Well, it's the third week of school and I'm just now beginning to feel ready to start the year. My work computer is still acting up but my "to do" pile is no longer touching the ceiling. I even feel like I have a handle on the accounting part of After School Care. (For those of you who don't know, accounting was the only course in school that drove me insane. To survive the two semesters of classes, all I had to do was take what I thought was the correct way to do the problems and do the exact opposite. Can you say right-brained??) Of course Friday I was told that due to other factors like outrageous electric bills, they are cutting my budget. Like I'm not stressed enough about this. I had it where the program was breaking even and even bringing in a couple hundred extra dollars a month so it should be fine but it was nice to have a big cushion if I needed it. I liked being under budget with a surplus.

On the home front: still no kitty. We finally put away his food dish. It was pretty sad just sitting there in the kitchen for three weeks, empty and unused. Now Blake has been talking about getting a dog. Just a small one. I'm not ready for that yet. Dogs require a lot more work than a cat. I'm still on the lookout for free kittens. I really want an orange one. Though it is nice not to have to take care of any animals right now. (Gerbils don't count. They just play in their cage all day and chew on stuff.)

All right, I'm having trouble making a coherent sentence. I think it's time for bed. I'll say a quick prayer of thanks for the rain today and say goodnight.

Hey, guess what....we survived the first three days of school! The two weeks before, we had to go up to the school everyday ALL DAY. And I still wasn't ready. Oh well. I figure for the first few days, as long as every child arrives and leaves safe, it is considered a good day. My computer at work is messing up so that is throwing everything behind.

I did have a hard time that first day since my baby is going to Kindergarten and my other baby is no way old enough to be in 4th grade. I can't image how hard it would have been if they had been at a different school. Both kids seem to like it so far. Ally has fit right in and the teachers are commenting that it's like she has been there since Kindergarten. Andrew was a bit quiet after the first day. Wouldn't tell me much of what they did but he made up for it yesterday. I now know EVERYTHING that his class said and did all day. It was great!

The new part of my job is going okay. I have After School Care totally staffed with very reliable people who I think will do a great job. I am just trying to keep them happy and not too overwhelmed. So....I have been staying at work until 6:00 to make sure they and the kids are comfortable with the routine. I did get to leave today at 5:00. Yeah! I figure by next week all will be set and we can get home at a decent hour. Not that my kids will want to. They like playing with their friends up there.

Sad news on the home front. Max has run away. He has been gone for almost a week now. I don't think he's coming back. Blake had gotten up to get ready for work and found the gerbil cage knocked over and the door open. No gerbils. We couldn't find them anywhere! And I looked everywhere I could think of. Threw the cat in the bathroom while we looked and I finally figured out they may have squeezed under the entertainment center. Sure enough, we found them. Andrew's black one was fine but Max got ahold of the other one (the fat slow one). He didn't look very good. His eye was bloody and closed, his back was bloody and he wasn't using one of his front paws. I was so upset with the cat that I threw him outside before I wrung his little neck. So now I feel bad that he hasn't come back. My kitty ran away because I was mad at him. I hope he's okay. Maybe he'll still come home. On a positive note, the gerbil seems to be almost back to his old self. After a few days of laying in the corner of the cage shivering and sleeping, he is back to running all over the cage....just not with the use of one front paw.

Needless to say, it has been a stressful couple weeks at out house. Hopefully now that school is back in session, we will settle nicely into a routine.

Our computer seems to be okay now but we are still a bit leary of it. Every once in a while it decides not to turn on but we think it has to do with the keyboard. It just likes a different one sometimes. So we have three keyboards that we can just change out. Dumb computer. Ooops, I didn't mean that. Please don't shut down on me and erase my pictures!

Glad to be back in blog land. Hopefully I won't be gone so long next time.