well after getting the email from the gym that said that Darly's class would continue until April 24th, I decided to just keep here where she is until then. After the 24th I would go ahead and move her to the Pre-Team class which is later in the evening for an hour and a half.

Darly was all for it.

So we go into the gym and talk with the office manager and she said that was fine. She tried to lie to me and say that all the girls were at about the same level and ready to move up...I'm not so sure my face hid the fact that I knew or have a very strong feeling that she was full of it. I told her that perhaps two of the girls were ready but that I felt that Darly and one other girl were not at all ready. Whatever. It seems that they are lowering the "higher level" class as the coach of Darly's old class will be instructing it.

So Darly goes in for her class that is supposed to continue until the 24th. And of course she is the only girl there. At first I was thinking "ALL RIGHT!!! a private lesson!" That euphoria was quickly doused when I watched them move Darly into the lower level class. I was so MAD!!! But I held my tongue. It turned out to not be such a bad thing for her to be in the lower class. 1st. Darly won the handstand contest!!! She was thrilled. 2nd. Darly got to be the "Demo Girl" for everything that the lower level girls did in class. and 3rd. her coach was giving her tasks that were on her level also. So in reality Darly was doing skills that she knew very well and doing her regular stuff too. All in all I think it was a good experience.

I guess we will play it by ear for now. As long as she is happy I don't really care much.

But while talking to the other parents I got a chance to talk with the grandfather of a set of triplets who go there. The triplets were offered an advancement back when Darly moved to her current class (the one they are discontinuing) but they turned it down. Grandfather said he would talk to his daughter because they didn't realize that holding their girls back was causing this class to get canceled. The only reasons the mother held them back is because she thought her girls might not want to be the youngest in the class but grandfather said they didn't mind. So we'll see. Perhaps we'll get some things shuffeled around here and Darly can stay in her current class after all. And if not, no big deal.

And another mom who's daughter was placed on the team when they wanted to be in Pre-Team might get her girl moved as well.

Do I know how to stir things up or what? LOL! I'm not so sure the owner was happy with me today.

oh and the other girl in Darly's class that I didn't think should move up asked me why I didn't move Darly up. I told her cuz Darly didn't want to move, but that they canceled her class so she'll have to move at the end of the session.

The gym's response back

If you've been following our saga you know what this is about, if you don't please go down two posts for the first part, and one for the beginning of the dialog.

Hi Renee,

Thank you for your response to Darly's advancement letter. We're sorry that she won't be moving into the Pre-Team/Intermediate class at this time.

We will be suspending the Tues/Thurs Advanced Beginner class for the next few sessions. As soon as we have a group ready to move up to that level, we will reinstate the class time. Darly is welcome to join the Mon/Wed Advanced Beginner class, which meets from 6:30 - 7:30 pm.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have about this new class.

office manager
Mytown School of Gymnastics, Inc.


Oh Crapity crap crap!

Technically they are holding up their end of this contract by offering her the same class, just at a different time. HOWEVER, we have ice skating on Monday nights. I've got an email back in to them to see how soon we have to switch.

UPDATE: They gym wrote back that Darly's current class will not be suspended until the end of this session on April 24th. So this gives us some time to work things out. And if nothing changes before then we'll only be messing with two ice skating classes...OR we could go ahead and move her to the Pre-Team class at that point and just use up the rest of our money paid.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

here's my response to the gymnastic advancement

Yesterday Darly (and ALL the other students in her class) got a letter from her Gymnastics class ...

4/8/08

Congratulations!

Your gymnast is ready to move to the Pre-Team/Intermediate class. This class meets on... (omitted cuz that's not the important part). The tuition for this class is (more than you're paying now).

If you would like to have your gymnast take advantage of this advancement opportunity, please let us know. She can start this new class as soon as Thursday, March 10th, based on your family schedule.

Again, Congratulations! We're excited to see our students advance.


So here's my response...

Yesterday my daughter received a letter informing us of your decision to move her up to the Pre-Team/Intermediate class. And while initially flattered at your opinion of her skill level, based on her last evaluation we have to disagree with your assessment. Unless we are mistaken about the skill requirements of the Pre-Team class, we feel that the best place for our child is in her current level class.

At any rate, the new class time does not fit into our family’s schedule.

Please advise as soon as possible if scheduling changes need to be made since you offered this advancement to all the girls in the T/TH class.

I'll keep you posted.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Am I too much of a skeptic?

well first off I wanted to address a question I got tonight...I figured the rest of you might be wondering... YES! I really haven't had ANY Pepsi since Feb 4th! I didn't keep track of my last sprite but it's been a long time too...the nearest thing that I've had since was a few sips of Darly's Wild Cherry Icy a few weeks ago...I'm not sure if it was carbonated or not. Am I missing it...no, not really. although it does make it a bit difficult to order at some fast food places, I've got it mostly figured out.

now on to the topic at hand...

I think that I told you how I was waiting to get Darly's Gymnastics class evaluation...and waiting and waiting. Well last Thursday, Darly's gymnastics coach wasn't there (AGAIN!) so I asked the office manager about her evaluation. The office manager didn't realize that we hadn't received our evaluations yet. So she asked the owner who asked her to look in the office for them...she found them and we got our copies that evening.

How did Darly do? Well mostly good, she has improved in 12 skills, but she had been marked down in 5 skills. Only one skill that was marked down do we have a problem with, the other 4 Darly agrees that she didn't do very well on them this time. So I didn't bother having a talk with the coach.

But get this...

Today, Darly comes out of class and hands me a letter. As I was waiting for Darly to get her clothes I see that ALL the other girls in her class got a letter too. Weird!

Here's what the letter says...

4/8/08

Congratulations!

Your gymnast is ready to move to the Pre-Team/Intermediate class. This class meets on... (omitted cuz that's not the important part). The tuition for this class is (more than you're paying now).

If you would like to have your gymnast take advantage of this advancement opportunity, please let us know. She can start this new class as soon as Thursday, March 10th, based on your family schedule.

Again, Congratulations! We're excited to see our students advance.


Okay, well FIRST off they really need to Proof Read their letters before sending them out...unless DH was right and she has to wait another year to move up. LOL!

and Second: Well I should give you all the background on this class... when we first were moved up into this class the Coach had quit to get married and move away. So for the first 16 weeks we had 3 rotating coaches, one of whom Darly HATED. Then they finally got us a coach. This coach was previously the coach for the lower level class and for a long time seemed to be working with the girls on skills that were for the lower level. Finally she caught up, but she really didn't seem to know the girls skill levels. She kept spotting Darly on skills that Darly already knew. So that's where I felt some of Darly's evaluation scores went down.

and Third: ALL the girls in the class got this letter...at the same time. Did they all suddenly (since last Thursday) gain the skills needed to move up? I know for a fact that one of the girls in this class requested an Team evaluation...where she went in and was reviewed by a Team coach to see if she was ready for advancement...she was not moved up.

So what I really think is going on here is that they really cannot find a coach to teach Darly's class and they want to just move her into another class.

When Darly found out what the letter said she told me that she did not want to move up. She was actually wanting to quit gymnastics for her new love of Ice Skating. I told her that was fine...but we need to finish up the gymnastics lessons I've already paid for. For some odd reason she had it in her head that she had to wait until we finish gymnastics to begin ice skating. I don't know where she got that idea. For a while we'll be doing both...it's not a big deal.

So now I get to go talk to the coach/office and tell them that we would like Darly to remain in her current class. If they can not accomodate that, we would like a refund of her "non-refundable" tuition...because they cannot force us to move up. I'll keep you posted.

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Friday, April 04, 2008

anyone else use AdSense?

just wondering about your experience with them.

I signed up for AdSense a long time ago, but I've managed to earn $10 from them so they sent me a card telling me how to access my account and get my money. Well woo hoo.

I went in there and just put my checks on hold cuz I really don't want them to bother me about my account...until I'm rich. LOL! They want me to give them my SSN# to get my not even $10 check. hummm I don't think so! I'm not risking identity theft for less than $10. You're gonna need to offer me a LOT more MONEY to get that info out of me...and even then I'm gonna be skeptical.

Why? cuz I'm already getting payments from doing surveys on a somewhat irregular basis and they don't need my SSN#. And from what I understand the IRS doesn't even care until you start rollin in the dough... so what gives with google tryin to look like they're being legit and all??? I'm not buyin it.

If they're gonna be so stinky with wanting my number I would much rather give that money to charity. But they don't offer that.

so as far as I'm concerned, I'll just let them stew with what to do with my money. LOL! oh they also want my real phone number too...not gonna happen! I don't give out my number to just anyone. If you have it, it's cuz you're very special to me. Everyone else gets the fax number that looks just like my number. ha ha! I just hope that the fax isn't getting tons of calls for people lookin for me. I'm sure that if it were the people who own the fax would figure out how to contact me...I figured out how to contact them. (one day I started getting numerous fax calls...so I googled them!)

Thursday, April 03, 2008

How does she do it all?

Many of you have wondered how in the world I have managed to keep my life together. So I finally (even though I've been promising this post forever) took some pictures of my organizing system (DON'T LAUGH HEATHER!!!!) It works for me.

First we have my main scheduling station...

These two calendars are in my office above my computer station. Notice how there are two months up there. This helps a lot since I get many of our activities off my computer and I'm able to easily see if we're already busy and I can answer immediately. And for those of you wondering about the bunnies... I always choose the cuter bunny to leave up...so if May's bunny is cuter on one calendar it might stay up two months instead of getting flipped.

Next we have the kitchen...

The kitten calendar on the wall is just a reference for the dry erase calendar on the frig. The frig calendar is like "family info central." This is where DH gets to find out what we are up to...he looks at it every morning while getting his breakfast. We like this calendar as it can be reused...although that one is a few years old and suffers from someone using permanent markers on it a few times. So I'm trying to find a replacement for it and so far I can only find them online. sigh. I thought they were an awesome idea and so did at least two of my homeschooling friends (well I bought one for Jen...but she went out and bought a second one so she has 8 weeks at a glance!)

and then finally we have the purse edition...
When I was volunteering at Church & LLL I was using this a lot more as I wasn't near my computer calendars when those folks would ask me to do something. But now that I'm not doing those so much this calendar gets used mostly to let my other homeschooling friends know where they are supposed to be. LOL! They will be wondering if they can do something on a certain day and I'll pull out my handy dandy purse edition and say well we have "underwater basket weaving" on that day and they can say "oh yeah" OR "I didn't sign up for that so I'm free...or because we have this to do instead."

I know that many of you have those new fangled PDAs or appointment thingies on your cell phones, but I've never been able to keep up with those. for the most part I found it way to difficult to enter my info into them...for me it was much easier to just use the calendars. And yes it is a pain to update all 5 of them, but for the most part I only have to do that about every 3 to 4 months. Maybe one day if I get one of the kind that allows me to just write in the info, I'll join the info age. But for now, we're sticking with paper. Besides, a PDA or Blackberry doesn't allow me to look at very cute bunnies!

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Busy busy busy!

first off here's part of my previous list...
I need to file Darly's homeschool paperwork by April 1st. DONE!
My new Nephew will be here soon - he's due next week.
Darly's birthday is on the 15th - don't know when the party will be yet.
Friend is trying to reschedule a coop class that we want to take.

oh crud!
I have to set up the next coop schedule for April. glad that I just now remembered that. DONE!
Need to find out if Darly's friend can go to Girl Scout camp so we can get our paperwork for that turned in and see when we will be going to camp. DONE! Just need to drop it off by the GS office tomorrow.

And now for the month of April...

Oh we did sign up for Ice Skating lessons...Darly is in Heaven.

4/1 - field trip to TV station & gymnastics
4/2 - field trip to Celestial Seasonings & drop friend off who spent two nights here.
4/3 - gymnastics
4/4 - work at church & Girl Scouts
4/5 - DH has to work
4/6 - Dh has to work & I have to teach Sunday School.
4/7 - Darly has book club, my friend's birthday & Darly has Ice Skating lessons
4/8 - gymnastics
4/9 - field trip to discovery center
4/10 - I have some administrative duties with my homeschool group due & gymnastics
4/11 - WHAT? A Free Day???
4/12 - learn to make Pysanky
4/13 - Church & Sunday School
4/14 - drop off some paperwork & homeschool board stuff & Ice Skating lesson
4/15 - Darly's birthday! & gymnastics
4/16 - Park day, field trip & ice cream social
4/17 - gymnastics
4/18 - Darly's sewing class
4/19 - I have a board meeting
4/20 - church & sunday school AND a confirmation info luncheon.
4/21 - homeschool board stuff, Darly has to do a biography speach thing, ice skating lesson.
4/22 - yearbook picture day & gymnastics
4/23 - art show
4/24 - gymnastics
4/25 - Darly's birthday party
4/26 - Darly's birthday party continued - Webkinz Extravaganza!!!
4/27 - church & sunday school
4/28 - hike at state park & ice skating
4/29 - gymnastics & book club for me!
4/30 - SHOCK another free day!

Oh and I do plan to post a picture of how I keep track of all of this...but I'm having camera issues. Yesterday at the TV station I turned on the camera, got one picture and it died....I tried to put in "new" batteries and apparently they were dead too!!! grrr! want to kill camera. want NEW camera that doesn't eat batteries.

Still waiting for that nephew.