Change in weekend plans

DH & I were watching TV last night when Darly's guest comes upstairs and says "something is leaking in your basement."

DH goes down there and finds that the carpet is wet and most of the boxes (my beautiful box collection) are wet!!!

Turns out that when DH decided to flush the hot water heater last week he didn't get the valve shut all the way!

So it's been leaking all week. The weird thing was I was down there yesterday morning and didn't notice it at all!!!

So DH & I have spent the greater part of last evening moving stuff and me trying to save our box of pictures that were on the bottom of the stack. Luckily we only lost a few negatives (not the wedding negatives!!!)

DH has to work today, so I get to go through the mess and throw out the damaged boxes and see what's left to salvage.

Oh another lucky thing was that most of the boxes were just empty boxes that I was saving.

I should be downstairs working on this right now...but Darly & her guest decided that they wanted to sleep in the family room on the couches instead of up in the very messy rooms (wonder how those rooms got so messy?)

UPDATE: it took about two hours but I got all the boxes taken care of. Most of them I crushed down and moved to the garage for the next recycle day. There were two that I took some styrofoam to put under them in hopes that the boxes would dry out and still be relatively stable...stable enough to get rid of the stuff in them first before I have to move them.

Other than a few wrinkly pictures and about 5 totally soaked boxes we seem to be all okay. Oh and we did loose a few sets of negatives...but I don't think that I'll ever be wanting to make new copies of those pictures again anyway...and if I do, I could use my scanner to do it.

Oh and the coolest...NO BROKEN NAILS! YAY!

And as a treat I got myself a new monitor for the computer. Well I needed the monitor as the old one was "blinking" at me. This one seems huge...so huge that it doesn't seem to know what to do with all of the info. I should check my control panel.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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!

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

He's here!

My new nephew!

Congratulations to my Brother & SIL!

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!)

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!

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.

Scattered!!!

oooh I HATE this time of year!

Darly's birthday is coming up. First that means that I have to get her homeschooling paperwork done and turned in so we aren't considered truant. That's not a big deal really...I just have to get off my duff and do it.

Next comes the fun of planning Darly's party. She wants a Webkinz party with a sleepover. So today I had her decide what all she wants to do for her party. One of the kids she is inviting has food allergies, another one is a picky eater and the last child while not picky doesn't care for pizza...but I don't think the allergic child can have pizza anyway, so maybe that isn't a big deal. I emailed the allergic child's mom and I have to wait to hear back from her about what foods she can have to plan the menu.

And then when to have the party. Since we all homeschool, we don't have to have the party on a weekend...but there is the issue of DH getting enough sleep if we do it on a week day. So I've got an email in to DH to see if he was planning to take off for Darly's birthday. If he is then we can do the party on the day before her birthday and it won't matter about the sleep thing. update: DH emailed me back. NOPE! DH can't take off for her birthday. He wanted to take off for her birthday, but something came up at work. He says we can do the party then anyway, but I'm gonna try for another date first. He's such an awesome dad & husband.

But if we do the party on a Friday night (so DH can sleep) then I have to wait until my friend decides which Saturday she is going to reschedule her coop class that we signed up for. Hummm I could do the party on the original date of the coop....oh CRUD! no I can't, DH has to work that Saturday. hummm

Are you totally confused by all of this yet???

now for even more scatterbrain-ness...

My Brother & SIL are expecting their second child any time now. (SIL has already served my new nephew with his eviction papers! hee hee) My brother thought it would be a great idea for my Mom to be here for the birth...but she couldn't stay at his house since his MIL will be there...so Mom was going to stay with me. I hadn't heard any updates on when Mom was coming so I emailed my brother. Turns out that brother has now decided to wait until June to bring her out here. YAY! I get a reprieve until June. Darly might be at Girl Scout camp then, but I don't have to clean my house until June (don't tell DH that! hee hee!)
Then they are planning on having the baby baptized in July up in Aspen. that's fine except July is prime camping weather. But it's far enough out that nothing is planned yet. SIL is working out the baptisim date...so hopefully we'll have that all worked out soon.

So we can all keep it straight...

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.
June - Mom is coming
June - trying to schedule camping trips
July - new nephew (yet to be named) will be baptised.
Dec - have lunch with Ladybug! excited about that.

Ice Update

Well I've signed Darly up for Ice skating lessons at the district ice rink. She'll start next Monday. I decided to go for the evening lessons even though I would prefer for her to go during the day since she can start right away instead of waiting until summer for the daytime lessons.

I figure if she likes this and wants to continue that we'll be at level 3 by the time summer comes around.

And Carmen mentioned to just put her on skates and let her learn by falling on her butt...we've done that route. She would like to learn more now.

If she likes this, I'll start looking for skates for her. We have a friend who should be a pretty good resource for where to find good skates. I have noticed that if I get the right size that the rental skates are pretty good, so I'm not going to worry about skates too much yet.

And for some excitement this morning. I was starting this post when I heard a siren barely on and a very large vehicle coming up to my street (I live near the corner). I opened my blinds in time to see a fire truck followed by a police cruiser going up my street. I ran upstairs to see if I could watch everything from our only real front facing windows and it turns out that I could. The fire truck stopped in front of a neighbor's house across the street and a few houses up. There was already an ambulance parked there and another police cruiser.

I told Darly that I hoped for L's (the wife) sake that it wasn't K (the husband) again. Unfortunately it was! Since we have lived here I do not think that K has "been able" to work because he keeps getting into accidents. See K is one of those adrenalin junkies and is pretty clumsy too. First he messed up his back then almost as soon as he was cleared to go back to work, he messed up his leg. I don't know if he was ever back to work after the leg thing, but now there is the current problem. The paramedics took him out of the house on a stretcher. K was alert and talking so I think that he just hurt his back again. I'm sure that someone will fill me in on the story later (small street ;) ).

I just feel so sorry for L as she has been supporting this family (who seem to have pretty expensive tastes in boy toys) since I've known them. I know that I wouldn't be happy to keep supporting such an expensive habbit.

I'm freezing but I can't find any Ice!

skating lessons that is.

Darly would like to learn how to ice skate. And one would think that in Colorado...the land of snow that we would have plenty of ice skating rinks. One would think that. But we really don't have that many rinks...and the ones we do have like hockey more than learning to ice skate.

The closest rink to us is a district rink, but we don't live within the district...so we have to pay out of district rates to use it. GRRR! Why is it my fault that I don't live in the district???

My lousy town did discuss putting in an ice rink...they would LOVE it if someone else put it in and payed for it. As it stands they put in a field house instead at our taxpayer expense...but it has no ice. Instead it has an indoor roller hockey rink (we already have two other roller hockey rinks in town!!!) I must assume that the town did not want to incurr the expense of an ice rink. I guess they haven't ever heard "If you build it, they will come." Because I KNOW that if they built an ice rink (or filled one of their precious roller rinks with ice) folks would come and pay for it. Oh well.

So back to the out of district rink...they do offer lessons and the rates aren't terribly bad. But the scheduling is! And I totally understand that the reason they put the times at the hours they do is because normally most children would be in school so the times wouldn't get filled up. BUT I live in the home of our statewide Homeschooling group. I know that there are TONS of homeschoolers here...shoot my homeschooling group has over 60 families with the average size being 4 kiddos. That's loads of kids home all day who could learn to skate, if they offered the time during the day. Instead I get to choose from evenings or Saturdays. I did find one session that will offer times during the day.

I need to discuss with Darly if she wants to sign up for these classes as it would mean that she would be double booked...Ice in the morning at 10am (that means her waking up early...LOL!) and Gymnastics in the evenings at 5:30pm. I think that she can do it and the ice is only 6 weeks long...unless she wants to continue. but we can deal with that when it happens.

There's another ice rink we could go to. The prices there are a bit lower and she would get 8 lessons instead of just 6. However the rink is about 30 min away and the lessons are twice a week...30 min each. If we lived closer, I wouldn't have a problem with it. But that's a long way to go twice a week for just 30 min on the ice. sigh!

so I'll talk to Darly when she gets off the phone with her friend and see if she wants this.

My Easter Tale

well first we attempted to go to bed early on Saturday night. We were suposed to go to bed at 9pm but didn't actually get there until about 9:30...sure beats when Darly & I normally go to bed around 1am.

So I'm tossing and turning a bit but eventually sleep comes...and the next thing you know Darly is in my room complaining that she can't sleep! I tell her it isn't my problem...and it takes me another good half hour to an hour to go back to sleep.

Since I knew I would be having to get up early it was a fitfull night for me...I beleive that I woke up at least twice to use the bathroom. I then woke up 5 minutes before the alarm was set to go off. But determined to cram as much rest in as I could I went back to rest instead of getting up.

5:10 the alarm goes off. I hop in the shower.

I don't know exactly when the Easter bunny showed up

I came downstairs and let out Lilly and got my coffee going. I also started getting my hair done.

Dh got up to get his shower at 6:30 and that woke Darly up. She came down in her PJs with two eggs in her hands. I told her that she needed to get dressed first. So she came back dressed in virtually no time at all. I had to remind her to comb her hair.

While she was hunting eggs, I went back upstairs to iron my dress. Luckily the dress was linnen so I could just blast it with a hot iron.

DH for some reason thought that Church service began at 8:30. Okay I understand his reasoning...but it aint so. The service we normally attend begins at 10:30. So he realizes that instead of having plenty of time we are now running late. So we zip off to Church and are suprised to find that there is plenty of parking...although the spots closest to the doors are full. Unfortunately my shoes were not meant for walking and let me know this almost immediately!

I had Darly off to the pastor because she had to acolyte and it was her first time. At that time it seemed as if there might be enough room in the Church for Darly & the Assoc Pastor to sit near us during the sermon, but that quickly changed. Spots filled up quickly.

Darly's very cute Easter dress was covered by an Acolyte robe that was too long for her...she stepped on it every time she had to climb stairs, but other than that she did an awesome job at being an Acolyte. She lit the candles and didn't set anything else on fire. She carried the cross and got it in the stand without making a loud noise, and she carried the offering plates just like a pro!

It was a wonderful service and the message was awesome, as always. Pastor remarked that for the prayer vigil we had over 122 prayer requests. I'm not sure how those who pray during the vigil do it, but I'm sure glad that they do.

A lady who sat near us remarked that Easter was not a service that they should have used a first-timer for, but Darly did a great job. I am hoping that perhaps the Pastors will talk with the Acolyte coordinator about using a more experienced person next year...hopefully that doesn't mean Darly again. *eyeroll!* A friend with older children lamented to me that since hitting acolyte age that her child has had to fill in numerous times when the scheduled acolyte didn't bother to show up. I sure hope that doesn't happen to Darly...I know that she can do it. I just get perturbed that others leave it without scheduling their own replacements. I'm also hoping that the next time Darly is scheduled to acolyte that she has grown taller so the robe fits her. lol

After the service we had fun trying to get our coats from the cloak room as it is in the same room as the pancake breakfast. DH wanted to go to the breakfast but Darly & I weren't really hungry...and Darly was anxious to get back to her egg hunt!

So we get home and changed and the egg hunting resumes. I'm not sure but I believe that DH & I helped fined at least 1/2 the eggs and one basket that included her long awaited Webkinz. I had to go get the basket with the chocolate bunny (she has about 6 baskets to find!) because when I mentioned that the door to the china cabinet was open DH said that it was open the previous day...so Darly ignored it!!!

There's no way to know if Darly found all the eggs. Luckily we do not use real eggs so there won't be any smell.

After noon we packed up our leftover dinner from Saturday night to take to MIL's house for dinner. I had made Ham, potatoes in cheddar cheese sauce and aparagus...they all reheated perfectly and it was like having a regular dinner w/o so much work! MIL was tickled since she got a lovely Easter dinner and all she had to do was make a pie.

As we were sitting down to dinner we teased that the phone should be ringing any time now as SIL almost always calls when we are having our dinner...but she didn't call. Someone else did call (I forget who now) and SIL's call did not come until after dessert. MIL had great fun telling both her daughters how she had a "catered" Easter dinner.

I ate way too much food! MIL sent home pie with us...I guess my diet won't begin until that's gone as I cannot resist Creme De Mint pie! Oh and there were a few times where I was VERY TEMPTED to have a Pepsi. I am just used to having one at MIL's house and it didn't help that DH & Darly had left theirs on the table. But I was a very good girl and stuck to just water!!! YAY ME!

We went to bed at 12 and I slept in until 9:30 today...wo do not need to be anywhere until 1pm.

I do hope that you and yours had a Wonderful Ressurection Sunday! Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

I guess no one likes...

my Spam post. Oh well...you can't win them all.

I should run to the store to pick up some potatoes today for tomorrow's dinner... DH volunteered me to make dinner at his mom's house cuz she didn't want to cook but did want us to come over. So I'm making the dinner here and then we'll just reheat it there.

I also need to empty my dishwasher...or talk Darly into doing it. LOL!

see, my real life is boring.

LOL Spam!

Here's a copy of what was in my Spam folder this morning...

MyRewards SavingsTake control of your money in 2008 - You received this message by consenting to receive e-mail from MyRewardSavings on Jun 04, 2007 … 11:21 am Hummm I don't remember consenting to this MyRewardSavings thing...but I do know that I've already told them to take me off their list...that was probably my downfall...I confirmed that I was a real address, huh? bummer!

411TaxRelief Owe the IRS? - Ad Below Advertisement The following is an advertisement from 411Tax Relief Have you received a … 10:58 am I still don't know what if anything I owe the IRS...DH hasn't gotten around to filing our tax return yet cuz he was busy with that test for work...but he passed that and now has time for taxes, so we should know soon...well after Easter

Quality Pictures A brand new Red Sony Cybershot Digital Camera on us! - A brand new Red Sony Cybershot Digital Camera on us! List Manager 4H 7127 Hollister Ave., Suite … 10:44 am note that Hollister name. I don't have any this morning, but there are usually at least 3 spams from a Dan Hollister in this folder.

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Minnie Delarosa It seemed like the natural next step. - Melanie loved the feeling of my huge tool in her mouth 9:17 am EEEEWWWWWWEEEE!!!!! I was trying to think of some tool that would be funny and everything I came up with can also be what they were thinking of (hammer, drill, screwdriver...why do guys think that way???) but then I got it! It's a HUGE Shovel! LOL!!!

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Well as you can tell, I find my spam very funny. Are there really enough folks falling for this stuff to make it profitable? I suppose that if it doesn't cost them anything to send it, just one answer makes it profitable. Bummer. I sure wish that it was illegal, course I wish everything that I hate was illegal. ha ha that would outlaw a ton of stuff. The world would be perfect if I ran it!

Well what has been going on here?

not a whole lot. Our week has been relatively slow compaired to normal...in fact looking at my calendars (I have two on the wall March & April) April looks much more busy than March.

Sunday was a unit test for my Sunday School class...only 8 kids showed up. Although we did run into one girl and it turned out that because her mother's Sunday School class wasn't meeting (they do that between units) she figured that the kids weren't meeting either. So it looks as if I'll be giving the test to the rest of the kids when they return from their 1 Sunday Easter break. Wondering if I should grade the tests for the 8 who did show up. Oh and one girl didn't know the answers to the only two fill in the blank questions "because I wasn't here that week." See me rolling my eyes as they two questions were on the 23rd Psalm verse 1 and the 51st Psalm verse 10. If she had done the homework she would know them...the homework for that week was to study for the test. What kills me on the 51st Psalm is that we sing that EVERY WEEK in worship. Okay I'll quit about that...

Monday we went to our friend's house for a St Patricks Day party. That went really well. Loads of yummy foods and lots of good visiting. The girls played quietly downstairs and hardly bothered us at all.

EXCEPT for Darly coming to me when she got hungry, instead of going to the kitchen where all the food was and helping herself. I don't know what was up with that. Weird kid...brain must have disconnected. The only meal I make for her at home is dinner.

Yesterday we did pretty much NOTHING. Loads of reading going on. And Darly had gymnastics class. It looks as if the coach finally got around to filling out the evaluations that are like 2 weeks late on these kids. I'm looking forward to seeing how she did as she's had a different coach this session. If she has fallen back, I'm gonna be very disappointed as I haven't been all that happy with this coach. Her coach has a serious chatting problem...she spends way too much time with the girls on floor exercises because she is busy chatting with the other coaches. And then she spots Darly on stuff that I know Darly can do already...in fact Darly does them better w/o the spot. *eyeroll!* If her scores are low, I'm gonna be in the office looking for a meeting with the head coach. grumble grumble..."look out! Momma Bear approaches!" LOL!

Today Dh is home because he has a doctor's appointment to check how his new medications are working. He finished up his class yesterday and passed, so that's a huge relief. I hope that he is able to start and finish our taxes as he hasn't even looked at them (no, I'm not allowed to look at them as he doesn't feel I can do them at all. LOL! can't wait until I have to do them myself, that should be fun...NOT!)

sorry to bore you all with this post...if my life gets exciting, I'll be sure to let you know.

FOR HEATHER: My Beer story

When I was about 3 years old my mom thought it would be a good idea for my dad & me to spend some time together...bonding and such! My father had plans to go fishing...alone! So against his will he puts me in the truck and off we go. We get to the lake and get in the boat with his cooler and the fishing gear. And we're fishing...well he is...I'm pulling things like sticks up into the boat. We're out in the middle of the lake, it's hot and sunny. We've been out there who knows how long and he popps open a beer and takes a drink. I'm hot and thirsty...all he has to drink is beer. He gives me the beer, I spit it out and he gets all mad that I spit out good beer. i don't know how much longer we stayed out there, but I was hot and thirsty the entire time.
Ever since then I've hated the taste of beer.
When Dh & I were dating we went to Busch Gardens and stopped by the hospitality house...they give out free samples of beer. He picks out a "really mild" one for me to try. I spit that out too!
Flash now to my last beer EVER... it was at my wedding. There is this tradition in Dh's family where the bride & groom have to chugg a beer. DH promised that my glass would have champaigne since he knows I hate beer...well we get there and mine is beer. probably on purpose, the one who finished chugging first is supposed to wear the pants in the family. Well I can chugg with the best of them and of course I won...then I marched straight off to barf up that vile stuff...but I didn't really barf it up. My mom reminded me that I might get it on my dress. So I spent the next hour feeling like I was ready to hurl. Oh and there was never any chance of DH wearing the pants in this family...LOL!

Easter is next week!

yikes! Easter has snuck up on me once again! I guess it really doesn't matter when Easter is, it seems to just sneak up on me. I just had an awesome idea..I hope I have all the ingredients. I want to make some pretzels. How did I jump down that bunny trail? Well in MIL's family they always had a pretzel bake during Lent and I miss that. If I had been thinking clearer...I should have organized a pretzel party. Oh well.

Anyway back to Easter...

I'm not sure what it is about this time of year but for some odd reason, it doesn't matter when Easter falls...it sneaks up on me. As does Darly's birthday which is coming up in a month. How did that kid get to be 10 so fast?

So our Easter plans are not really made. Somehow I've got to figure out how we will manage a VERY EARLY Easter. Darly has been selected to be an acolyte at our Church service for the 8am service!!! For those of you who do not know me, we aren't usually out of bed at 8am on Sundays (well I am, but just barely...DH & Darly usually sleep in until 8:30.) So this will be interesting...as there are other things to consider... like when are we going to hunt for Easter Eggs???
We are pretty much resigned to the fact that the Egg hunt will have to wait until after Church service. I am really sure that SOMEBUNNIES are going to be very tired when we get home...somebunny might fall asleep during Church. I mean Darly! It is quite normal for her to catch a nap during Church...so waking her up early is going to be fun. And the poor gal is going to have to go sit up front with the Pastors during the service...and this is the Traditional service as well. We normally attend the Contemporary service. I just hope my poor child can stay awake.

I've already decided that Darly should make sure to get her shower on Saturday night...that will save us some time for Easter morning. I might have to have one then too. (ooh, I need to press my dress too! gotta a week to go for that though.) I doubt that anyone will want breakfast that early...well maybe DH as he is kinda used to being up for work.

Somehow I have to get Darly to go to bed early on Saturday night. Any ideas?

Frozen Grand Central

just made me lol!

Here's the folks who did this http://improveverywhere.com/

check out some of their other stuff...it's all a hoot!

They just don't care!

and nothing I say or do will make them care about this.

Yeah, I'm frustrated!

When I lived in TX and volunteered at my Church in the office I heard pretty much the same thing out of my Pastor. At that Church the Pastor taught the confirmation classes himself. He had one student who didn't show up on a regular basis and never did any of the lessons...Yet his mother wanted him to be confirmed with the rest of his class. The Pastor said that he could not be confirmed because he hadn't done the work to prove that he was indeed confirming his faith. And the mother threw a fit, trying to get her way. (I won't go into all the other carp this same mother did...she was one of those who felt the world owed her and her family a living.)

Now go to 6 years ago when I first begain teaching Sunday School at our Church. There are some great kids who love to be there and love to hear the stories and are just a joy to teach and teach with as they help with the lessons as well...And then there are those kids who just don't care. They are only in Sunday School because their parents are using it for free babysitting (someplace else to stash them while they go do whatever...one mother sits in her car and reads during class, another goes grocery shopping!)

My biggest problem with the kids who don't want to be there is that they are disruptive in class. They think that class is just time to sit and chat with their friends...and I know that some will say that for them it is because I haven't done anything to prove different to them. But you see, I feel as if my hands are tied. I don't feel as if I have any recourse.

Our Church's current confirmation program includes daily Bible reading, devotions, turning in homework and quizes on the previous lesson. However, as far as I know (since I was told at the beginning of the year that homework and quizes weren't going to be required...only they didn't give me any curriculum to teach without using the homework & quizes.) the homework and quizes don't mean much. There doesn't seem to be any consequence to the kids who don't do well on these. Oh and the reason that the homework & quizes aren't required is because the older parents & students complained about having to do them. So apparently my experience in TX back in the 90's wasn't out of the ordinary.

I just don't see how the kids can be expected to learn and be ready for their confirmation if they don't bother with it. I know that the kids aren't learning from me...they aren't supposed to. They are supposed to learn their faith (or Catch their Faith) from their parents. But the parents seem to not care or they're expecting the Church to teach the kids for them.

Today was just sooooooooooooo frustrating because when I got to class the kids all started in with their excuses: and yes my comments in italics have been told to the kids!

I couldn't do the homework because I wasn't here last week so I didn't know what lesson to do. um, it would be the lesson after last week's...they all go in order!
I couldn't do my homework because I was too busy doing my school homework. really? you mean to tell me that you had absolutely NO time this week to do your homework? So your poor video games and TV were never turned on at all? I find that HARD to believe!
I dropped my book and the pages fell out so they aren't in order any more. You haven't bothered to sit down for 5 minutes to put them back in order? They are all numbered.
We shouldn't have to do this homework as it kills trees. the trees are already dead, you adding your answers to the page won't make them any deader.

As you can tell I'm heartless.

Today in class we went over the questions that will be on the test they have to take. Let me say first that the tests are incredibly easy AND they've seen all the questions before in the previous quizes ...here's an example:

David Psalms:
____1) Who wrote the Psalms?
____2) What instrument did David play?
____3) What are David's most famous Psalms?
____4)
____5)

A. 23
B. Lyre
C. 139
D. David
E. 51

Well the good news is that next year my Church is switching the confirmation curriculum. I won't find out until March 30th with everyone else what they are switching to. I sure hope that it is something that the kids will want to do.

Dh is home and other stuff of non-importance

Dh arrived home yesterday at around 4pm and he was starving. The fact that I had decided to make beef stew in the crock pot and the whole house smelled yummy didn't help matters at all. He munched on some pretzles to tide himself over. The stew was yummy by the way. Darly only ate the meat. Since DH & Darly wont eat celery or onions, I pulled them out before putting in the flour. I may make some rice to go with it tonight.

I think I picked up a cold last Tuesday at the Gym. I don't know how as I didn't touch anything...but I know that before the gym I felt fine and the next day my nose was running. *eyeroll!* It seems content to just hang around my nose, but it's not pretty. I'll spare you the details. I'm now packing hand sanitizer in my purse...I feel as if I'm turning into my 5th grade teacher who used to put pinesol on her hands all the time.

Thursday we went to the mall with Heather, her friend K & the kiddos. I found out later that the kiddos were driving Heather up the wall so she thought that running around the mall might help to get the extra energy out of them...and her little house really isn't big enough for that many kiddos.

I finished reading "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and then started and finished "The Reluctant Journey of David Conners" I have to say that the second book was a much easier read than the first one. I finished it in one day and it was so compelling that I didn't want to put it down. I found "Cuckoo's Nest" to be a very hard read, it was confusing and very harsh...I didn't care for the language. And before you tear into me, yeah, I get that it's about a mental ward and they have a rough life. It's told from the point of view of a "Chronic" mental patient so you spend a bit of time trying to make sure he isn't halucinating.
Oh both of these books were read for book discussions...and the gals heading them up both read my blog. LOL! Oh well, they will know how I feel going in.

that's about all I know...

oooh, notice that I've been without Pepsi for over a month now. I've also decided to give up soft drinks all around. It hasn't been too hard. Thursday Darly & I had lunch at the mall and I went to the Greek place. I wanted the #1 combo meal, only w/o the soda & with water. They guy at the register had a problem with that..."no, it comes only with these drinks." So I told him I wanted what comes in the combo only with water instead. Every other place has no problem with this as they have the register set up that they plug in each item and then take the discount off...but no such luck here. Oh well, next time I'll get just the Gyro and order fries & a drink elsewhere cuz their fries weren't any good. blech!

DH's update: & other stuff too

Dh called me late last night (10:40pm) and let me know that he had arrived...but had just got there.

His flight out of Denver was delayed because the plane was late getting to Denver from Phoenix. So luckily he decided to eat in Denver before leaving at 6 something...his flight was scheduled to leave at 4:20pm.

Once he got to Vegas, baggage claim was forever (like always! I think that we waited an hour 20 last time I was there.) Then he went to the shuttle and had to wait forever for that to show up (normally they shuttles are waiting on the people, don't know what was up with that!) and then of course the shuttle has to stop at all the hotels and DH's was last on the list.

He said he still had some paperwork to do before his class started so I don't think that he bothered with any gambling...especially since he doesn't like the action at the hotel he is in (it isn't on the strip.)

From DH's previous visits to this hotel the food is pricy and not any good...so he packed poptarts for breakfast and will be heading out for all his meals. There's a place near his hotel that serves a $1.99 breakfast 24/7 that he plans to have a few times while he is there...although I'm not sure why as his meals are reimbursed. I suppose it's the thrill of the deal. LOL!

Darly & I went to a class on how to knit a hat using a Knifty Knitter , it was a lot of fun...so much so that we went out and bought the kit you see in that picture! In our class Darly just made a headband (didn't finish making a hat) but I immediately started it back up to make a hat. I had to finish the hat at home but it came out great. Then I started another hat for myself...don't know what I'll do with the first hat...Darly is eyeing it though.

And after much delibration and a change in how to get more cookies, I've decided to end our cookie sales for this season. Darly surpassed her goal and in order to get to the next prize level would need to sell another 95 boxes. (the way they set up the prize levels is totally weird!!!) but anyway...so after I pick up the 4 boxes of cookies that were mine, but Darly sold them we will be done except for the paperwork. That shouldn't be too hard as I've done it before...I just need to make sure everyone turns in the money and that we pay for our cookies. Then we're done. And I think that I'll shop around for another person to do this job next year...maybe I'll help too.

That's about it...our week is looking empty except for gymnastics class. Oh yeah, I have no leftover dinner...oops! Looks like we'll have to go out again...bummer.

Hi & Bye!

Last night my DH returned from a week long trip to Florida...and no he didn't have a bit of fun. He brought me home stories of horrible sleeping conditions, bugs and terrible food (some with a hair in it!) He also had his back acting up and the transportation there (4 hours flight) was in a military plane with barely any room for the passengers who were stuffed in there like sardines sitting knee to knee.
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imagine each < is a person and each > is the person facing them. blech!

I made leftover chicken for dinner and DH declaired it the best food he had all week. *sniff!* It's great to get the compliment but I sure wish that they would feed him better...I know he's picky but he eats normal food (doesn't care for fancy stuff.)

anyway this week should be better for him. He is on his way to Las Vegas this week to teach a class. He'll be in a comfy hotel (vs. the temporary plywood building w/ no heat) and have a bed instead of a cot with a sleeping bag and he'll at least have decent meals. And the flight there should be more comfortable.

In the mean time "while the cat's away...the mice will play!" ;o)

Reunion of sorts...

Thursday I got a call from my SIL but I missed it. When I tried to call back no one answered. I tried her cell phone, it went to voice mail. I tried the house again...still no answer. I know that she was home as she had just called me from the house phone.

Finally I called my brother's cell phone and he answers "I don't know, do we really want to talk to this person?" I answered back in a not so friendly voice "Well obiviously not since no one there will pick up the phone!"

Sorry for that bunny trail... turns out that SIL was on the house phone with her dad and had just told my brother to call me...and the reason for the call was that my oldest brother was in town and they wanted to schedule a get-together with me before he flew back to Tampa.

So arrangements were made. Darly & I would go there at 6pm on Friday. We would also bring my middle brother's girl scout cookie order.

{I need to come up with some way for you to tell my brothers appart and we all have the same initials so using initials won't work. LOL! Okay here is our cast of characters: Me, Darly, Nephew, B#1 is my oldest brother - the one in from Tampa, B#2 is my middle brother - the one who lives here, and SIL is B#2's wife - also nephew's mom...oh wait, I need B#1's wife too...she'll just be B#1's wife as she wasn't really there}

So Darly & I had a Leap Day party to go to Friday afternoon. Then a bit of time to kill before I headed up to B#2's house. We asked Heather if we could visit at her house for that time. Darly was very sad to leave there when it was time for us to go...and I really couldn't blame her. I mean she was leaving her best friend's house to go to her least favorite uncle's house. Not my idea of fun either. B#2 likes to tease Darly.

Originally I was going to give myself an hour to drive to B#2's house from Heather's...giving myself time for traffic. However, Heather convinced me that I could make it in 1/2 an hour and she of course was right...although it was cutting it really close. We arrived at B#2's at about 6:05 which by B#2's standards was EARLY as he is NEVER on time...even before Nephew came along. For me that was late, but I didn't say anything about it and neither did they.

B#1 answers the door and he looks JUST like my father! It was so shocking. It was also a reminder for me that my father used to be a very good looking man. I just hope my brother chooses to take better care of himself so that his face doesn't turn into my grandmothers...BLECH! She was not pretty in her old age.
B#2 looks just like my father's twin brother & my grandfather's...he'll need to take care of himself too.
I look like my mother in the face, but since I bleach my hair, I look more like my aunt with brown eyes instead of blue. And I should mention that up until about a year ago my mom was in great shape and looked good. But her illness has aged her and she knows it.

Okay back to time with my family. Dinner was...well it wasn't great. SIL doesn't cook things the same as I do so Darly was not very interested in what she was serving (normally one of Darly's favorite meals!) but she had marinated the meat in red wine vinegar which gave the meat a flavor that just wasn't what Darly was used to. Darly then tried the potatoes...oops, SIL had put sour cream in them. I didn't bother trying the salad and asked if we could get some bread. Darly ate some dinner when we got home.

B#1 & I told SIL some stories about B#2 as a kid. She was very shocked. hee hee

We visited for well too long. Darly, the silly girl...she was bored and wanted to leave right up until it was Nephew's bed time. Then she was happy to stay. course it was a HUGE help that B#1 had let her use his digital camera. She had a blast snapping loads of silly shots of herself. SIL says she will give Darly a camera for her birthday (I suggested with B#2's help, that a used camera would be just fine!... we have gotten into this giving the kids used presents lately...recycling them. For Christmas I gave Nephew Darly's old toy bbq grill...he loves it! and B#2 & SIL have tons of now upgraded electronics they are happy to pass along to a good home.)

During dinner B#1 had snapped a picture of Darly with his cell phone (blackberry I think...had tons of buttons and a stylus, but I realy have no clue as I'm not a gadget gal.) He sent the pix to his wife who kept texting him back. She had a silly story about B#1's son that none of us really got. B#1 showed me pictures of his kids. His daughter is now almost 15 and has turned into such a beautiful young lady! It's really amazing. His son still looks the same and is still just as crazy as ever.
B#1 was in Afghanistan for a year last year. When he came home his employer had terminated his position (that is supposed to be illegal, but they were tricky in that he could still work for them, just not in that positon...Jerks!) And a week after he got home his dog died. Poor guy. So a few weeks ago B#1's wife & daughter loaded the family into the car and drove to an animal shelter where they adopted a puppy. B#1 wants to KILL THIS DOG! And it's so not the dog's fault, he is a bored little puppy that they aren't paying attention to. I can forsee either B#1 taking over the care of this critter or the dog finding a new home.

B#1 was out here because his friend was moving back to Denver. So B#1 being without a job, flew out to help him move...and while he was here he went skiing with B#2...B#2 ended up injured...not too badly though. But he is flying home today in just about a half an hour.

It was great to see him again. He has grown up a lot.

As we were going home Darly asked me how I ever survived living with those boys. LOL! Poor Darly, B#2 takes great joy in teasing her to no end. I've advised her that if she stops showing that it bothers her, he will give up. But at her age that is really hard to do.
And how did I survive? Well when I was a kid I was bigger than they were...and when I was smaller than them (I'm the oldest and the shortest) they were too busy to bother with me...except for the time they taped me to the phone.

okay, you're gonna want to know how they taped me to the phone.

I was on the phone talking to my boyfriend. My brothers were bored and there was a role of masking tape sitting nearby. So they start taping me to the phone and at first it is funny as it was just masking tape, I could get out of it...right? well I thought so, but they continued to add more and more tape. By the time I finished with my phone call I looked almost like a mummy and could barely move. They had taped my free arm and my legs as well. My dear brothers were now long gone. I don't know how long it took to get myself free, but my brothers had very wisely decided to Leave the House...so that is the only reason they are still alive.

ah memories!