oye! my head hurts!

I'm not sure why I have a headache...but the following sure didn't help it any.

Tonight was Darly's confirmation class. She insisted that I come in for the first part of it, which should have been okay...

But they decided to do a presentation on World Vision. For anyone who doesn't know, World Vision is one of the child sponsorship programs. They showed the kids two videos about the program. The first one showed a family with 6 children who sponsor another 9 kids! The message I got out of it was "If we can sponsor 9 kids on our budget everyone of you should be able to sponsor at least one kid." But I think it was the second video that got me the most upset... the message it seemed to be saying was..."You're lazy rich americans and we're poor so you should help us" Seriously the video had kids asking "How far do you have to walk to get water for your family?" and "The average American teen spends $101 per week, that much can send a child in Africa to school for two years."

Now don't get me wrong here... I'm not upset with the folks at World Vision. I mean this is their job to get folks to sponsor the children. What I'm upset about is that this presentation was shown to the confirmand kids. Why are they showing this to the kids? It isn't as if the kids can go sponsor anyone. Are they trying to get the kids to guilt trip their parents into becoming sponsors?

GRRR!

And then to top this evening off I had the mother of one of the children in my Sunday School class tell me off for embarrassing her child. I had come up to the child after service on Sunday because I had noticed that she had accidentally taken on of the textbooks that we were not supposed to let the kids take home. All I said to her child was that they weren't supposed to take the books, she could return it next Sunday. But apparently the way I said it made the child embarrassed and now she doesn't want to return to Sunday School (a problem for her because attendance is required!) I told the mother that I thought I had made it quite clear in class that they weren't allowed to take the books...I mentioned it a lot at the beginning of class because my "arguer" kept asking why they couldn't take them and couldn't understand why. I also reminded the kids before they left to turn in the books. So I was a bit shocked to see this child with the book when I did.

I know that sometimes I have a tone to my voice that comes off as not so nice...but I am awefully sure that I did not use any such tone with this child. I just went and asked my kid if I sounded mean...she says nope. So the only thing I can see is that the child is suffering from severe teenage embarrassment (and should probably just get a grip!) sigh!

no wonder my head hurts!

Before and After

Many of you requested pictures of my handiwork.  Since I'm not smart enough to grab the camera before, I had to dig through my old pictures to find a good one of Lilly before...

This one was taken about a month and a half ago at our camping trip.

and now...

I just took this one (don't mind all the junk in the background!)

I know that she looks a lot cuter when she's sporting the scruffy look, but that is much hard to maintain since she doesn't care to be brushed!  So for us it is much easier to clip her.  She is a pretty good sport about it.

And here are some of the comments about my previous post...

Jennakat said... Thunk!  My jaw just hit the floor!  You forgot that I was the one to catch her! >:(
Jennakat is also known as Darly (she doesn't like the name Darly but since that's what you all know her by, that's what I'll use.)  And yes, she's right.  She did help me catch the dog before her bath.

OK Chick said... I don't have animals but I think giving them a bath would be my least favorite part.  It seems like lots of hard work.
I've always had animals and have given them baths.  Dogs are the easiest if you have the right equipment.  We have a utility sink with a hose attachment, so I'm not hurting my back by having her in the bathtub and the hose just makes everything nice...I can focus the water right where I need it.  (much better than the old cup method.)

Bone said... Just put a bunch of toys in the bath.  Oh, and tell her that the tub is the only place the monster who lives under the house and peeks thru the window at night won't get her.  That always worked on me.
Well Lilly seems too nervous about her bath to even bother with toys.  I've never tried toys in the bath for any of my pets...but seeing as they seem in panic mode I don't see toys helping. 

Grooming day

After putting it off until we couldn't stand her any more it was time to finally break down and groom the dog.  She was getting to be quite a mess.  Her hair was getting too long (although we keep it trimmed out of her eyes) but she was looking quite shaggy.  She hates to be brushed so she had some matts on her too.

So first I took her into the garage with my trusty scissors to trim her up.  In the past I've used clippers on her, but her fur is really fine and it cloggs up the clippers where we can't use the length guards on them.  And since we have no guard on the clippers we end up chopping her up at all different lenghts.  Besides my clippers are really loud so they scare her.  This time I decided to use just the scissors and I was quite pleased with how she came out.

Yup, she's still cut at all different lengths...I'm not perfect.  But we were able to achieve the same results we normally get with less stress.  I let her up to shake off the hair during the clipping and to give us both a break...and this time I didn't have to chase her down.  In fact there was one point where I was checking the progress and said "I need to do a bit more on your head." and she came right over to me. 

After the clipping it was time for a much needed bath.  She was getting really stinky.  But she wasn't so happy about that part.  In fact for the first time she tried to hide from me and actually tried to get out our front window.  LOL!  But she was a very good girl in the bath and is now all clean and smells like doggy shampoo instead of just like doggy.

naptime!

Parents getting old stinks!

At what age are you supposed to be when you have to start taking care of your parents? I thought that I would at least get to wait until I was done with my kid.

I've already told you about how my mom got very sick last year and almost died from pneumonia...right? A refresher... see my mom smokes, she has osteoporosis and arthritis. Last year she got sick...went to her doctor who couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. She wasn't showing any signs of her body fighting the infection. She ended up in the ER because she couldn't breathe and the doctor there almost sent her home. Luckily there was a lung specialist making rounds and my step dad asked him to come in and saved my mom's life as she was admitted to the ICU. Turns out she has viral pneumonia and COPD. She now has only about 40% lung capacity and has to carry oxygen with her where ever she goes (although she doesn't have to wear the tube unless she feels short of breath...which she will try to do without as much as possible because she thinks that going without will help to strengthen her lungs.) She'll never get that lung capacity back...she'll always have to carry the oxygen and eventually she'll have to start using it all the time.

So now she is on permanent disability. Finally...it took a very long time for the government to finally get her into the system for that...meanwhile she went broke and charged up her credit to the max.

My brother who lives out here near me & I felt really bad for her and wanted to send her money to help out... BUT even though this woman has a disease caused by smoking and can't breathe, AND can't afford cigarettes, she still smokes. Neither of us wanted to contribute to her addiction (that she refuses to try any of the stop smoking helps out there!) so we didn't want to send her money to buy cigarettes with. yeah, she's raised some very stubborn kids!

but the apple doesn't fall far from the tree... When my mom was thinking about moving out here to be near her kids she wanted to also bring all the antique furniture that she's bought over the years. Furniture that she wouldn't be able to fit into a house in her price range out here... furniture that she was going to pay to haul out here to have to give to me (that I don't want!) I told her to sell the furniture. It didn't make any sense for her to pay to haul it out here, but she wouldn't hear of it. I also told her to sell it to pay her bills. She didn't. See...who's stubborn now? Can you guess what's going to happen to this furniture when I inherit it?

My brother did go and buy her a cell phone on his plan and mailed it to her. So she has a phone with a local to me phone number. Brother also programed the phone with all our phone numbers so she could call us at any time. Has she called anyone? uh, no!

And then there is DH's mom. DH is the only one of his siblings who lives near his mom. But his mom has been really secretive about her situation. See a few years back one of her doctors put her on a combination of medications that made her pretty loopy. She was trying her best to function through this, but she wasn't able to do everything. Luckily a friend of hers went with her to the one doctor and helped MIL to fire him...she then went back to her regular doctor who was able to get her on the right medications to help her. MIL only confided in DH about what all happened recently. So now DH has been trying to help MIL out, but he has his siblings to deal with too. His two sisters think that she should move to be near them (in a nursing home or with the oldest sister) and his youngest brother wants to take care of her from his "crash pad"* in VA. Luckily his oldest brother has too much to deal with in his own family to poke his nose in any of this.

DH has been driving over to MIL's house on a regular basis to take care of her yard and any repairs that the house needs...like when the water heater sprung a leak or the basement floods. There was also another situation that came up recently where he has to make sure to call her to check in every few days.

I'm okay with having to take care of MIL. She's in her 70's and it's time to help her. I just wish she would let us. She doesn't want me knowing what all is going on and she would probably be upset with DH for telling me what he has, but I know he hasn't told me everything...and I know that she hasn't told him everything either.

However, I'm not so okay with having to take care of my mom. She's only 61 and the reason she's in this mess is those stupid cigarettes! She always said when I was growing up that she didn't want to live forever, so if smoking shortened her life, so be it. But I don't think that she ever thought about how shortening her life would impact the lives of her kids.



*BIL is a flight attendant who works out of VA. A "crash pad" is a residence that he keeps and rents out to other flight attendants to use while they are in VA. I don't know how that all works, but hopefully it is covering his bills.

Back to the gym

Darly passed her ice skating class and is ready to move on to level 4...but she isn't interested.

Instead she has asked to go back to gymnastics.  Funny though before she quit back in June I had noticed that she had stopped practicing.  After she quit, she started practicing again...but I haven't seen her practice lately (except for on her friend's trampoline).  So I've only paid for one session, which thankfully the gym's new owner decided to return to it's former 4 week length (the previous owner had made the sessions 8 weeks long...I guess in an attempt to keep the money from folks who were just trying it out.)

Tonight is going to be her first time back.  I don't know how she's feeling about this.  And I don't know if she realizes that this new schedule means that her friends aren't going to be able to spend the night during the week anymore...we're on Friday night only for sleepovers.  But DH & I are happy about it.  hee hee  (not that having her friends stay over is any bother at all...for the most part they all fit into our family really well and the only difference in having them over is a bit more noise.)

So we'll see how tonight goes.  I should go remind her that she has gym tonight so hopefully she doesn't whine about it when it's time to go.  That wouldn't be a good start.

In other news, thanks to DH's job and some specials on http://www.southwest.com/ we are working on planning our vacation.  DH has to go out to California at the end of October for a few days, so we'll fly out after his deal and meet up with him in Anaheim.  Had I known where the American Girl Place was before I booked our flight, I would have set it up to fly into LAX.  But we're flying into John Wayne and then driving up to American Girl Place.  DH was annoyed by how far it was...lol.  I'll drive, no big.  Although, the thought of driving in CA scares me a bit...but it can't be any worse than Korea or FL...right?

We're at a bit of a loss as to what to do with our other two days in CA though.  We think that we might just get a 2 day hopper for Disneyland and go there for the two days, but then DH also thinks we should try out some other stuff.

See his boss is giving him travel hints...his boss suggested Lego Land...his boss has boys!  I don't think that Darly is going to want to go to Lego Land...she hasn't played with Legos in about 7 years.  Lego sculptures are cool, but you can see them online, just fine. ;)  I'm going to research some of the other things to do in the area, but I really think that we'll be at Disney.

Needanap!

Yesterday Darly went to a birthday party/sleepover/trip to amusement park. I dropped her off over at Heather's place at 4:30 and rushed home to my DH. I made sure to call DH at work to remind him of our good fortune (free childcare & a date night!)

DH & I went out to dinner and when we came home he called to check on his mom...while he did that I grabbed my Girl Scout paperwork to get that done so I could turn it in today. After talking to his mom he needed to do some research on the computer for her.

When he finished up his research he says that he's tired and going to bed...he was too tired for me to go to bed at that time.

I did some stuff on the computer and then started watching TV. I found a good movie to watch, I had missed the beginning but that's okay...I'm sure I'll catch it another time. Then another good movie came on and I watched it too. Next thing you know it's almost 3am when I crawl into bed.

I'm sleeping nicely when the phone rang at 8:35AM! Turns out that Darly had decided that she doesn't want to go to the amusement park, but I needed to go and get her right away so the rest of the party could go. =0 Heather's house is about 35 minutes away from mine...and the place that I needed to drop off the Girl Scout paperwork is between Heather's house and mine...closer to hers! So I crawl out of bed, and freshen up and forgo my coffee to get my child. ARGH!

On the way to Heather's house there was a slow up due to a car accident. Luckily I knew how to travel around it so I wasn't stuck in traffic and I got to Heather's with plenty of time to keep them on schedule. In fact they were still running around trying to pack the cars with everything that they needed for their day. And Heather's neighbor gave me a very nice gift bag while I was there (I still haven't opened it to see what's inside) but the bag itself is one of those reuseable grocery bags! Score! Now I have 9 bags and for now my grocery store pays me $0.05 a piece for them! hee hee

But now that I have child and gift bag I am in need of two things...

COFFEE!
and a way to kill some time before my Girl Scout registration appointment.

and I need to avoid the intersection with the traffic accident in case there was any leftover traffic.

So we take a different route and it's on the way that I remember that there is a Panera Bread near there! SCORE! I can get coffee and a bite to eat...and kill a bit of time before my appointment. So we do that. I got a cinnamon crunch bagel (a very popular item today...I think I saw about 4 other orders for the same thing!) and a tall (aka small???) coffee.

Darly wasn't hungry until I was stuffed, so she finished up my bagel. But we still needed to kill some time until my appointment. Lucky for Darly there was a Halmark store near there...we went and looked at the latest Webkinz. The chipmunk is soooooo cute!

I went and turned in my registration stuff and needed to fill out a new Volunteer Application which required 3 character references... I hope the folks I chose like me...hee hee I just emailed them when I got home to give them a head's up.

Now, if you'll excuse me... I Needanap!

What a way to scare a bunch of moms!

Last night Darly's confirmation class had their first outting.

See the schedule of classes is 1st & 3rd Wednensdays they'll have their regular class and learn their lesson.  The 4th Wednesday they want the parents to attend and have a family class.  And the 2nd Wednesday they are going to do things away from the Church.

So the plan for last night was for the class to walk from our Church to a local park for some play time and then head across the street from there to the ice cream shop for a treat.  Then walk back to Church.

This all sounded like a great plan until I got back to Church to pick up Darly at 7:45pm and noticed how DARK it was outside and that there is NO CROSSWALK on the very busy road that the Church sits on the corner of.  ACK!!!  I was okay with the girls crossing this road at 6:30 when they left because it was still daylight, but by 7:30 it was very dark out.

I sat with a mom who had been at the Church the entire time.  She was as nervous as I was, which was doing nothing to make me feel any better!  And slowly other moms of the girls in Darly's class trickled in and we all sat there fretting.

Finally the girls arrived.  I have no idea what time they got back though because I left my watch & phone in my car.  But they had all made it back completely safe.  I found out later that two other moms had gone with them, which made me feel much better.  Turns out they took the longest route which was also the safest.  The only time they were in any danger was when they crossed the busy road and for that, they just ran!  (did I mention that Darly decided that the most appropriate footwear for this trip was FLIPFLOPS?!?!?)  I asked her teacher to PLEASE tell the girls to not wear flipflops next time because I am obiviously and idiot who doesn't know what she's talking about with my own child.  grrr!

Oh, the girls were told to bring $8 with them for buying ice cream.  Darly's ice cream costs $1.75... what bills does she use to pay for this?  The $5!!  :eyeroll!"  She defended herself by saying it was the first thing to come out of her bag.  "ummm Hello?  you keep digging!"  sigh!  Now I have loads of ones for change.  grumble grumble!

Tonight is Darly's last ice skating lesson.  Yup, she's decided to give that up.  She's very disappointed that she cannot do a bunny hop.  I'm disappointed with her coach...instead of working with Darly on her bunny hop this time (it's the second time she's been in this level class) she had decided to teach her the next level skills?!?!?!  So tonight I'm going to speak to the coach and have her test Darly out on the skills she taught...it isn't fair that she should be tested on the two skills that she didn't get last time only when she's learned so many other skills (in other words, why should I pay for this twice!!!)  I'm hoping that if Darly passes all the skills in this level and the next (since the coach taught them) she might be willing to keep with it.

Oh and Tuesday we signed Darly back up for Gymnastics.  And this is so totally silly!  Darly said she would go back to gymnastics IF she could be in the lower level class and with a different coach.  So I emailed the gym.  No, the level class that Darly wants is STILL combined with the upper level class, it's still the upper level lesson, and it's still with the same coach.  I tell all of this to Darly and guess what...she wants to do it anyway.  :eyeroll!:  Well I'm only paying for one session this time...cuz I never did get my money back last time, but they have applied it to this lesson.

My DH's new hobby

Dh really likes that I'm on two different instant messaging services...why?  cuz it plays into his new hobby.

Dh likes to IM MY friends and see how long he can keep them thinking that it's me. 

Tonight one of my friends knew I wasn't supposed to be at home, so she knew it was him...what she didn't know was that I was home (I didn't go to TNO* cuz no one else was going) but I was in the other room.

Dh came out and said that she kept winking at him.  :eyeroll:  He doesn't get that winking online isn't like winking at a cute person.  Oh well.

When I get to talk or IM my friend we'll have a great laugh about all of this.

*last time I used TNO I got into trouble for not letting y'all know that it stands for Teacher's Night Out.  It's like our Mom's Night Out.

Girl Scouts starts up quickly!

Where has September gone???  I could have sworn that it was just August and now we're half done with September...where has all my time gone?

It's Girl Scout registration time.  My troop was supposed to get their forms all filled out on Sept 5th.  But I had to cancel because I was sick...I didn't even have the registration forms then!  So we were supposed to get together on Sept 12th to fill out the forms, but that didn't work out either...only 3 girls showed up and due to parking issues I didn't even get there in time to fill them out.  :eyeroll!:

So I have to turn these forms in on Saturday the 20th...  One of the other moms in the troop suggested we get together on the 19th and we'll HAVE to, but we don't have a location to meet because I forgot to request the room.  I'm a dork!

I should be searching for an alternate location.  Think I can do it today?  Maybe?

We also have to get our Investiture/Rededication/Bridging ceremony done.  I found a better bridge idea than what we had last year.  Our bridge is one that the other troops in our area use and I like to call it the bike ramp.  It isn't anything but two triangle ramps with a platform in the middle.  I was very disappointed with it.  So I searched online and found a better bridge.  I just have to get the parts and build it.  It shouldn't be too hard...just some wood pallets & cardboard.

I've got my ceremony planned...now I just need to farm out all the stuff that I can so I can relax.  hee hee  I don't see that happening cuz I'm such an A type person who has to be in control of everything.  Wish me luck at letting go....

whole lotta nuttin going on here...

I haven't posted anything cuz not much going on.  It's been nice to not have to worry about anything though.

But looking at the calendar, I see that October is fast approaching and I need to get started on Girl Scout stuff.

so off to do some research on our ceremony.

Today I met Tigger

Here's a link to his picture http://www.flickr.com/photos/79812389@N00/2191547675/in/photostream/

Tigger is my friend Jen's cat.  He's a very nice kitty.

Today while I was at Jen's house talking at her dining room table, Tigger first came into the room and after making his rounds decided that I needed to be checked out further.  (I would expect no less from a cat, it's just how they are!)

So he hops from one chair to my lap.  UFF!  He's not a light kitty!  And without so much of a sniff he invites me to pet him right away.  Apparently I'm pretty good at this kitty petting thing cuz he stayed there for quite some time...but then he noticed my water bottle on the table.  So he climbs up on the table and goes over to investigate it.  He was sniffing so closely to the opened neck of the bottle that I figured I wasn't gonna drink it anymore...seeing as he had practically kissed it.  I like cats, but not enough to kiss them full on the kitty lips. :p

So I poured some of the water into the cap of the bottle for him.  Tigger stuck his nose a bit too close and sprung back because the water was ice cold, but he quickly decided it needed more investigation and gave it a sip.  It must have been good (duh, I had been drinking it earlier, it was good!) cuz he slurped it all up.  I ended up giving him 3 cap fulls.

Jen was embarrased and kept appologizing for him, but I found him quite cute.  but we both decided that 3 cap fulls was quite enough.  However, tigger didn't think so.  Seeing as he was pawing at the bottle, I decided it would be best if I put the lid back on...and sure enough once the lid was on the bottle was knocked over by the cat.  He seemed suprised that the water wasn't coming out when the bottle fell over.  He had to give it a few whapps before giving up and trying to leave...to only then be held like a baby.

Darly was quite upset to hear this cuz she loves kitties and would have loved to have been there...but I seriously think she would have had much more fun where she was.

Question

have you folks seen this ad? It's for the Pedi Paws pet nail groomer tool. Basically this tool looks like a Dremel tool with a guard over the top to keep your pet's hair from getting in it...if that even works!

I have to wonder though... If this is such a great thing and works so well.... how come I keep getting spam in my email each day trying to get me to buy it?

I'm thinking "if it smells like spam, then it's probably a scam!"

Horizon Organic

I was recently asked to try out Horizon Organic Flavored Single Serve Milk. We were pretty excited when we got our samples. They come in shelf stable single serve containers that do not require refrigeration…but I put them in the frig anyway because we like our milk cold.


Darly was so ready to get started so she grabbed the Vanilla flavor first to have with her lunch. It wasn’t quite cold enough for her and she found it a bit too sweet. She likened it to eating melted vanilla ice cream. I had to finish that box. I poured it over crushed ice. Yum!

The Chocolate & Strawberry flavors were a huge hit! She liked both of those a lot and she loved the collapsible straws. Very fun to play with.  I think these would be very good for packing with your child's lunch...if I had a reason to pack a school lunch. ;)

We were introduced to Horizon Organic Yogurt Tubes a while back while visiting our local Panera Bread. So now those are a must have in our house. I like having a treat in the house that I don’t have to worry about how much she gets into them.

For more info on Horizon Organic check out their website at http://www.horizonorganic.com/ But if you’re like me and just want something healthy that you don’t have to think about in the house, just pick some up at your favorite grocery store. ;)

Things missed due to illness...

Wednesday night this illness snuck up on us. I first noticed that my throat was a bit scratchy some time that evening.

Thursday morning I woke up early in full blown sickness. :P I wasn't a happy girl...as seen by my post. Darly woke up soon after me and she was sick too. Lucky her, she took several naps that day. Me I stayed up suffering.

MISSED: Darly's Ice Skating practice & lesson. I figured that standing in a refrigerator for an hour and 30 minutes and then to come back and do it again for 30 minutes was crazy! I know that she didn't miss out on learning anything as I'm a bit upset with her coach for not working with her!

Friday: to be nice to DH I slept in the guest room so he could get a good night's sleep without me tossing and turning, coughing and such. Well I woke up to use the restroom and noticed that he was still in bed at 6:45am. Ummm normally he would have already left the house to be at work at 7am. So I went to him and said "You didn't tell me that you were staying home today." to which he sprung out of bed and rushed to the shower. Seems that he had forgotten to set his alarm clock. Well at least he was well rested! Which he needed, cuz work was a bear.
Darly was relatively active, while I was able to take a nap.

MISSED: Darly's Girl Scout meeting...which was canceled due to us and 2 other families being sick. The healthy families appreciated our stinginess with our germs.

Saturday: I slept in the guest room again. I think DH is happy about that as he needed to not be sick today. He had to go to his mother's to help her out with a few things. I've got Darly finally straightening up her mess.

MISSED: Sunday School teacher training. I didn't think that they would want my germs either and seeing as my head feels like it wants to explode, I didn't that driving was in my best interest.

Tomorrow is Rally Day at Church, but I think that I'll be staying home for that as well. I really hope that they were able to get a co-teacher for our class, because I really do not want to have to teach this class all by myself again.

Still sick

yesterday Darly was complaining about her right ear...and we remembered that she was messing with it the night before. So it's possible that she blew her nose so hard that some backed up into her ear...she & I have short eustachian tubes.

So when she gets up, whenever that happens...I'll ask her to give me an honest answer about her ears and if it's still bugging her, we'll see the doc.

The thing that got me about this was I asked her if her ear hurt and first she answered no...and then a few seconds later she admitted that yes it did hurt. Hummm how am I going to convince this kid that she needs to tell me this kind of stuff? Here I was living in this silly world of thinking that she told me everything and lately I'm finding out that for some weird reason she's scared to tell me stuff...like when the basement was getting flooded, she didn't want to tell us. weird.

too kutz!

SICK!

Darly & I are both sick and it stinks.

I HATE being sick!

This day is going on FOREVER!!!! I woke up at OH MY GOSH IT'S EARLY 5 something this morning because my throat was hurting like crazy. Darly was up soon after me complaining too. We both drank some lemon water. :p Doesn't seem to be helping much for me...or her. Lucky her, she's been able to go back to sleep several times...even though her nose is running a marathon. My nose isn't running much, but my throat hurts a lot.

DH isn't happy cuz he thinks that he'll catch this...FUNNY, cuz he's been sick for the past I don't know how long. I sure hope we don't have his crud, but he doesn't share his germs...cuz he knows he'll die a slow painful death if I catch something from him.

I should probably cancel our Girl Scout meeting tomorrow cuz there isn't any point if I can't go...unless... hummm

The Circus is coming! THE CIRCUS IS COMING!

Gosh I don’t know how long it has been since I went to see the circus. I know it was when I was very little. My parents must have gotten free tickets somehow, because I know that they couldn’t afford to do such things…I don’t even remember how many of my brothers came with us. Shoot it could have been that they weren’t there at all and we went with my Girl Scout troop. How’s that for remembering.

I have to admit that I have been a very bad mother and haven’t taken my poor little girl (who’s growing up so fast that I had better hurry!) to see the circus at all. Bad mommy! Bad Mommy! Hee hee

Well here’s my chance to redeem myself. And you can take your kids to the circus too! Oh and here’s a discount code too!

- The 20% discount code for Ringling Bros. Circus. Code: MCC

*Please note that the code is valid for buying tickets with the following ticket price brackets: $24, $19, and $13. The code is valid for the circus shows in the following cities:

Indianapolis, IN - Sept. 4-7, 2008
Kansas City, MO - Sept. 10-14, 2008
Grand Rapids, MI - Sept. 18-21, 2008
Denver, CO - Oct. 2-13, 2008
Boston, MA – Oct. 8-13, 2008
Cleveland, OH - Oct. 24 - Nov. 2
Chicago, IL - Nov. 6 - 30, 2008
St. Louis, MO - Nov. 6-9, 2008
Auburn Hills, MI - Nov. 12 - 16, 2008
Highland Heights, KY - Feb 27 - Mar. 1, 2009
Cincinnati, OH - Mar. 4 - 8, 2008

Click here to get your tickets http://www.ringling.com/

To help start the family traditions early, the Baby’s First Circus program allows babies can receive a free ticket voucher that can be exchanged for a free ticket to any Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey performance, anytime, anywhere. No expiration date!

makes me laugh!

Weekend update

hummm what did I do this weekend? It seems that I did most of my doing on Monday.

Saturday I didn't do a lot, I think I mostly got my calendars all updated with all our activities for the next few months. I did noticed that I had us starting going to Confirmation classes an entire week before they actually start. oops! Oh well, I'm sure Darly won't mind not having to go to one. hee hee

Sunday after we went to Church we went over to MIL's house so that DH could take care of her yard. While we were there we got to visit with MIL's neighbor's new puppy. Oh this poor puppy. The neighbor doesn't have a clue as to how to train him so he's just doing what puppies do. When I reached through the fence he greeted me by chomping on my hand. I hollered "OUCH!" and he immediately quit thinking I was something to "nom" on. So apparently he is still young enough to learn. This lady is trying to sell her house, yet instead of housebreaking her dog, she shows her house with newspapers over the puppy's favorite potty spot in the house. And she has NOT used the training tip that I gave her 2 weeks ago. sigh! I'm about ready to say "give me the dog and I'll have him all trained in 2 weeks...in the meantime have your carpets cleaned with enzymes so he won't be able to smell his scent in the house." And on the other hand I also think that perhaps just letting her fail at this would be a good lesson for her. Oh well.

Monday was the day that everything happened. I did a bunch of stuff for my homeschool support group as we were having our membership drive...that was the easy part. The hard stuff was, I did the laundry (DH & Darly helped fold the clothes...although Darly did let a basket of shirts get all wrinkled...so I popped them back into the dryer, cuz I don't iron!) I trimmed the dog's toenails. She wasn't happy but I did all of them without getting any of the quicks so she should be happy about that. I cleaned the rabbit's cage. They of course were not happy with the human invasion in their room, but loved the fresh hay when I was done. And then DH suggested that we FINALLY paint the master bathroom to match the master bedroom.

I painted the bedroom 3 years ago when DH had to go to the gulf coast for Hurricane Katrina aid. I would have done the bathroom then, but the thing I hate about painting is the taping and protecting everything you don't want painted. It's a royal pain in the tushie. And this bathroom has sooooooo much stuff that needed taping. So 3 years ago, DH said that he would tape it all off if I painted it. And yesterday he finally got around to doing it.

I had originally typed up a full description of my bathroom to share all the taping that needed to be done, but after looking at it decided to spare you the "bloody details."

While DH was taping I ran to the hardware store to pick up some supplies to finish the job.

The painting itself went very quickly. We sponge painted the room in two shades of paint. The technique involves mixing the paint with half water to make it easier to work with and then tapping the sponges against the wall in a random pattern.

Darly was eager to help out and was a real asset for a lot of the areas where tiny hands and arms were a must! She did a great job and my bathroom looks great...finally.

ahh...Bacon!

I finally got the first tomatoe from my garden the other day and I just had to do it justice by having a BLT sandwich for lunch today.  There's nothing better in the world than a BLT with a Fresh from the garden tomatoe!

So for lunch today I gathered up the ingredients and started cooking the bacon.  We only had 4 slices of bacon in the house.  boo!  and in case you're wondering, no I haven't been pigging out on bacon.
I got this tip a while back...when you finish using the bacon take the rest of it and roll the strips into "serving sizes" and place those in a ziptop bag and freeze!  Then whenever you need bacon you have it handy and you don't have to worry about it going bad in the frig or being a cold hard block from being in the freezer.

Well once the smell of bacon filled the house, Darly came running.  "can you make me some bacon too please?"  Sometimes I question teaching this kid about all the good foods out there, especially when there are only 4 slices!!!

Once the bacon was done I started making my sandwich.  Because I'm not totally heartless, I made my sandwich with only two slices of the bacon instead of all four.  I put on the mayo, two very nice thick slices of my tomatoe and some lettuce from my garden too.

The sandwich was totally wonderful!!!  But now it's a few hours later, the house still smells of bacon and I want some more!!!  I could make a LT sandwich (my mom used to do that all the time!), but it's just about 5pm and DH will be home looking for his dinner.  sigh!  I guess I could go make our dinner too.  But instead I'm blogging and eating almonds.

Scared of the checkbook!

I have been being very lazy about my checkbook for a while now. I used to be so good with it. Checking it and balancing it every month even when most months were zero activity. But then I started slacking...a lot.

I stopped figuring out the balance when I wrote a check. I even stopped opening up my statements. I knew how much I had put in there and knew I hadn't written more than I took out, so I'm all good. right?

Well today I find out. Time to balance the check book. Those who've been reading my blog for a while are probably laughing your heads off cuz you know that I used to be the treasurer for a large non-profit organization. If they knew what I was doing now they would be very upset with me...cuz yeah, I let their books slide sometimes too.

But no one is in danger of overdraft or bank fees. I would never do that.

So let's see how bad it is... I'll keep you posted.

THE UPDATE: Well I finally figured everything out and found that I had made an error when I was trying to keep a running balance in my checkbook. I don't know how, but I miscalculated my balance by $100! So I was running around with an extra $100 in there that I didn't even know about. WOW! Perhaps I shouldn't have fixed the register. LOL! Not that I've ever been in any danger of writing more than I have, but my mom always used that kind of checkbook keeping to make herself save money.
I guess I won't do that since I use this account not for saving money but to pay for all the piddly things that come up...to keep DH from wondering when my friends are going to cash their checks. As it stands now there are two open checks from a long time ago that would drive him bonkers, but don't bother me at all.

Tornado!

This afternoon DH was getting ready to mow our grass and I noticed the sky looked rather yucky, so I went out in front of our house to see what I could see and a guy drives past and tells me there is a funnel cloud behind my house!

So I go back there and sure enough, there is!

At first it didn't look like much, but after a bit we noticed that there seemed to be a see-through part that extended towards the ground.  So I ran upstairs and watched some more.  It eventually stirred up some dirt so you could really see it.

From what we could see the tornado wasn't really doing much, and it was not going very fast.  It looked like it was about to give up many times before it finally did give up after about 20 minutes.

For some better pictures than I was able to get, check out our news.  And here too!

I guess I must have made a mistake in showing this to Darly because it seemed to upset her quite a bit.  She started packing some clothes & her favorite toys to go down into the basement.  I wanted to show her the tornado so she could see what one that you didn't have to be worried about looked like.  I tried explaining to her that DH & I wouldn't be sitting there at the window taking pictures if there was any reason to be worried about it.  That didn't seem to work until sometime after it was over.  She can now laugh about it, cuz her friend called to see if she was okay.

I have to admit that I haven't seen a tornado in person that was any larger that this one.  There was a funnel cloud in Cheyenne once, but it never touched down.  Although they sounded the sirens for it.  (we don't have sirens in my town.  They figure we don't get enough storms to pay for them.)

We did have a larger tornado in TX, but I never saw it.  DH & I were having dinner at a friend's house and looked outside at the storm wondering if we should go put our car in our carport so it wouldn't get hit by hail.  Meanwhile there was a tornado hitting DH's office and a few other buildings near it.

Damage to his office wasn't too bad...it just knocked out a few windows.  But since a new office was already under construction, DH had to survive the winter in his office with plywood over the window.

OH!  DH never mowed our grass today.  :-/

No sale

Last night for my Anniversary, DH gave me a gift card to Kohls. Kohls is one of my most favorite places to shop...normally. However, lately I've been having loads of trouble finding anything that I want there.

So today I have no kid as she's over at "I's" house. So after coloring my roots I set out to do some shopping.

First I went to Qudoba for some lunch. I had their yummy Taco salad. burp!

Then I headed to Sports Unlimited cuz they had their big tent set up in the parking lot. I thought they might have been having a summer clearance...but nope! They were setting up for a ski & snow sale that doesn't start until NEXT saturday! Oh well, like I said to another lady who had stopped because of the tent "At least I didn't spend any money!" she laughed and agreed with me.

Next I went to Kohls. I first noticed that they had rearranged the entire Women's dept. boo! I hate when they do that! But I found what I was looking for and grabbed 3 pair of jeans. One pair was supposed to be a smaller size and the other two were the size I figured that I needed. I tried on the "smaller" pair first and it fit okay, but I didn't like how it sucked in around my thighs making them look bigger. These jeans were supposed to be straight leg. Then I notice the size. What the hey?!?! Apparently someone had put them on the wrong hanger...they were the same size as the other two pair of jeans. great! Well that kept me from trying on the other pair that were the exact same jeans only supposed to be a size bigger. :eyeroll!: The 3rd pair of jeans were supposed to have a comfort waistband. I tried them on and realized that they were not the right rise. They were too high.

see I'm a very short waisted gal. And "regular" rise jeans come up too high on me...they poke me in the ribs when I'm sitting. So I started getting low rise (not the so low you have to shave to wear them!) but below the bellybutton. So pair of jeans #3 is a no go too. BOO!

After that I looked around a bit at some of the other clothes and though "blech!" I put the cart I had grabbed away and then went to look at their jewelry. I figured if DH wouldn't buy me any diamonds that I would just get some with my gift card! Well it won't be happening at Kohls. Not only did they NOT have any that I could get with my card...they didn't have any that I liked enough to wear either.

Oh well!

I then decided to head over to Walmart cuz when I saw the Sports Authority tent I was hoping for maybe getting a sun shield for camping. I found one that I might get, but today wasn't going to be the day for that.

Since I had no where to be for a while I just decided to browse. I went to the craft dept and was looking at nothing really when Jen called me to let me know that our Not Back To School party is postponed due to rain & tornado watches. Oh boy.

I told her I was supposed to get Darly back from Heather at the party and Jen jokingly said I should let her stay there until the new date for the party. HA HA! She's so funny!

I called Heather and she tells me that Darly doesn't want to come home. Okay, I guess she gets to stay there and miss her Confirmation Orientation. No big really, I'm sure it will be just like the last one that was really boring...it might even have the same info. maybe I can skip it too? hummm

So I looked at a few more things and left Walmart without buying anything too. And since I didn't need to kill anymore time (no party to go to) I headed home.

DH will be so proud of me! :D

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What's in a name? Just for Bone

Yesterday, (or maybe it was this morning?) Bone asked me to explain where I came up with my blog's URL. http://lillyput.blogspot.com/

I thought that those of you who read my blog and know my dog would figure that one out. ;o) My blog's URL is named after Lilly. When she was just a young pup we frequently called her Lillyput...from Gulliver's Travels.

I was stressed to come up with a name folks!

and as for my blog's title: Fefyfomanna That's just barely more interesting. When I was getting my blog one of Darly's favorite games was the password game. This is where she would frequently block your path and you would have to figure out the password in order to get by her. One of her favorite passwords was "Fefyfomanna." I don't know where she came up with it from...where do kids ever come up with stuff like that? If you asked her now she would tell you I came up with it on my own, because she doesn't remember it.

Oh well.

Well Bone, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

It's Co-op time

My homeschooling group does this really cool thing we call a co-op. It's where everyone who wants to be in the co-op has to offer a class. This can be a class they teach themselves or they can arrange for a field trip or some other kind of way for the kids to learn something. And then in exchange for offering a class you then get to take as many of the other classes that are offered.

Here's what we have so far...

Talk by Lightning Telegraph -learn morse code and make a telegraph
Tricky Pics - trick digital photography
Geology Rocks! - learn about rocks
Childbirth - tour a maternity ward and learn about childbirth from posters
NCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research
JungleQuest - an indoor playplace
Make a Plate
Ecosystem Adventure - learn about ecosystems
Simple Puppets - make puppets
Take the bus/train - this was suggested because of gas prices
Indiana (Jones) University - more than just watching the movie
Platte river hike
Morrison Natural History Museum
Sew Simple - learning how to sew by hand
Intermediate art
Primary art
Phonics Phun
Taekwondo
Tour Red Rocks
Nature Notebooks and Walk
Speed – A skip counting math game
Chatfield State Park – Guided Nature Walk
Highlands Ranch Days
Snowmaking - her DH sells snowmakers and will teach the class.

and I've had about 2 more classes come in while I'm typing this. We're going to be very busy!

Oh and Darly wants to teach a class too. She's gonna help with the class I'm teaching, but she wants her own class too. However, she hasn't yet come up with a topic to teach...she wanted me to come up with the topic. LOL! I thought that I had come up with a topic she could teach. Perhaps I should step asside and give her my class?

DOH!

today was the big Girl Scout Pizza party and things went pretty well considering...

considering that even though we had called and placed the order the day before to be ready at noon, called back at 11am to confirm that the order was still there and would be ready at noon...the pizzas were in the oven at noon! :roll eyes!: They're darned lucky that I wasn't in the store to pick up the pizzas or someone would have had very red ears from all my chewing on them. GRRR!

But anyway we got our pizzas at 12:15 and were on our way to the party. We get to the party and just as we are walking in with all the food and party the guy decides that NOW he will go and clean the party room! Such intelegent people we have in charge of everything, huh? *sigh* I decided to set my 2.5gal of cold water down on one of their chairs while we waited. LOL! I hope someone got a very cold bottom.

But once we got in, the party went very well. We had plenty of pizza, the pizza gal had even cut the pies into extra slices for us, so my pizza cutter was not necessary. The kids enjoyed filling their own water cups...just like I knew they would. And to make it even more peachy for us, we were allowed to leave our belongings in the party room while the kids played. YAY!

Now for the DOH! part.

Darly comes up to me near the end of their playtime and beggs for her bestest buddy "I" to come with us to spend the night. I start racking my brain for anything that might prevent this from happening. Actually I wasn't at all against it. And not remembering anything, I said that yes she could stay over...and I's mom was right next to me and said yes too.

So we start driving home from the party with "I" in the car and then the "DOH!" moment happens... :my eyes are rolling as I'm typing here: I remembered that tonight is TNO and I had said that I would go. "OH SHOOT!"

So I the following emails between me & DH happen:

Subject: remember how good I was yesterday?

well today I think I may have just errased that.

Darly came up to me at Jungle Quest and BEGGED for "I" to come and stay
over. I thought about it and not remembering anything said that she could.

I totally forgot that tonight is TNO. I'm such a goof!

I know you had planned to get the free chicken strips at Chic-fil-a.
However, the good news is that we got another coupon for them in today's
mail. So there are enough coupons for all 3 of you to have the strips.

Or if you would rather, I can just make dinner before I leave. (if my
kitchen pass is still good?)

Love you!
Renee

He writes back:

YOU!!! I think you can only use one coupon at a time. Does "I" like
chicken stips? Plus we need to save one for our anniversary. Unless the
Rockies get 7 runs on the 21st of August.... Then we can all get the
runs.... :-)

DH

Me back:
nope the coupon says "one coupon per person"...so you can use all 3 at once if you have both girls with you. they let me use multiple coupons when I had Niece H stay with us.

and if the Rockies don't score 7 runs on the 21st, we can always have Steak
& Ale. ;)

love you
Renee

Him back again:
Steak & Ale went backrupt! Maybe we can do DQ if the Rockies don't get 7

Me back again: (are you having fun yet?)
Ah Nuts! Steak & Ale even pulled their website. bummer

Ooooh wait! We've got that coin for Trapper's Steak House that we could
us...I could get Darly a return sleepover at I's.

oh is there any way for you to bring home some 9volt batteries on your way?

The smoke detector in the sewing room decided it needs a fresh one. :p

Renee

and him:
WOW are you asking a lot... I thought we still have some new ones.

and me:
never mind, I found one...now just letting it warm back up before I install it.

and him:
Warm back up??? Did you have it in the freezer? lol

and finally me:
nah, I just put it outside again.

ooh, I better get the directions to TNO!

UPDATE: Yes, I got to go to TNO. YES DH took the girls out to dinner at Chick-fil-a and the girl at the counter would have given them as many free chicken strips as they could eat!...without the coupon. Turns out DH & Darly didn't care for them, but "I" thought they were okay and ate 3. They shared some waffle fries too. Since I've been home we haven't heard much more than a small noise out of them. I hope we can all go to bed soon.

Tennis Anyone?

On Tuesday Darly got to try a tennis class for kids. The place we went to is indoors and they have everything in kids' size. The net is lower, the court is smaller and the of course have kids' size raquets.

Darly was the oldest kid in the class...in fact she was the only child who was near her age at all...the rest of the kids who showed up (there were about 5 who didn't come) were all around 4 years old. I know that you're thinking "Poor Darly" but it wasn't so bad for her. The coach did really well at switching between the kids to match their skill level and even then, Darly did awesome!

Darly now wants more tennis lessons. (of course!) LOL! However, I brought home the brochure for the place and DH choked on the prices! He said that he would teach her how to play tennis.

So we got Darly a child sized raquet. We gathered up DH's box of tennis balls and headed over to the tennis courts in our subdivision.

When we got there we were in for a shock! The gates (that have never been locked like they were supposed to be on previous visits) were locked! So instead of using the tennis courts, we decided to play in the parking lot. Which worked pretty well, except our tennis balls aren't quite so yellow anymore...seems they had just resurfaced the lot. oops!

Dh was throwing balls to Darly for her to hit back, and I was behind Darly to get the balls she missed or that DH would throw to me to keep me on my toes. He seemed to think that I needed a work out because he was making it hard on me. I actually got sweatty :p

So today I called up our homeowners' assn to find out about getting the key. They charge $10 for the key. :o and the lady said that if we decide to sell our house we can give the key to the new owners and have them pay us the $10 back. WHAT??? Yeah, like THAT will EVER HAPPEN!!! What a CROCK! Whatever... Oh, I didn't tell DH that it would cost us $10.

So later DH emails me... "Did you call about the key for the tennis courts?"
Me: "Yes dear and I have it."
DH: "Wow! You're good!"
Me: "Yeah, but I don't like to brag."

Darly Funny & update

Last night I was working on the details for a pizza party for our Girl Scout troop. And since I've heard that you can get really good tasting pizza really cheap at our local warehouse clubs, I was working how I was going to do that without a club membership. LOL!

Anyway, Darly buts into my conversation & thoughts to add her 2 cents.

she says "I don't think I want bulky pizza."

and I wasn't thinking on the same page as her, so I say "HUH?"

Darly says: "the pizza is from the bulk warehouse, so it will be a bulky pizza...right?" Then she starts giggling at her joke.

Now I get it!

I mention about how I worry that having the kids eat all this pizza before they go play might not be a good idea.

And Darly says "a kid bounces off the rock wall and UFF DA!" :p


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
and in other news, I got a call from the PetSmart owner today. He appologized for the problem. He agreed with me that what happened should never happen. In this day and age of economy problems he cannot afford to loose any of his Pet Parents. So he kept asking what he could do for me, so that I would give him another chance.

I told him the biggest problem was that the shelf wasn't stocked. And he totally agreed with me and started to say something about there could have been stock in the back, but then switched to that I never got the chance to ask. EXACTLY!

I'll definately be shopping there still as there aren't any other stores nearby that carry the rabbit food I use. I really like their grooming salon too. But I did tell him that I went online to order my supplies this time. He asked me to ask for him the next time we are in so he can make it up to me in person.

What a day!!!

Warning: This post is going to be incredibly cranky. I'm sorry in advance, it was just a day to make me cranky!

The day actually didn't start off as a cranky day. It started off pretty good as I got up, had my coffee and read a few blogs. Darly & I were scheduled for a field trip to the Phoenix Gold Mine up in Idaho Springs. On our way we had to pick up a friend who was having some body work done on her car...luckily the repair shop was right here by my house.

So we get to the mine and the first thing we notice is that there is already a TON of people there! In fact there are a bunch of cars and TWO Charter Buses there!!! We had to park our cars on the road going past the mine. We find out that the two bus loads are folks from Up With People and they didn't have a scheduled tour but the manager gave them a special deal cuz they do work for charity. (ummm, do they?) But they had to break up their large group into smaller groups and take them threw the mine...BEFORE US!!!! WHAT???

Them with NO RESERVATION get to go before us who have a reserved tour. WE got to wait. Darly of course was bored! Many in our group chose to go ahead and eat their lunch...but we hadn't brough lunch because we were planning to be done with the tour by lunch time and then go to eat in town.

Our tour was supposed to begin at 11am, we didn't get our tour until 12:30. Of course by then none of the kids cared what the poor tour guide had to say about the mine. And frankly I didn't either! Mr Tour guide was full of jokes and "great stories" about the mine...yeah right bud, whatever! Most of the kids were running past nap time and had no patience...and to top everything off, the tour ahead of us (still Up With People folks) were talking so we couldn't hear our tour guide!!!

The good part of the tour is that we saw a real vein of gold! While this mine is non-operational, it does have real gold in it. And the kids were able to fine real gold dust in the creek. Darly has a zip top bag full of gold dust laden mud that we're going to try to dry out and blow the dirt away from the gold...hopefully. I might try a sample first.

After the tour we went to lunch at a very popular pizza place here in Colorado. And of course right as they announce our table is ready two things happen...1) other folks from our homeschool group show up...2) my husband calls! (he never calls, this is important.) So I'm talking to him and the gal that I gave a ride to wants to know if we want to wait and have a bigger table with the other folks. I told her I didn't care, whatever she wanted. I guess she was hungry, cuz she opted to take our table.
DH called to see where we were because his mom's waterheater isn't working. Can I come to her house with my car in case he needs to go buy a new waterheater. Okay.

MIL's about 2 hours later (after lunch, & dropping off friend & her girls.) Waterheater actually started acting up on Sunday, but MIL didn't call us then cuz she knew we were going to the ball game. :where's the eyeroll smiley???: So DH figures that the waterheater is probably okay, but two parts above the waterheater are leaking. DH fixed the one, but needs to find the other. He says that Darly & I can leave.

On the way home I remember that I need to pick up hay for the rabbits. We stop at PetSmart. Upon entering the store we are immediately "Pounced on" by two sales associates. I politely turn down their offers of help as I know what I need and where it is in the store. In fact when the second guy offers to help me, I have the hay I need. But then I decide I should probably pick up rabbit food too as they will run out soon enough. So I go to the rabbit food eisle. The food I buy the rabbits is on sale in the 10lb bags...but there are NO 10lb bags on the shelves. In fact someone has stocked part of the shelf for the 10lb food with 5lb bags...but there is no price tag on the shelf for the 5lb bags. :GROAN!: So I go looking for an associate to help me. And of course the two who pounced on me earlier are now long gone and helping other customers.

So I spy another associate, who is also helping another customer, but they are heading up front and no longer "engaged in conversation" so I ask if the associate could please ask someone to come help me with the rabbit food. I stand over near the rabbit food, but where I can watch the associate I asked to get someone. She finishes helping her customer, clocks out and leaves the store!!! She never sent any help. By this time the associate who pounced on me second has also clocked out and left the store! The manager (I can only assume that he was the manager because he was wearing a different PetSmart shirt) has followed him out to round up shopping carts...which really needed to be done!

Totally frustrated, I walk up front and the cashier asks if she can help. I tell her my story and that this is the second time I've had this happen to me (no really, the last time I was in this store virtually the exact same thing happened...only no one clocked out and left me hanging...he just forgot about me.) The cashier appologizes and calls for an associate to come to us at the register. I look outside to see the manager has come with some carts and has a phone that he's talking into...he heads back out. As I turn the girl from fish has showed up, but she immediately rushes over to help some folks who are looking at lizzards...not even checking to answer the page. :groan: The clerk calls again for an associate and no one shows up.

Finally the manager comes in, still on the phone, but comes close enough to the cashier that she can tell him I need some help. I tell him that I want rabbit food, the 10lb bag is not on the shelf and the 5lb bag has no price. He holds up a finger and then walks over to the grooming salon to help a customer load her dog into her car...all the while still on the phone. He comes back in the store and goes to another closed register and continues his call.

By this time I'm just ticked beyond belief. I leave my cart with the hay in it, get Darly who was looking at the cats up for adoption, and we head for the door. OF COURSE THE manager is finally off the phone and can help me now...but in total disgust I tell him that it is too late, and we leave the store.

I get home, go to the PetSmart website and file a complaint. I've received an email telling them that I need to file a formal complaint...apparently I didn't use proper procedure!!! :groan: I'll be back! But NOT TO that PetSmart!

Faith Day 2008

Today we enjoyed Faith Day at Coors Field.  This is a yearly event however it isn't highly publicized.  In fact that link on my previous post was really hard to find.  This event is mostly advertised just at area Churches.  This was Darly & my second Rockies game.  Dh has gone to one other Rockies game.

We take the light rail because it's easier...the train takes us almost the entire way from our house, there's no fuss for parking and with gas prices, we're pretty sure it is much cheaper!  So the first shot in the slideshow is on the train.

We got to the game very early because last time we went the wait to pick up our tickets at the Will Call box was very long and we missed most of the first inning.  This time because we were so early there was no wait and we got to watch them prepair the field for the game...snore!  LOL!

The Rockies got pounced on by the Padres.  It was pretty sad.  However, the game was not the only thing we were there for.

Because they were expecting rain the stage was set up near the 3rd base line and they had all of us move over to that side of the field.  There were over 4,000 at the game and I would guess there were easily over 1000 for the Faith Day presentation & concert.

First they had a few speakers talk about their faith and then Stephen Curtis Chapman came on stage.  Stephen talked for a bit about his recent loss.  If you don't already know, Stephen's daughter Maria went to Heaven back in May.  He shared with us the story of when he first met his daughter Maria in China.  He was there doing some work for the orphanage and he asked to hold one of the two foster babies that he had met.  He asked the name of the one he was holding and she was Maria.  There aren't many babies in China named Maria...and the first thought through his head were the words to a song he had written 12 years earlier "Maria"   Before he left on the trip his wife MaryBeth had warned him to "NOT come back with another baby.  Their house was full...there's no room at the inn!"  He called her crying about Maria.  MaryBeth still said no, however, when Stephen got home she had already started filling out the paperwork to adopt her.
When Maria had attended preschool she was learning the lyrics to "Big Big House" and she was asking MaryBeth about them.  "Does God have a Big Big House in Heaven?"  "Does he have a Big Big Table with lots and lots of food?"  MaryBeth caught on and said "yes and he's got a big big yard where we can play football!"  Maria was suprised, and then said that she wanted to go and see that big big house.

Stephen sang "How Great is our God" and some other songs that are escaping my memory right now, probably because I have the radio on.  But he told us that he struggled when he knew that he would return to the stage about which songs he would preform.  He was certain that he would never sing "Cinderella" again.  However, he knew that Maria's life wasn't over and that he had to sing the song again.  Only for us he changed the last line to "Because I know the Truth, the Dance will go on!"

Stephen started singing another song but the rain wouldn't hold off any longer.  By the time he was about 1/2 way through the song, the crew was covering up all the equipment.  But Stephen kept on playing.  He had mentioned earlier that he wasn't at all worried about getting zapped, in fact if it started lightening he would be out chasing it.  But his crew put a tarp over his keyboard before his song was over and let him finish before they covered it completely.

Stephen said that if we wanted to wait for the rain to quit he would come back out and play the rest of his set for us.  So we decided to see if we could get a seat that had some protection from the rain on a lower level.  (note our first seats for the ball game were on the 3rd level in the nosebleed section.  Our second seats were still on the 3rd level, only closer to home plate. 

So while it rained we made our way to the lower level...and what did we spy there?  Why it was Bob & Larry from the Veggie Tales!  Darly really wanted a picture with them (she's been a bit jealous of a friend of hers who is seen posed with them on her mom's blog.)  So we got the shot.  When I took the picture, I gave Darly the Thumbs up...and LOL!  Larry gave me one back.

The rain quit right after we made it to the lower level.  So the crew pulled back the tarps, dried things off and the concert was back on...only now it was pumped up!  Well first Stephen played "I Will Be Here" for his wife.  And then we needed to make some Noise and "Live Out Loud!"  But Darly was waiting for "Dive" and she didn't have to wait long.  The only bummer was that the sound got a bit messed up and the vocals were drounded out by the music on that song.  But Darly still enjoyed it.

We didn't leave the ball park until almost 8pm and didn't get back to our car until almost 9pm.  So we're all very tired...including my dog who got to sleep all day!

Whoa Man!

Tonight we (DH, Darly & I) went to Church service because we are going to the Rockie's Family Faith day tomorrow. After Church we went out to dinner at Black-eyed Pea.

Dh & I normally share a dinner since most places make them way too big. So I decided I wanted their Chicken Fried Steak (I wanted something that I couldn't or wouldn't make at home!) When our waiter found our that we were sharing he suggested that we try their "Texas Sized" Chicken Fried Steak. But I insisted that all we needed was the regular portion. And WHOA MAN! was I right!

Look at the picture of what we ordered in the menu... that's it next to the green beans in the first picture. That is NOT the size of the meal we were served. When our order arrived on a 10inch plate, the steak covered about 75% of the plate!

Dh & I looked at this mass of meat and asked our waiter, "Just how big is that Texas sized steak?" He told us it was much bigger and would hang off the edges of the plate by a few inches. Are your eyes rolling? Cuz mine are! Who on earth could eat that much? The waiter said the only way to finish one was to have two people share it. I think that all 3 of us couldn't have finished a Texas Sized. As it was DH & I had a hard time with the regular...although we did find that the actual meat wasn't quite as big as it's breading. Still I wasn't able to eat half.

Darly ordered her grilled cheese with cheddar cheese on it. Our waiter said he used to do the same thing as a kid. Cheddar is much better. ;o)

Excuse me, I need to loosen my pants.

new do!

today after whining for far too long I did something about it. I really wish that I would get smart and take a before photo for you. :P

I asked my homeschooling buddies for a recommendation and went to the stylist that Maura suggested.


I think I love it!

the camping pictures!

We got to the campground right around 3pm (this was after going to Church and loading up the car. DH was a big help!) We were the 3rd family to arrive. One had been there since Friday night.

Darly & I set up our camp in our usual manner, but one of the other moms (the one who had been there since Friday) thought that we had a very good system. And we do. First we find a location for the tent, clear the area, set out the foot print to get an idea of where the tent is going and how to situate it...then we roll out the tent and get the polls ready. There's one point where someone has to go inside the tent and hold it up while the other person puts the tent polls onto the pegs. It used to be that Darly did 3 of the 5 polls and I did the last two cuz she wasn't strong enough to do them...but now she can do all 5 polls herself! I'm proud.
After we get the tent polls, I carry our bedding and stuff to the tent for Darly to set up while I get the rain fly on and then get our "kitchen" set up. She does a great job and gets the cots all set up for us.

As we were setting up more of our friends arrived...and we watched as their campsites went up. I also set up my handwashing station. I'm not sure if you can see it in the picture, but there's a nail on a string poked into the milk jug. the nail serves as a plug. when you need to wash your hands you remove the nail, and the water comes out. Wash up and then return the nail. Tah dah! "running" water.

right after we got the campsite ready, I went ahead and lit a fire to make our dinner. I had some wood issues though. I'm not sure if my firewood was too green or too dry, but it would light up in a flash and then smolder. I never got my large logs to light up at all. :( After I got dinner cooked I realized that was the first time I had sat down since we had got there.

Lilly decided that she didn't like any of the other dogs. So she didn't get to play and for a while that meant that I didn't get to go visit either. But I decided to put her in our car later on and she actually went willingly. I think that she was glad to take a nap.

Even though I had fire issues and it rained, we DID have smores...each night. We also had some pretty good campin food. for breakfast I had brewed my coffee at home, so I just reheated it on the stove. Darly had cereal...I brought her oatmeal, but she wasn't in the mood for it. Lunch was sandwiches with chips. and then for dinner... the first night I made us Hobo dinners, but Darly just ate her hamburger with cheese on a bun. I ate her potatoes. My hobo packet had some zucchini in it too...yum! and Lilly got the leftovers. I then realized that while I remembered her dog food, I had forgotten to bring her food dish. No worries, she ate off our dirty dishes.

I got a lot of reading done. Darly got a lot of playing done. Lilly got a lot of eating done. LOL!

We're home early!

We woke up (or in my case, got up from not being allowed to sleep) this morning to the news that a very large thunderstorm would be rolling through our campground area and it would last pretty much all day.  So figuring that:
1) Darly's buddy was going to go home and wouldn't be there for playing
2) rain means cold...and I don't like cold
3) rain makes it really hard to prepair food when you're camping (you can't make a fire in your tent or use your cookstove either!!!) and when you're cold, cold food is no fun
4) no smores in the rain! (I guess that goes with food too!)
5) Idiot campground host hadn't checked the "bathrooms" since Sunday morning at 7am and they were all out of toilet paper! (BTW: "bathrooms" were really outhouses)
6) previous night I was up every 2 hours or so because a small child in the campground kept kicking off her blankets and crying cuz she was cold. 

we decided to cut our trip short by a day.  And not too long ago I received a text from Jen...Holy Chit! It's raining hard & does not appear it will let up anytime soon.  It's worse than the rain @ Guanella that time. IDK how the tenties will last :-(  Jen is in a pop-up, so at least she has some sturdy housing to hold up for the night.  The rain here was pretty dramatic...I never did go check my garden cuz it started raining about 5 minutes after we got home.

The camping trip was nice.  I had a good time for most of it.  I've got pictures on my camera...but seeing as I just got home today, I'll save the pictures for when I'm not so tired.

I can tell you that we got to the campground and picked a spot for the tent...moved a bunch of rocks and settled...then after getting the tent set up, found a spot where all the rocks were already moved.  :eyeroll:  So if I ever go back and get that spot, I'll know where the tent spot is.  It looked comfy.  The only problem with that spot was that it was pretty far from the fire ring.  I usually put Lilly's tie out so that she can reach the tent and the fire ring from it...which makes for fun with the table, but anyway.  So this spot she wouldn't have been happy with cuz I would have spent a lot of time too far from her.

I should go sleep.
nite...at 9pm

gone campin

more cat
see ya in a few.

Chores of late...

Check out this beauty that I bought recently!DH was very impressed which is saying a lot.

Darly has outgrown her little toddler desk so this will be her new desk. Although DH & I won't allow her to store all her junk in it, cuz it's going in the family room. Right now the desk is in parts and in my garage because I'm cleaning it up. This desk was formerly the school desk for a homeschooling friend of ours and she "decorated" the desk a bit. So I spent a bit of today washing the desk with some wood soap to get off the majority of the art work. I have to check with DH to see how much more art work he wants removed and how hard he wants me to try to remove it. Then I get to turn that project over to DH because when we moved it I noticed that a few of the screws that hold the top of the desk down are stripped out. It's an easy fix and we even have all the tools. Just maybe DH will finish it by the time Darly & I get back from our camping trip.

My second project has been to work on cutting down a dead tree in our back yard. It would have gone much faster if we had any power tools, but DH was worried about trying to cut down a tree with his skill saw...frankly I was too, but using a pruning saw was a lot of work. We finally got the stump down last night and today I've been working on cutting the stump into fire wood for my camping trip. I think I am about 1/2 the way through. YAY! It's been quite the workout and with daily temperatures pushing 100 degrees, it's been hot too. :P

And finally I've been getting ready for our camping trip. I need to print out my check list, but I'm pretty sure that everything that we need is all in the camping gear pile. I'll just need to pick up ice on the way, cuz I'm out of room to store it here. I should also start getting my food together. I could do all of that on Saturday. We leave on Sunday. DH & the attack rabbits will be here until we get back on Wednesday.

Grumble!

Today I opened an email that I almost deleted...and apparently I HAD deleted their first attempt to contact me. Even though I have requested NUMEROUS TIMES for them to put "Girl Scouts" in the subject line I keep getting emails regarding Girl Scouts with no mention of it... oh well. I'm sure they'll call me if it's really important...I know they have the number, cuz they did call about our Troop's financial report.

Today's email was informing me that I am required to take some more Leader Training and there was an attached doccument that had a listing of the locations for the training...none of the locations anywhere near me! (most locations were 30 to 40 minutes away) All of the classes are 3 hours LONG! and all of them set up for times that would be impossible for me to attend. (most of the start times were between 5pm and 6pm...my DH doesn't get home from work until 5pm to be able to watch Darly.)

But listed on the attached doccument (with the classes listed) was a note that EVENTUALLY this class would be available either online or on a CD! YAY!

So I emailed the gal it said to send your questions to and asked about the expected availability of the online or CD class. She said it would be at least two months, BUT that they had opened up 3 more classes and I should go sign up for one of those.

I explained to her that the classes were not on a day that worked for me, not at a time that worked for me AND not at a location that worked for me. I did this nicely. I explained that Sunday would NOT work for me because it is Family Day.

She responds back that it wasn't like they were asking me to take this training every year and that I should do the class. I just deleted her last email and said a not very nice word (only in my head) to describe this person...as I'm sure she is probably thinking the exact same word about me.

You know for an organization that depends on volunteers they sure don't treat their volunteers very well. They all seem to have the mentality that if they can do this, we should be able to drop everything and do it too.

I'm thinking that instead of deleting her email, I should have asked her what were they going to do if I didn't take the training. LOL!

This isn't the first time I've thought about DEFECTING from Girl Scouts. It isn't as if we NEED them for much. Really the only reason we have the troop is so we can sell & eat the Girl Scout cookies. Anyone can go into the council office and buy the uniforms & patches.

Burn For You - Tobymac

a little something to wake you up!



enjoy!

TMI - guys just surf on by!

Have you seen this commercial? It cracks me up.



Well the good news is Mother Nature won't be bugging me on my next camping trip. The bad news is that she showed up yesterday. BOO! I'm so waiting for her to get dementia and forget me all together.

BTW: This is not any kind of endorsement for that brand!

Why would someone do this???

There's a person I know that I'm pretty upset with right now. I'm so upset because I can not for the life of me understand why she would do such a thing.

What did she do that was so horrible??? She SHARED GERMS!!! (I know that you're laughing at me now.)

There is one thing on this earth that irritates more than anything else...that is for ME TO BE SICK! I cannot stand it. I'm not a nice sick person...I'm the screamer kind of sick person.

So this person knowingly brought her sick self and sick brewd and exposed them to all of us. There is currently a nasty stomach bug going around town (thanks to others like this person too) and I don't want to catch it (even if the weight loss might be beneficial.)

So far it seems that I might have dodged this bullet as another friend that was with us seems to not have been so lucky...this bug is ripping through her family, one by one (of course they don't all catch it at once...that would be helpful! No it has to drag on!)

So take this post as a warning... If you are sick and you know it, stay the heck away from me & my family!!! otherwise I might have to puke on you! paybacks!

Ice Skating & Camping shopping

Darly is taking Ice Skating lessons and her current session is over for her, but just about over for the rest of her class. See next week there won't be any lesson due to an ice skating competition at the rink and the following week is the final week...it's also the week that we'll be camping.
Darly & I got up early today to go practice. We have to go to the early public skate session because the summer camp kids invade the ice at the 1pm skate time. This doesn't make Darly happy, she would rather sleep in and go skate at 1. But she also doesn't want to compete for a spot on the ice either.
Our practice skate didn't go very well. Darly was very hard on herself. We both knew that she wouldn't be ready to test out of this class yet. However, when we got to class at 5:30 ... well I'm getting ahead of myself

after our skate this morning, we went shopping. I needed to pick up some camping items for our next camping trip. Items I needed: Tent stakes (I bent about 5 out of 12 on my tent in the VERY HARD ground!); a clear salt shaker (I ran out of salt cuz I had no idea how much salt was in it.); trash bags; dish towels (I just wanted them!); propane; metal flatwear & I was looking for some way to keep my coolers out of the sun so hopefully they stay cooler longer without me having to move them out of the sun!

So first we went to Big Lots. That wasn't all that productive shopping wise. I just bought the trash bags & towels there. And I'll be using the new towels here in the house and gathering up my old towels that I've already stained to use for camping.

Then we went to Target and actually walked out of the store with out buying ANYTHING!!! DH would be so proud! LOL!

Next door is Wal-Mart. We went in through the garden center and noticed that the folding beach chairs that Darly & I have already been using as cots were on sale for only $3!!!! I paid about $6 for the ones that Darly & I are using right now...each! I actually wanted to buy extra chairs because the price was so good. But I just got one for DH to use IF he ever decides to come camping with us. I could spoil Lilly and allow her to sleep on the chair, but then she would be harder to convince that she's not allowed on our beds. I did look to see if they had those pet hammocks that I've seen, but not at Walmart. But hey! While looking for that link for you, I found this link too! Lilly may still be in luck.

Next we stopped by the sporting goods department to pick up the clear salt & PEPPER shaker for only $1. Sweet! I first saw a prefilled shaker that came with 6 spices and mentioned to Darly that I would never use 3 of the spices in there. Then I looked up and saw the perfect shaker. Hopefully we'll never run out of salt again. I picked up the tent stakes too.

While in the sporting goods we looked at several other items...we originally went there looking for the propane and something to keep our food cool. I never found the way to keep my food cool, but decided that I would try to make something that I saw online. I have plenty of tarps and string. plus I have some leftover tent polls from my last screen room that bit the dust...I could even recycle the top of it for the tarp that I need if I wanted to. So I'm going to try to make one of those before spending any more money on this thing.

And finally I wanted to replace our plastic flatwear with metal. My friend Heather had told me that WalMart had some really cheap flatwear sets that I could get...and sure enough I found them. It took a bit of digging to find the knives though...oh and spoons that actually fit in our mouths, but I found them and paid $3 for 6 forks, 6 spoons & 6 knives. We should be all set!

After all that hard shopping we headed home to find that I had a package!!! I knew what it was when I saw the return address, but couldn't believe that my order was in that box. It was though. Wanna know what I "ordered"? It was this! Did ya notice how much I paid for it??? I'm so psyched! Too bad it didn't come this morning...then I wouldn't have had to rent skates this morning.

Okay now back to the skating thing. We went to Darly's class at 5:30 and I had Darly tell her coach that she wouldn't be there for the last class. So the coach decided to test her today. YIKES! Darly tried really hard but she didn't pass. However, the coach told me that this class is really hard and the kids rarely ever pass it on the first try. skills like the Bunny Hop and T-Stop are just too hard. The coach felt that none of the other kids would pass either. Luckily we won't be there to find that out. Yes Darly was disappointed, but she seemed to take it all in very well. I told her that we would check the class list and try to register her for the least crowded class. perhaps we'll avoid a class with a bunch of "hockey boys" like this time. Did I tell you about how one of them knocked Darly over? GRRR!