Irritating

ya know I should really write these right after I've been irritated, it would be so much easier to remember why I'm mad about them. LOL!

I'm irritated by the group of adults with the school group who thought that it would be appropriate to wait for their bus to arrive in the middle of the lobby of the theater. Totally blocking the exit (ever hear of fire codes?) so that I couldn't leave. When the kids would have been perfectly happy seated in the theater or against the walls away from the doors. gah!

I'm sure these are the same folks who leave their carts in the way while grocery shopping and then stand in front of the display for 5 minutes while locating the item they're searching for and talking on the cell phone. Note: they're blocking the way with their body AND their cart...two blockages here! These folks seem especially prolific during busy shopping times!

The lady (or ladies, I never did figure out who was responsible for this group) who brought in the group of school aged boys (why weren't they in school?) who decided to play "cowboys & indians" in the lazy river at the pool. The boys constant lack of attention to anything around them caused them to bump into us and the walls of the pool quite frequently. grrr! I suppose though that they did provide extra heart rate and obsticles for me.

The town I live in who should really hire a full time city planner (and if they already have one fire this person and get someone who knows what they're doing!). It seems each year they tear up the same bit of road to change it. Currently they're tearing up the road near town hall to put in the roads they need for the new civic center (that was planned 5 years ago, before this road was put in!) It also appears that they we redesign the traffic circle to a two lane traffic circle... umm all the roads going into the circle are only one lane.

and also the genius who blocked off two of the three lanes of traffic for 4 miles so they could work on the last block. I'm sure all the folks who had to work that late were just over joyed at being made to sit in traffic that much longer before going home that night.

The current election going on in my town for the water district. Thanks town for the head's up on this one. I hope it goes well because I'm not wasting my time on it.

Speaking of elections what are all these other folks running for? Their constant ads don't say. They also don't do us the kind favor of at least telling us what party they're in...the ads all seem to be generic enough to dupe us into voting for the wrong person if we aren't paying attention...and seeing that this isn't a presidential election, and I can't tell what office they're running for, does it matter? all this talk about voter apathy...

I think I'm done for now... but stay tuned.

Wordless Wednesday - Happy Coffee!

Free Signature Generator

I survived!

Well yesterday didn't look like it was ever going to pan out. I'm just going to have to pay more attention to what day I start co-op and make sure it isn't on a day that DH is home!

He posted on Craig's List our old range, a TV stand (the one we replaced with the roll top desk) and Darly's Princess Castle blocks. He got a few emails arout the range and a lot on the TV stand...they came and picked it up last night...LOL! He tried to talk DH down $5 on it...har har. DH told him that he had 5 other emails wanting it so the guy forked over the cash!

Co-op went very well despite my lack of computer time. However, DH mentioned that perhaps we do need at least one more computer. Keep your fingers crossed!

It sure is nice to have the computer all to myself today...and funny how Darly hasn't wanted it at all today...now that she doesn't have to stand in such a long line for it. weird!

Today I moved my phone over so I could reach it from the eliptical trainer...and sure enough, no one called! Murphy is at it again! Have the phone where you can't reach it, someone calls...put it in easy reach and no one bothers to call. @@ I was able to get in a full 40 minutes. YAY!

So far I haven't seen any weight loss. :( But I have noticed that I fit into my old sized jeans better. I'm hoping that I can get back into my old shorts by summer time.

Holidays stink!

I got in 37 min of a workout today. but that got inturrupted by a phone call. great!

Today of course is MLK day, which means that DH is at home. Well he decided to take this opportunity to try to get rid of a bunch of ours stuff on Craig's list. Which means he wants the computer.

Darly's friend wants to play on the computer while they talk on the phone.

And today is the start of co-op (my job) for our homeschooling group...so I need the computer too...oh and well never mind me complaining about that!

So if you don't see me much, don't worry...it may take a day or two before life is somewhat normal around here again!

Birthday report 2009 edition

I have to back track just a tiny bit to tell you about Saturday. ;)

The weather man had reported that we would get some snow on Saturday and all day the sky was yucky, like it was gonna snow, but you really couldn't be sure it was gonna happen. So since we had nothing better to do we loaded up the car to make some returns & exchanges and did a bit of shopping too.

While we were at Michaels (which DH fell in love with!) it began to snow. By the time I had looked out the store's front windows there was already an inch of fluffy stuff on everything! I pointed this out to DH & Darly. Seeing as we were already out it didn't matter really how much snow was coming so we kept on shopping.

When we were ready to leave there might have been an inch & a half of snow but it was still falling. I'm not sure why but we chose to not put the Explorer in 4x4. Going home we had two choices of routes...I told DH to take the route that goes up a hill because it is shorter. My Bad

As we are trying to get to our turn we notice the cars in front of us trying to avoid something. Finally we reach it and realize what is going on. There are two small sized sedan type cars that are pretty much stuck in the middle of the road trying to get up the hill. Luckily there was plenty of room to get around them on both sides and we pulled into the left turning lane to get off the hill...we slipped just a bit. As we turned we saw a "bumper bump" where a mini-van had rear ended a Jeep. This was a bit crazy. Luckily we made it home only slipping around a bit, but had to put the Explorer into 4x4 to get it up our steep driveway.

DH stayed outside to shovel the snow but it was coming down faster than he could shovel, so he gave up.

DH woke me up this morning (thank goodness! or I would have overslept...bed felt so good this morning.) and while I was in the shower he went to shovel the driveway so we could get out to go to Church. We had about 6 inches of snow with some drifts too.

We had to be at Church at 9:30 because I had to teach Sunday School...however, I slacked off on that today. It's my birthday! And they have us teaching the kids the same Bible stories that they've heard over and over since Pre-K for 3 weeks each. My kids have begged that we don't do 3 weeks worth and I agree with them. Last year they had tests on these lessons...they know this stuff! So instead of our lesson we chatted about our Christmases and some other stuff too. But eventually the kids got tired of that and I just let them go to the Fellowship hall in search of cookies. (aren't I evil to return these kids to their parents hyped up on sugar? ;) bwahahaha!)

So we get upstairs to go to service and notice that the folks who were supposed to usher are not there yet. Holly & I volunteer to usher until the other folks get there. Pastor thanks us and goes off to get ready. After about 5 minutes Holly & I realize that we get to usher the entire service. DH came up and offered to usher for me, but I decided to do it anyway. (DH was the head usher at our Church in TX, so I have plenty of experience at this!) Everything went really well no worries.

After Church I get to pick what we're doing for lunch...I pick Quiznos. YUM! although the meat in the middle of my sandwich was a bit cold...I don't think the kid spread it out very well. I should have had a sammy like DH, but I was hungry.

We head home for my loot! Darly made me the cutest birthday card! It says: "Dear Mom,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! From...
=:3 =:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3 >^..^< (meow) =:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:3=:341 Bunnys and 1 Imposter!
Love,
Darly"

I LOVE IT! hee hee

then inside she has given me coupons for a free hair style by her and a backrub too. Cool!

Dh gave me a very nice card with a coupon for dinner tonight...my choice.

Darly & I watched my all time favorite movie... BABE. And this time Darly finally got why I think its so cute (I think!). LOL! I just love the little mice with the chapter titles. hee hee

So I had to decide where we should go for dinner. Tough choice. We ended up trying this place called The Dusty Boot Steakhouse & Saloon. They should really call it a Salloon cuz the steakhouse part was debatable! When we pulled up we could see through the HUGE plate glass windows a very large bar and massive big screen TVs everywhere. My first thought was RUN! But we decided to see how bad it was.

When we got inside it wasn't that noisy at all. Good!
they sat us next to one of the HUGE windows. BAD!
The view of the gas station nextdoor was impressive. BAD!
They chose to leave the second door of the air lock open. BAD!

Then we looked at the menu. Seeing as it claimed to be a steakhouse, we first looked at the steaks. YIKES! The cheapest steak in the place was going for over $20. Gulp! That's a bit hard to swallow...pun intended. Instead DH & I decided to try out their Sunday special which was buy one buger get one free. Good choice...turns out they have very good hamburgers there. But it was so huge we could have shared one. Lilly is a happy pup tonight as she got the second half of my burger.

When it came time for dessert DH asked if they had something special for a birthday. They didn't, but the manager said we could have our dessert for half price...while our waitress was finding this out we decided that we would go to the grocery store and pick up one of those microwavable cakes isntead.

At the grocery store we picked up two microwavable cakes, icecream & some caramel sauce. YUM!

DH* over cooked our brownie cake tonight, but it still tasted good with the ice cream & caramel sauce on it! We topped it all off with sparkling apple cider and called it good! (*edited to remove all blame from Darly who did NOT over cook my brownie. I warned DH that the microwave was powerful and would probably take less time. sigh I love to be listened to.)

It was! Very good!

I broke my own rule!!!

I broke my own rule by buying myself a new range for my birthday/valentines day/St Patricks day/Easter/Mother's Day/Anniversary etc present...for a while! I suppose it's okay though seeing as I didn't really want anything else.

After begging and pleading with my oven for it to not be broke I've finally given up!

I asked DH if we should call an appliance guy out to look at it to replace the part. The part alone is $200...who knows what the appliance person would charge to come out, labor and what his mark up on the part would be. DH figures for all of that we might as well just get a new oven. Course I don't think he was planning on it costing as much as it did.

So today after looking online we went to Home Depot (cuz they're having a sale) and looked at ovens. I decided that I really wanted a double oven range. I grew up with the old double oven range that looks a lot like the range with a microwave where the hood goes...can't find those anymore! LOL! So this double oven takes out the storage drawer and uses that space for another oven.

At our Home Depot store they really didn't have much that I could look at...they only had one double oven in the store (wrong color of course!). So I decided to look at their website. Just to be sure I checked out Lowes, Sears & Factory Appliance Outlet...OH and AAFES too (that's the Army Airforce Base Exchange store). Yup, Home Depot definately had the best price.

So I got the range much cheaper than the other stores had it for, then HD was offering 10% off that price...AND I got a rebate on my delivery. (sucks that I have to wait for that money back)


Here's the link http://tr.im/2w73

I am giving up three features for this range though. My current range has a dual burner that can either be small or large depending on how you turn the knob. It also has a Sure Simmer burner where you push in the button and instead of cycling on and off like a normal electric stove it stays on (I tried to use it once and it was just too hot to cook with!) and this range also has a split rack where you can take half of it out so you can fit large items in the oven and still bake on the other side. Kinda cool.

but I don't use the Sure Simmer cuz it gets too hot. I'll learn to live w/o the dual burner (it was my favorite!) and since I'll have two ovens I shouldn't need the split rack.

Now I should clean up my old range and see if anyone wants one that needs some work.

New Years

First a late shout out to my "little" brother...Happy Birthday "lil" brother. Of course he will immediately emphasize that he is my YOUNGER brother, not little brother...which is quite obvious if you get us all together. LOL! I'm the oldest of 4 kids...the rest were boys. This affords me the status of being the Favorite Daughter, Favorite Sister and even Favorite Granddaughter... because I'm the only. LOL!

New Years Eve I was about 6 minutes into my attack of the eliptical trainer when the phone rang. I ignored it knowing that I could call back whomever it was when I was done in about 14 more minutes. but the next thing you know my cell phone was going off! I knew from the ring tone (I've assigned each of my friends their own tone) who it was. And sure enough she called back on the land line a bit later. I went ahead and picked it up as it was right next to the eliptical trainer and continued my self-torture.

She wanted to borrow my daughter for an evening of New Year's fun, but emphasized that she wouldn't keep her overnight. In my delirium, I agreed to take the girls afterward. but we would work out the details after I finished working out and got a shower.

Next the phone rings just as I'm getting off the eliptical and it's my co-Leader of the Homeschool Support Group. We hash out a few details and then I call back the New Year's Eve party planner. note: still no shower! I now have a to do list. I call up the mom of the other party girl. note: STILL NO SHOWER! I'm just about to step into the shower and DH calls...he wants to confirm our NYE plans. I never did find out what he really wanted though cuz I told him about our plans. He was coming home early.

Finally I get a shower...whew! Things were getting a bit rank...reminder: wash the bathrobe!

I take Darly to her friend's house for NYE party and head for home.

Dh & I enjoyed a nice dinner of Broiled chicken, linguini alfredo (fetuchini takes forever to cook!) and asparagus. YUM! We then watched TV. DH was annoyed about something and never told me what that was so we sat in silence. sigh

at about 10:30 I checked in with the party and found that they were just about to transfer over to me.

The girlies arrived at about 11:15 or so and promptly went to play. We didn't hear anything out of them. Ahhh this could be a good evening?

At 11:55 I called the girls up for the countdown. They grabbed their hats & horns to get ready. DH poured them all plastic cups of sparkling apple cider which we had a hard time keeping them from drinking early. And finally it was 2009!

The girls made a ton of noise, both inside and out, drank their cider and went back to playing.

They all stayed up way to late while I slept on the couch! Nice evening.

how our Christmas went...

DH, Darly & I spent the better part of Christmas Eve morning cleaning up the house in preparations for MIL's visit. We got most everything in ship shape, cleaned ourselves up and headed over to MIL's house.

*I need to add that Darly was sporting quite an attitude. She had an issue about what clothing she was going to wear, and what shoes to wear with it. But telling her that Santa could always skip our house worked really well.

DH took a Christmas card over to MIL's neighbor (who has been a HUGE help since MIL hasn't been driving) and got fuzzed by her dog. So when he got back to MIL's house he needed to use a lint remover on his pants.

We went to the 3pm Church service at MIL's Church. The lady who sat in front of us had two small boys who were "full of beans" and no I don't mean gassy. They were just very wiggly. There were several times when I wanted to smack them. But I could tell the mom was doing a bang up job with her boys...teaching them just how to annoy everyone.

The lady who was behind us decided that she needed to sing every Christmas carol loud enough to drownd out the choir. Which made it okay for Darly & I to sing at the top of our lungs too! hee hee It didn't matter how bad we did, cuz loud lady drowned our voices out too. That was fun and loud lady gave MIL loads to complain about for the rest of the evening. MIL did a lot of complaining about her Church. She barely knows anyone there anymore and the pastor that she really likes left there a few years ago. Yet she won't leave to another Church.

After Church we had a nice dinner and then opened up our gifts at MIL's house. Then we loaded up the car to drive to our house. On our way home we passed by several homes in our neighborhood to see the light displays. We also opened a few gifts at our house.

Then it was time for bed....for everyone!

DH & I got ready for bed and I waited for Darly to go to sleep. After everything had been quite for about 30 min, I was getting ready to sneak a few gifts I hadn't put nametags on and one that was too obivious to leave under the tree under the tree when a dog starts barking! That dog must have barked for 10 min! great!

I waited about 10 min and headed downstairs with my gifts. DH said I was very noisy, but no one stirred.

Finally I get to bed, but I couldn't sleep. I had a very fast Christmas song stuck in my head and couldn't calm down. I tossed and turned, I went from freezing to sweating, I must have gotten up a bazillion times to use the restroom! I have no idea how Santa made it to our house...he had to be very quick cuz I don't remember sleeping at all.

Next thing you know it's almost 7am. So I hop into the shower and get dressed.

When I'm done, DH wants more sleep and says I shouldn't wake Darly.

I peek in her room, well first the door that was closed was wide open...and as soon as I stepped into her room she sprung from the bed. She had been up for 20 min she said and was just waiting. So then she goes to wake up MIL.

I rush to get the coffee going!

Then it's time for presents! We had quite the haul! Although there was NOT a new American Girl Mia doll under the tree. That was a disappointment for Darly, but I think the new camera might have made up for that.

After presents, I made scrambled eggs, baccon & toast for breakfast. We had left-overs for lunch and I made Ham, Mac & Cheese & veggies for dinner...then more pumpkin dessert & Grasshopper pie. I need a tube to pump out my stomach! I'm too stuffed. And I need a diet...BAD!

and Sunday...

Sunday was our first Christmas Pageant (we do it again on Wednesday night.) The program went really well (as well as it could have...) I mean it was cute and a pretty good idea and would have worked perfectly...if it weren't for children. LOL!

The kids were really great but whomever came up with the idea needs to get it through their heads that you can't make kids sit still and wait for that long! I mean even Darly at age 10 & 1/2 was getting bored and ready to quit.

The first part was that we had to be ready to go 15 min before Church service started. Okay you've now got a bunch of kids waiting in a room with nothing to do all in costume.

Once Church service started we then had to wait another 10 minutes or so (it sure seemed so much longer!) for our part in the service. The kids were barely keeping it together at this point. Oh and someone in their infinite wisdom decided to set up a table for the luncheon with plates, forks, cups & napkins along the wall where the 3 & 4 y/o kiddos were supposed to wait. I had to throw out a plate and move them out of grubby hands and directed someone else to save the cups.

Then we went in. And everything went almost perfect...I was expecting the row of chairs that we were sitting in to be empty, but instead there was a family who weren't in the pageant (kids were in, parents were not in) sitting toward the end of the row where we wanted to get in. YIKES! Luckily the girl I had put in the front was thinking quickly and directed everyone to the other end of the row and there was enough room for us. Whew!

Now the next part of bordom was during the pageant. About 15 or so kids who had non-speaking parts who were all supposed to just stand by the manger and look cute... through about 20 minutes of the pageant. Luckily today I didn't see any kids rolling on the floor like they were yesterday. Yesterday I was getting the EVIL LOOKS OF DEATH from my 10 y/o...as if it were my fault.

However when it came time for my evil 10 y/o to come back from the manger to do her speaking part, I couldn't get her attention! I was waving, rattling paper, snapping but she was looking everywhere but at me. Then when she finally did look at me (after another gal had to almost go up to her!) she was like "what?" and another angel came with her. LOL!

Other than that, everything went very well. Wednesday should go much quicker...I'm hoping at least.

After the pageant the kids all went to sit down, some back to their parents...all the angels sat with me. I then got to take them all up for communion. That was interesting, but the kids who went (one chose to not go) all knew what to do, so no big deal.

After the service it was time to enjoy the chili & Mac & cheese. Only my pot of chili wasn't out. It turns out that we had way too much chili and I didn't need to bring any. sigh! They did serve all of my mac & cheese though...and Darly & I got some too. YAY! The gal who coordinated the lunch told me that she only wanted 6 pots of chili, it was the pageant director's idea that we have at least 8, she asked for 10...I don't know how many total they had, but there were at least 4 pots that were left in the kitchen. We also asked all the parents who had kids in the pageant to bring something. It was set up by last name...so a-k bring something and so on. Folks who brought something all brought CHIPS. We didn't get any cheese or other toppings for the chili (but they made sure to ask for it!) we barely got any desserts (of which I saw a lot going up for extras!) I don't know who all didn't bother to bring anything at all...but seeing as I brought two dishes I wasn't a happy gal.

I'm so glad that I borrowed the church's crock pots cuz I didn't have to take anything home at all. Yippee!

We got done with everything by 12:20. I told Darly that I could take her home, but she wanted to come to my cookie training. We got there very early cuz it was just down the road. And by the time things got underway, Darly was bored. If she had gotten bored about 10 min earlier than she did, I could have drove her home...but nope! She had to get bored about 8 min before start time. sigh.

Training went very well. I didn't notice too much new other than we can now deposit all of our checks into the Council's bank account, so we have less risk of bad checks (the council will eat the cost and send them directly to collections.) And this year the younger girls can choose to have the incentives or a council credit. The council credit can be used for field trips and such, but the money has to go directly to the venue...not through the troop. I think it's a clever way for the council to earn some interest on that money. ;-) Unfortunately for council, this year's incentives look too cute for the younger gals to choose the credit option. hee hee

That's about it for Sunday.

I hope that you had a fun weekend...and share all the details.

Restful Saturday? HA!

Today we had to get up early to be at Church to practice for our Christmas Program tomorrow & on Wednesday night. (not sure why we're doing it twice, but whatever...now DH can see it! He has to work this weekend.)

So at Church it is confirmed that I will have to make a pot of chili for the luncheon...they needed 10 pots and were having trouble getting folks to offer to do it. I offered a pot of Mac-n-Cheese cuz my kid won't eat chili...but when she wasn't getting anyone to make the chili, I offered that too.

I also had to make my turkey cuz I thawed it out!

So we go to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for the chili...I've never seen a recipe like this...but it turned out very tasty...although I added some cumin to it. ;-) I also chopped the veggies and then ran them through the food processor so you can't find them in the chili. I thought it might make more kiddos willing to try it.

So the chili is simmering and I try to get the Turkey started. But my oven decides it is going to give me something to worry about! It send up some code that means the control panel needs a service call and shut off. But I think I've figured out my oven's problem. See the thermostat for the oven is on the left side, which is also where my simmer burner is. This stove has a burner where you click a button and it holds the temp there...no cycling on & off. However the extra heat from the simmer button was bothering the oven thermostat. Being the very smart person that I am, I decided to see if cooling down the stovetop would help with the oven.

So I put a pot of ice on the stovetop over the burners where the chili had been cooking...and what do you know? It worked!!! For a bit there I thought I would have to see if I could cook this bird in my neighbor's oven. :p

So then I had to transfer the chili into a crock pot for tomorrow. I borrowed one of the Church's crockpots so then I don't have to worry about getting mine back. but I didn't want to dump hot chili in the crockpot... so again, thinking quickly... I take the pot of chili out to the garage. I put ice under the stock pot and under the crock pot and slowly transfer the chili as it is cooling. It wasn't entirely cold when I put it all in the frig...but close enough. Gotta love mother nature for providing a free frig system! ha ha

Right now my turkey is still roasting, should be done in about an hour. I should go make the mashed potatoes here soon. Then after dinner, I'll make up the mac-n-cheese. Nuttin like making 3 dinners in one day! Too bad only one is for me!

I think I have another great idea... tonight there is a Church service...so the building is open. I could take my already finished chili and put it in their frig. Then I'll have one less crock pot to carry in tomorrow...AND I could borrow another crock pot to make the mac-n-cheese in tonight and not have to take that home either! Woo Hoo! I'm so smart today...I wonder how that happened? hee hee

Halloweeny!

As promised, here's a shot of our puking pumpkin!Here's a close up!and of his victim!  hee heeDarly's costume.and here's me!  Meow!

We finally had a warm Halloween this year.  Temps were in the low 60s or so.  Usually it's unbearably cold out there. We had sleet one year.  But as normal we didn't get all that many kids and they were all done by 8:30!  That's odd for a Friday...maybe they were all going to parties afterward...or like Darly after the candy bucket is full, walking to get more just isn't worth it!

Small town Parade!

One of the greatest things about living in the small town that I live in here is that they have not just one parade, but TWO every year. The first parade of the year is during the Parker Country Festival and that was today. They have another parade at Christmas time and it is a Carriage parade with lots of horses.

So today was our parade and I couldn't remember seeing what time the parade started anywhere. So I hopped on line and found that the start time was 10:30am. Whew! I had over an hour.

DH decided that he should really go to MIL's house to do her yardwork, so I suggested that I take Darly to the parade while he did that. DH wisely suggested that he could drop us off and then we would just have to walk home. Not a bad thing. We normally park about 1/2 the way and walk in. It's less than two miles from the farthest point back to our house...although we did walk through all the vendor booths...so give us another 1/2 a mile or so of walking total.

We told Darly that DH was going to drop us off at the parade. She figured out before we even left that we were either going to have to be there a long time (waiting for DH) or have to walk back. Smart girl! I didn't tell her that the waiting for DH thing wasn't an option.

So I wake Darly up and have her get ready to go. We thought that we would be able to pull into this one area to drop us off, but they had that area blocked to prevent folks from trying to park there. So DH did a U-turn and dropped us off at the end of Mainstreet where the parade was setting up. We freaked out a kid who was helping the police keep folks from trying to turn onto the blocked road...but as I got out, I told him that he was just dropping us off and the kid was fine.

Darly & I walked to the parade starting point and found a good place to watch. It was a very good parade and we got TONS of candy...I forgot to bring a bag so I was trying to figure out where to put all the candy. After the parade we went to the bank and asked if they had any bags (which I know they did because I saw others with them!) and they were happy to give us a bag and asked us to come back for a chance at the money grab (put you in a cage w/ a fan blowing around money and all the money you catch goes into your new account you open with them.) yeah right!

After that we headed to the vendor booths. We saw at least three chiropractors, bunches of insurance sales (one gave out free sunscreen!), two Airbonne booths, and tons of other stuff. I ended up walking right past most of it. We got Darly's face painted for free - it didn't look all that great and it didn't last at all, but what do ya want for free? Darly was happy.

Instead of eating the WAY overpriced fair food we walked over to McDonalds and joined the very packed air conditioned room of all the smart folks. After that we stopped by the pet store and visited lots of very cute puppies and a very talkative Meezer cat. (I bet his future owner won't get much sleep! LOL!) Darly fell in love with lots of cuties. There was this one puppy (Shih Tzu or Lhasa Apso) who was flat on his back, front paws at his sides with his head in the food dish. It was so cute.

We then checked out the Beadery Cafe. They have a coffee bar & where you can make bead crafts. The first thing I noticed was that they had the very best radio station playing. hee hee I said "Oh listen (to Darly) they have a really Great Radio Station playing!" and the owner's daughter says "Oh you listen to KLOVE?" and I said "All the Time!" and then she started asking me about a contest they had just recently had there. She was cute...she had tried to win, but never got through. Her question would have been too easy though...she said she wanted to know the second line to a song. You were supposed to stump the DJs. Oh well.

Next stop... Ice Cream at Baskin Robbins. We both got sherbert. Rainbow for Darly & I got Lime Daquiri Ice. Very tart & refreshing. We checked out the rides but didn't see any that we wanted to spend that kind of money on, so we headed for home.

Darly got tired so we rested at a Church's picnic area that is about 1/2 way to our house (very nice) I took off my shoes and cooled my feet in the shade. Then we headed home. She might be napping...I could go for that.

Wonder how Dh is doing? He's supposed to be mowing a yard.

Where in the world is Renee this month?

I've been trying really hard to get Darly to see her bestest friend but lately things just aren't working out...and I've also tried to plan a camping trip for us, but that doesn't look like it's happening either.

Here's why:

Wed 6/6 worked at church* from 9am to 12pm, took Darly to park, no one there so we went to the mall to get me a hair appt & eat lunch, then took Darly to her gymnastics class. Got home to realize that I had forgotten to take anything out for dinner...we had hot dogs.
*working at Church to cover for the Secretary who is on vacation.

At Church there are only a few folks who volunteer there who are willing to do the computer work. So the Office manager saves up work for us to do. I'm not sure why they keep just finding out that they need certain info, but it seems each time I come to help out they need more data entered so they can have the software print out a report. Wednesday I got to enter all the Baptisms that have happened since May of 2006 when they ran out of pages in the "Big Red Book" and couldn't find any more.

Thurs 6/7 work at church 8 am til 12pm. I was supposed to be there today at 8 but the secretary forgot to tell me that. oops! trying to get Darly to see bestest friend, but realized that bestest friend is scheduled to do a coop class that we didn't sign up for. Probably won't work out then.

Today, Thursday, I got to Church about 7:55. I was the first one there. Luckily the construction crew was there so I could get in. I finished up one of the baptism items (someone had entered a family incorrectly...had the guy's mother as his wife. LOL!) And I got to start entering the Church's inventory. What a fun job that is. NOT! For insurance purposes, we have to keep a record of EVERYTHING in the Church. So I got to type out... in closet 2a, 95 folding chairs, value $15ea. It was great fun...not. But it is good to be helping out. I also got to learn how to operate the folding machine. Very interesting piece of equipment.
Unfortunately Bestest Friend and her family are going away for the weekend and Darly can't go visit with them...so she'll not get her sleepover and will be very bummed when I tell her.

Friday 6/8 work at church 8 to 5. Darly will be helping me unless I can get her a sleepover. see above...no sleepover. :(

No sleepover so Darly had to go with me to help out at Church. Unfortunately there wasn't much work she could do at Church that she wanted to do. She ended up reading upside down from a chair for most of the time. (she puts her feet & bottom in the chair and hangs her head down to the floor and reads upside down...I don't ask.) Since it was so quiet at Church we got to go home early.

Saturday 6/9 we will got to MIL's house to get her yard taken care of.
See the parade post above!

Sunday 6/10 I get to usher at Church to fill in for DH as he is leaving town. Not sure what we'll do after Church. Hummm girls in trouble ;)

DH left at about 9am for his trip and then Darly & I went to Church. I was ushering with the former Church president. Mr. Ex-Pres normally ushers at the 8am service, so I had to fill him in on how we do communion at the 10:30. It all went off mostly w/o any hitches...except one lady who was sitting in the Narthex came in before I was ready...but I just waved her on through. See our Church has four sections of pews and then there are also pews out in the Narthex for overflow and noisy children. (this past Sunday it was for quiet sleeping babies though.) They have 4 communion stations (one for each section) but the two outer sections of pews are much smaller, so they of course are done sooner. When that happens, we are supposed to send the larger sections to the outer stations...but that makes things very tricky for getting back to the pews. What they should do is go all the way around and back to the middle eisle to return to the pew...but they don't. LOL Oh well it worked out okay.

Monday 6/11 more work at Church 9-12 this time. Darly to gym at 4:30.

I got to Church first and had to find a way in. Soon after I got there a group that does medical screenings showed up to set up...turns out they were at the wrong Church. I had to go send them next door. One of them was smoking a cigarette...I hollered at him "HEY! THAT'S NOT HEALTHY!" he said he knew.
I started entering the inventory again...but only got one page done when I was asked to do another task. We are trying to make sure that everyone's info is entered into the system correctly and the same way...unfortunately we have a "Too many cooks in the kitchen" thing going on as each different person who works on something has their own idea of how it should be entered. So I spent today making everyone entered as Adults Only was really TWO adults...many were single! While doing this I found a family with TWO wives! LOL! That's not really what happened of course. Turns out that Mr & Mrs had two kids. Both kids got married and eventually moved away...but the DD was never moved out into her own family and someone changed her status to spouse...so it looked like she was married to her dad. What's even weirder is that the DIL has the same first name as the DD. We had a lot of fun working that out...good thing the DIL works for the Church so I could ask her what is going on.

Tuesday 6/12 supposed to go to the zoo, probably won't; Darly has a doc appt for a physical so she can go to summer camp.

Wednesday 6/13 another attempt at park day and then gym at 4:30

Thursday 6/14 Hair appt for me so hopefully I look good for the wedding. Can't go to Night Out 'cuz there's no one to watch Darly.

Friday 6/15 going to see IMAX film on Beavers then will study animal habitats in Girl Scouts (should look for badges to cover) DH comes home

Saturday 6/16 Gym make up for Memorial Day.

Sunday 6/17 should be normal...we'll see

At least I don't have 4 things scheduled for one day...yet.