Today's List

Things that make a normal Monday a little bit better.....

1. Teachers luncheons. Where parents bring yummy homemade food for all the staff. Sure beats a sandwich.

2. Mid-day hugs. Walking through the school doing boring work and stopping by your son's class to get an unsolicited hug. If you have to work, this is the way to do it.

3. Being known as "Andrew's mommy". Walking into above said class to a chorus of "Andrew, it's your mommy!"

4. Brownies. Both the girl scout kind and the gooey chocolate kind.

5. Chocolate!

6. Ice tea!

7. Fearing all day that you made a huge mistake at work, giving wrong information to the 200+ families and realizing at 2:30 that the mistake only effected about 5 children (they are just very vocal).

8. Air conditioning.

9. Being a mommy to two wonderful children who picked up their rooms without being asked. Okay, so without being threatened.

10. Having a wonderful husband who folded laundry yesterday so I didn't have to. Now if he would just get his socks off the floor. One step at a time.

11. Coming home to a clean house!

Today's Pet Peeves

Things that bother me on an otherwise beautiful Sunday....

1. Children who suddenly can't live without Mommy's attention during the 30 minutes I want to take a nap (read: no nap today)

2. Little boys who are as stubborn as their daddy and refuse to take care of all bodily functions themselves (no details since this is a family friendly site)

3. LAUNDRY

4. Preachers leaving (for understandable health reasons) and a congregation starting the much dreaded "preacher search" (and no, we do not want Garth, but thanks for asking)

5. Super glue that, no matter how hard you try, gets on all your fingers and annoys you the rest of the afternoon until you can pick it all off, removing half your skin in the process.

6. Meteorologists who warn us that Rita "leftovers" are coming our way this weekend, get ready, stock up....and we get squat. No rain, no cooler weather, no nothing. Okay, we got clouds. Yipee.

7. The Texas Heat...again!

8. Football season. Ugh. I mean really. How many hours can a man watch a game?!? "But honey, this is the pre-game to the pre-game to the game that starts in 9 hours."

9. Surfing through blogs for some easy entertainment and only getting to the ones in foreign languages which are, although pretty cool, totally meaningless to me.

10. Tomorrow is Monday.

11. Laundry. Yes I know I already said that one but I really really really mean it.

12. Looking at this list and realizing that I'm coming across cranky when really I'm in a very good mood, just venting (and avoiding that dreaded "l" word--see above) .

And to think, this all started with the dumb super glue incident.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Busy Busy Busy

This is the first time this week I've been able to get on the computer. Monday was my Pokeeno night. The only 2 hours during the month that I am not "mom" or "wife". Of course at 3:30 that afternoon I still had no gift. So the kids and I ran to two different stores trying to come up with something clever. I ended up making a fingernail polish basket (for under $7--yeah me). I think it turned out cute. After all, a person can never have too much fingernail polish (says the girl who owns 312 bottles).

On Tuesday, Andrew had his 4 year old check-up (yes, I know I'm late). So he ended up getting 3 shots, poor thing. But he was a very brave little boy. About half way through the appointment, he figured out that the doctor was talking about giving him shots and he started to tear up. I felt so bad for him. After the doctor, we got to come home for a whopping 45 minutes before it was time to go to a fundraiser for Alyssa's school at "Pump it Up". They have converted a warehouse-type place into LARGE rooms with about 7 inflatable bounce houses, obstacle courses and slides. So for 2+ hours, the kids ran and jumped and climbed until they could hardly move. Needless to say, by the time we left, they were very tired and very stinky! They did go right to sleep when we got home though (after a quick bath, of course)

Tonight is "catch up on housework and homework" night. Not doing too well with that though -- as I sit here at the computer trying to type when I am so tired that I can't make a coherent sentence. So tell me, when did I get so old that staying up until 11:00 wears me out like this?!? I guess I'll go take my walker into the kitchen for my evening prune juice and nightly Dominoes game.

Enjoy the pictures of my sweaty children.

Okay, just let me say one thing.....I AM TIRED OF BEING HOT!!! Tell me again why I live in Texas. It is mid September and we are still near 100. That is just so wrong. The human body was not created to sweat 9 out of 12 months. Whine whine whine. At least I wasn't working at the ballpark like a certain person I know who will remain nameless (stinky and sweaty but nameless).

Question for all those mothers out there. Let's just say you have a sweet and wonderful little girl who is about, oh I don't know, 8 years old. Is it normal for her to tell you word for word everything she has said and done all day - even if it just happened two minutes ago and you were in the room? Even if it was the dialog from a TV show that you really don't care about because you are older than 12? You try to be an attentive mom but sometimes enough is enough. But I guess she has always been very "vocal". I remember using the phrase "No more words" quite a few times. I think this is very unfair that I am raising two talkers. They must get it from their father.....Mr. Talkey Pants. After all, their mother is the shy reserved type who never ever talks. (Can you hear the sarcasm there or do I need to redo that sentence?)

Okay, are you ready for our big news? We had nocturnal visitors in our yard last night. Blake was outside watering the grass and came running in yelling for me to come outside. So I stopped putting the kids to bed (after all, what is more important.....growing children getting a good nights sleep or running outside in the dark.....hmmmm) But I digress. So outside, playing in the sprinkler, are three baby skunks! They were so cute! Kept making some kind of grunting noise -- either because of the pure enjoyment of playing in water after it was so hot all week or because they were getting mad that we were flooding their home. Couldn't tell which. Anyway, we didn't want to stay out too long since we figured where there are three cute baby skunks, there is sure to be a stinky mommy skunk somewhere close by.

Blake kept shooting water at them to get them to leave but it didn't work. Apparently, they have made a home in a hole that was beside our driveway. We got a closer look at the hole today and I think they have been busy digging themselves a new condo. So now we have a nice family of stinky (but very cute) skunks living UNDER our driveway. Anyone want to come mow our grass??? I tried to take pictures but it was 8:30 at night and there was NO WAY I was going to get too close just to get a picture. We called the city today and they said that they would rent us a trap.......for $50 dollars........in two weeks!!! I assume that after we catch the little critters, the city will send someone to pick them up. At least I hope it works that way since there is no way I'm getting close enough to a caged skunk to pick it up. Looks like that's what we're going to have to do since we really don't have any other ideas or options. Enjoy a laugh at our expense.

Thought everyone could use a smile today. I know I can. Nuff said.

Downer of a day

I think I have decided to just erase the last 48 hours. We have been watching so much about the hurricane victims that I just feel so overwelmed. I can't even imagine what those people are going thru. I remember when the tornado hit our neighborhood...that was bad enough and it was only one street destoyed, not the whole city. At least tonight I got to help a little bit. Sharla's church is getting about 200 refugees and we (Sharla, me, and Ally) went to go help sort thru all the donations. Ally wanted to go help the people who "don't have homes anymore". She was up very late but I figured it was okay just to give her the experience of helping people. So I am very tired but feel pretty good. I e-mailed Sharla the pictures we took tonight to give everyone an idea of what we did. So hopefully she will put them on her site soon. (My camera but her church so she gets the pictures.)

Yesterday we got a call from church and found out that 4 of our members were killed in a car wreck. Two members lost their spouse and one married couple was killed. Our church will have a hard time on Sunday. They were all very involved members and will be very missed. It still seems so unreal. I don't know if anyone remembers my friend Amy who sang at our wedding but the couple who was killed were her parents. I just can't imagine what she is going thru tonight. Please pray for Diane who survived but lost her husband and for Bill who lost his wife and is currently in ICU but expected to be okay. And of course for Amy and her husband John and their three kids.

Needless to say, I really have nothing uplifting or clever to say tonight. I think I'll just go to sleep so I don't have to deal with everything for a few hours. But tomorrow is a new day and I'll spend the weekend hugging and playing with my children so things will improve.