A year from now I hope to be.....

I'm borrowing this idea from a post I saw on the NSBR message board at twopeasinabucket.com. Basically instead of making resolutions of what you're going to start on January 1 you think about where you want to be next December 31, sort of a "see it and be it" kind of thing. I like this way of thinking better than New Year's resolutions!

So let's seeeeeeeeeeeee......... a year from now I hope to be:

1. Healthier! Thinner would be a great bonus from that but with my family's health history and some of the things I now have going on I really need to be HEALTHIER!

2. I hope to cut a big chunk out of our debt. I told Mark and the kids a few weeks ago that I thought we should go on a "no-spend" spree for January beyond buying gas, food and school lunches. I think I saw fear in the kids' eyes! But right after Christmas what else do they really need???

3. More fun/less stressed. I think I used to be somewhat of a fun person and I know I haven't been that person in many months.

4. More caught up in my scrapbooking! I have so much in supplies and so many years of photos and I hope a year from now I've actually scrapped a larger percentage of them than I did this year!

I'm sure I can think of more but there's my starter list anyway! So where do YOU hope to be on December 31, 2009????

Happy New Year

I'm fighting melancholy this morning. I'm thinking of all the changes we've gone through this year and how those changes will affect our futures and it makes me kind of sad. What's done is done, you can't go back, blah, blah, blah. Intellectually I know all that but my heart is having a hard time putting it to rest today. sniff sniff But to throw out another over-used saying life goes on, count your blessings, and to quote some REO you have to roll with the changes. And I am honestly attempting that but I think over the next week it's going to be a little hard to do.

I had planned on doing every "good luck tradition" I could find on New Year's Day but last night at supper Mark and the kids reminded me we DID have pork and black eyed peas last NYD! So now I'm thinking maybe this year we need to do "anti-traditional" things and see how that works for us!

On top of everything else he's dealing with we found out Monday morning that Robbie has a sinus infection. Hopefully that's the main reason he's been so lethargic and not the other meds. He's been on amoxicillin since Monday and does seem a little perkier already but still has the sniffles and cough. Hopefully they are now from all the gunk breaking up! He elected for pills over liquid thinking they would be like the capsules he's been taking. The amox are horse pills! I told him to imagine they were Poke-balls and once he swallowed it the Pokemon would fight the germs. Have you ever seen an 8 yo boy do a MAJOR eye-roll?! Quite the sight let me tell you! lol

And now just a couple of pics from the Children's Museum last week-end. They turn the staircase to the second floor into a giant arctic slide and Robbie and Katie went down it twice. And look at the size of those snowflakes!

hodge podge of musings

Sometimes it seems like there's nothing to blog about and other times it seems like there are a multitude of thoughts floating around in my head that want to put down "on paper" (or typed on screen!).

A week from now Samantha will be heading back to Kansas and that makes me sad. I had a bad dream about it last night so that's not helping either. I'm very glad for the time we've all been spending together and I don't want it to end! We've seen more episodes of "old Robbie" since she's been here. And it's just been good to have the whole one-second-getting-along-the-next-second-nit-picking-at-each-other-shenanaigans going on! And with her graduating in May who knows where life will take her so every second of the next week is going to be bittersweet in the Mom-ish way!

I've been thinking about the new year coming in and how many people make resolutions and all that jazz. I don't want to call them a resolution because it just seems like you're setting yourself up to fall with that title hanging overhead but I hope to become healthier in 2009. Both physically and financially (and hopefully emotionally will fall into place after those!). A year ago at this time I never thought the then new year would hold for us what it has! I'm a little apprehensive about 2009! lol But I'm going to do my best to be hopeful about it too. 2008 tanked if you asked me so I'm hoping we can all only go up in 2009!

And I had started a thought here but a whining 11 yo interrupted my train of thought and I lost it! Maybe it will pull back into the station later!

Merry Christmas! and other ramblings

First I want to say a very Merry Christmas to everyone and anyone who reads my ramblings! I know the weather is wreaking havoc on many travel plans so I hope everyone is able to be where and with whom they want to be this holiday!

We're getting rain right now. I'm afraid of how icy things will be again once the temps drop again. Yesterday afternoon we got ice. It was like a fine glaze had been laid down on everything. There were wrecks all over the metro Indy area (including two fatalities--always sad but especially so with the holiday). It took Mark three times as long as it normally does to get home from work. He said once he got off the interstate the cars were going so slow that the speedometer wasn't even registering. We do not have much of an incline to our driveway but it was enough that Mark couldn't just drive the car right up. I kept hearing these weird noises so I looked out the window and saw him coming into the driveway and then sliding back into the street over and over! It was kind of funny! Then Sam and I both thought there was going to be no tread left on the one front tire so I convinced him to use the yard for traction so half the car sat in the yard and half on the driveway last night. This morning I-69 was closed due to the large number of accidents on it because of the ice so he had to find an alternate route to work. There were still accidents going on this morning including a 20 car pile up in Indy. They're saying tomorrow will be dry but very cold and then Friday and Saturday A LOT OF RAIN and the weatherman was commenting on how there's nowhere for more rain to go. Maybe time to start building an ark?

But for now we'll just get ready for Santa to make his arrival and our traditional Christmas Eve feast of delivery pizza! The kids, Robbie especially, are sad that my parents won't be here this year. My mom is in physical therapy for a bad back and the trip here at Thanksgiving about did her in. So this year it will just be the five of us (seven if you count the dogs!) celebrating. Sounds like a perfect jammie day tomorrow if you ask me!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Indy zoo and boy is it COLD!

I just checked weather.com and it's 9 degrees right now. Good news is we're only one degree from the forecasted high of 10 today! Whoo-whee, grab the shorts and the flip-flops! But again the sun is actually shining today. For over a month now it's been cloudy and overcast UNLESS it's been bitterly cold and THEN we get sunshine. Seems to be a severe case of weather irony!

Last night after debating most of the day whether Robbie and I felt up to going (thank to the crud) we went to the Indy Zoo to see their Christmas lights. We had made going to see Illuminations at Botanica in Wichita a family Christmas tradition so we needed to make some new traditions here in Indiana and this was the closest thing I saw to Illuminations. The zoo was packed! I guess everyone was trying to beat the frigid temps we're supposed to have over the next several days. A lot of the animals were sleeping or trying to stay warm but the seals were putting on a loud concert as we walked in. Two were up on a large rock just "singing" away. Probably wondering why all the humans were in there after dark disturbing their quiet time!

The kids about to be attacked by a giant peacock!

The obligatory flamingo shot!

We went to the gardens next to the zoo to see the indoor train display. My picture doesn't do the entryway or their tree justice. It was beautiful!

The trio in front of said tree!

It's officially Christmas

because, once again, I have caught the annual Christmas crud. I had hoped I'd get by-passed this year with all the other crap that's been going on but since Robbie's had it for over a week I figured my days were numbered.

I feel like my sinuses and all the area around my eyes are swollen to 10x their normal size and I can't breathe through my nose. I look mahvelous...ahem.

So if anyone has any good home remedies I may not have tried yet bring'em on!

Yay!

After a delay (what IS the problem with plane travel between Wichita and Indy that there always has to be some sort of delay???) all my lil ducks are under one roof! I've been telling Mark, Katie and Robbie that Sam wasn't coming in until next week so they were all surprised when they got home this afternoon and here she was! Now for two+ weeks of peace, love and harmony! Yeah, right! lol

We're under another winter weather advisory tonight. More ice is supposed to come through. We still haven't thawed out from the other day's drop. So the kids may have another late start day tomorrow. One more day and then they're out for Christmas! I hope that this break will be uber beneficial for Robbie. He's been fighting a cough for a couple of weeks and now has the "nose crud" as well as all the other issues going on. Hopefully some time off will help him get healthy and also find his bearings and be ready to tackle the world again. I think having Sam here is already helping. Tonight he was pretty animated in that "old Robbie" way at supper. I'm sure it was his big sister and not the fact we went out to eat at 5 Guys!

The past week has been a stressful one for the Robtar and his parents. I won't bore you with all the details but at times I've been frustrated and angry with him and at other times I've been ready to go take a school apart brick by brick. We had a meeting with his teacher on Tuesday and Mark took off work so he could go too. He told me "I didn't go for your safety...it was for THEIRS!" heehee I did well though and told the teacher again that I'm not a "not my kid" kind of mom but that it's not ALL my kid either. I think we made our point in a mature way but if my son comes home with another bruise like he had before then we're going back to that brick by brick plan!

But now all my "babies" are here and I'm happy about that!

It's sooooo cooooooollllllllllllld!

This has been covered in other venues before but let me say again for blogger world...ahem...I HATE COLD WEATHER!!! It literally makes me hurt. I think some of it stems from the hypothyroidism but whatever the cause I hate it! Now don't get me wrong I don't mind cool weather and even "oh it's nippy out there" weather but when it stays below freezing then I'm planning my hibernation evacuation! Right now it's snowing/sleeting with a wind chill of 11. I keep telling myself it could be worse and I could be in whichever northern plains state that I heard the wind chill was -48 this morning. Nope, I don't think so!

I read a great e-mail today from one of my online scrapping friends. Her son just turned 11 and told all his friends that he didn't want gifts for his party but rather unwrapped toys to donate to Toys For Tots instead. He collected 30 toys to donate! How inspiring is that?! What a great son they're raising! If he's doing this at 11 can you just imagine the good he's going to spread through the world as an adult? Yay Tara and Daniel!!!

ramblings

I think I am finished buying Christmas presents for the kids. I might need a couple of little things to suggest to Santa for Mark's stocking but other than that I THINK I'm finished. Oops, forgot about a teacher gift and two bus driver gifts. Any suggestions for the bus drivers? I'm thinking a Starbucks gift card.

I still haven't made nut clusters yet or made any cookies yet and there's a all the wrapping of presents to do. But tomorrow our high is only supposed to be 25 degrees so after I walk Robbie to the bus stop I think I'll hibernate and maybe I'll get some of that stuff finished then!

The MD wants to try Robbie on Strattera to see if that will help with the supposed ADD. I'm still not convinced he has ADD and think that it's more that we have OCD (the not wanting to be touched by others) issues going on. I picked up the prescription but when I hear him laying there on the floor laughing at the tv and picking up on jokes and plays on words I have a hard time with actually starting him on this medicine Saturday. The first day of the Adderall was hell, no other word for it. It's one thing to take a medication yourself knowing there are possible side effects but it's entirely different when it's your child.

I heard from my friend, Edie, this week and she's going to be in Louisville (she lives in NC) so she's going to drive up here Saturday and spend the night. That will be a nice break from everything else going on around here!

Celtic Thunder and 39 Clues

You gotta love PBS fund drives! Now the people coming on the screen in the middle of the shows pleading for money is not loads of fun but they bring out some really good shows during this time frame. Earlier in the year Mark and I saw a video of The High Kings, an Irish group, and really enjoyed it. Well this time around Katie has discovered the Celtic Thunder and is in love! Primarily because of the youngest member of the group who is in his teens! She watched the show on tv and then saw it was on again and begged us to DVR it and she's already watched it a few times since this week-end! I think all three of my children have inherited my ecclectic musical tastes and I love it! Katie doesn't know it yet since she's still at school but I downloaded the Celtic Thunder's first album from iTunes today. They have a second one out now but I didn't see it on iTunes yet.

Any of you with kids in school may have heard of the newest book series craze, The 39 Clues. Robbie finally got his copy of the first book from a book order at school. Last night he had a Cub Scout event about a half hour from the house. He read that book by flashlight all the way there and all the way back! And then stayed up reading longer than he should have. He's not reading as much as he used to so it makes me happy to see him so excited over a book! Ssssh....he doesn't know it but he's getting the second book for Christmas!

We're such a cultural lot this week!

Snowy Saturday

I'm watching the snow coming down and listening to the neighbor's yappy dog yap about being stuck outside in it. Poor thing is probably afraid he/she will be buried and never seen again! Belle and Daisy used to have to rush outside when they heard the neighbor dog yapping, "We're missing all the action, woman, open the door already!". Now they barely move an ear when they hear it. "Oh, it's just them again."

Katie's a little sad that the snow is coming down so heavily on a Saturday and they're missing the opportunity for a snow day. They only go for half a day on Wednesday (some teacher workshop thing) and in two weeks they're out for Christmas and New Year's. When I reminded her of that I got "But Mom....a SNOW DAY!" And I get what she means. There's just something about that bonus day off where everything you do seems just a little bit more special because normally you wouldn't be able to do it on that day.

This is the first Saturday in awhile that we don't have company or have something on the calendar. I thought about going out to get all the "donation gifts" that the kids scout troops and/or classrooms have requested but I may just kick back today and watch the snow. No point in making cookies this early because they'd be gone by Christmas. I could make nut clusters but we'll have to see how the day pans out. I probably should address Christmas cards today but we'll see.

still here

Had a couple of people ask and I'm still here. I just can't seem to type anything that isn't dark or depressing right now. Just one of those things I have to work through but I'm still hiding out around here.

So tired it hurts

I've not been sleeping well lately. Throw in gettting up early yesterday to start Thankgiving dinner and even earlier this morning to take Samantha out shopping and now I am so tired that it literally hurts. At least the past two days have been better reasons that before so I'll attempt to deal with and not fall over in a stupor!

We hit Michael's last night and I got some Cricut cartridges and my mom got me the Jukebox for Christmas. YAY! Today we hit Target, Kohl's, Wal-mart and Archiver's. I could not believe the line outside Target and could not believe that in going to Target I attempted to drive the wrong way down an I-69 exit ramp because I was thinking in my exhausted stupor I was at the side street already. @@ Thankfully I recognized my mistake quickly and no harm done other than probably a concerned motorist who had been sitting at the light!

Robbie has slept in the past couple of days and we haven't given him the Adderall yesterday or today for fear he wouldn't be able to get to sleep at night. I have to say his behavior since last night is a strong argument to NOT give him any more meds. He actually let Mark pick him up this afternoon, he's still not touching with his fingers a whole lot but it's better than it had been the past two weeks and he actually seems happy today. Getting a sketch pad and some colored pencils may have helped too but it's like having more of "old Robbie" back. Last night he even kept a graph of how many licks it took him to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop. Today he's laughing at how sore his tongue is. Now THAT is "old Robbie"!

I e-mailed with his teacher earlier this week and she hasn't noticed any improvement since going on the meds either and thinks he's been more emotional. She told me that she admits she's not a doctor or therapist but she was surprised by the ADD diagnosis. I think we're going back to square one even if I tick off some medical professionals. Even with a house full of people it's felt more like us than it has in two weeks.

catching up

Wow, I get more comments about what's not on my blog than on what I write! Yes, I did some housekeeping and deleted posts. Why isn't important but I'm sorry that blogger sent out messages that I updated to everyone and there was nothing to read.

This is the first time I've sat down today. I ran errands for four hours this morning and then came home and started cleaning....still have a ways to go though. Mark's mom gets in tomorrow evening, Samantha gets in early afternoon on Wednesday and then my parents should be here later Wednesday afternoon. As the magician in Frosty said "I have to get busy, busy, busy!" But Samantha can now rest easy that I bought a turkey this morning. Hadn't heard about the turkey shortage until she told me this week-end. Maybe it's just a Kansas thing because there were "gobs" of them at the store here still.

Tomorrow morning in addition to cleaning I have to take the van to a Chrysler dealer for repairs. We took it to Midas this week-end to have one thing checked out. A $700+ fix that the mechanic said could wait a few months and that it sounds worse than it actually is BUT our water pump is leaking and that needs fixed soon. He thought since it was under 36 K miles it was still under warranty but according to the dealership it's under 36 K AND under 36 months since it was ORIGINALLY purchased. I don't think we're going to meet that requirement so we'll probably be forking out $400+ for that repair. When it rains it pours is an understatement for us these days. I told Jeanne and Mary both that with everything else going on I started laughing when I heard about the repairs needed. One step closer to a "vacation" in a lovely padded cell!

So since I'm going to be busy, busy, busy the next week I thought I'd post some things I'm thankful for in honor of the holiday.

1. I'm thankful that Samantha is going to be here for Thanksgiving AND Christmas.

2. I'm thankful for all my friends but especially Jeanne and Mary right now who have talked/e-mailed/IM'd me off a few hundred ledges recently. I can't put into words how they've helped me.

3. I'm thankful for those very few and fleeting brief moments since we started down this particular path with Robbie when I get to see signs of the "old Robbie". I'm not sure we'll stay on this path because of the changes going on but those brief moments give me a spark of hope.

4. I'm thankful that even though I'm in a "dark and twisty" (Grey's Anatomy anyone?) place right now I can still, on occassion, find my warped sense of humor.

5. I'm thankful all three of my kids share that warped sense of humor.

6. I'm thankful that Katie seems to have found her identity and her voice and seems to have become stronger over this past year.

7. I'm thankful for Mark even despite the fact that right now we're both stressed out and sometimes bark at each other. Or as I normally say "get all pissy!"

And now I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving.

Trick or Treat

I had bought candy in anticipation of over 150 trick-or-treaters because of a neighbor telling me she thought they had at least that last year. I don't know if the Friday night football games cut into the number of kids trick or treating or if people did something else since it was on a Friday this year but I didn't have 150 trick-or-treaters! Maybe 80ish. I have a LOT of candy leftover! And K and R's plastic pumpkins overfloweth with bounty! That poor Wii Fit board is going to be saying "oh" in that strangled voice a lot in the near future!

Robbie wanted to be a Clone Trooper but we waited to long to buy a costume and couldn't find one that would fit him. So in keeping with the Star Wars theme of the past three years he went as Boba Fett. But he was a "good" Boba Fett and not like a bad one like in the movies. That last part was according to Robbie!

Originally Katie wanted to be Demi Lavato from Camp Rock fame but wasn't sure people would "get" who she was and would think she hadn't dressed up so she went as a cheerleader complete with Mark's letterman's jacket from high school. Yes, Sarah, we had such jackets back in the cave days! ;-)

And yes, I am THAT mean that I made her wear tights and a t-shirt under her costume so she'd stay warm! Surprisingly she didn't complain too much about that though.

Here are the jack o'lanterns and my ghostie Happy Halloween sign that has had a burned out bulb in his "nose" for a few years but this year I actually replaced it! I like how the guardian angel is watching over them all!

Here they are with their loot! They're standing in front of Katie's loot and Robbie's is at the bottom of the table where he was sorting his. Waaaaaaaaaaay too much!

and my artsy-fartsy shot:

Little piece of chocolate heaven right there!

Jack O'lantern Time

We're a bit behind the power curve this year. The kids just got their costumes this week and I just picked some pumpkins up at the grocery store Wednesday and we carved them last night. I wanted to go to a farm and do the whole "fall thing" but time just got away from me somehow. Seems to happen more and more. sigh

But here are a few pics:

Those of you who know Robbie know that he has an aversion to touching certain things so the fact we were able to get him to scoop out some of the pumpkin "guts" was quite the accomplishment for him!

And the finished masterpieces! I tried to deter the boy from carving a big a$$ed spider but as you can see I was not successful in that endeavor! I really like the goofy face on Katie's pumpkin!

Not in Kansas anymore, Toto

We're back from our whirlwind trip back to Wichita. Today I'm working on the mountain of laundry, cleaning house and picking up the dogs from the doggy hotel. I want to be playing with our new Wii Fit that we finally found in Wichita but I'm going to get through some of the work first. Self imposed denial! If I'd done that more often I wouldn't NEED the Wii Fit!

It was great to just be with Samantha again! I know Katie and Robbie felt that too. Just hanging out with Sissy driving each other crazy! So whenever anybody back there hears Sam mentioned grad school just say "Indiana" and your check will be in the mail!

We hit Freddy's, Jimmy John's and, I should be ashamed to admit this but I'm not, I think I had a lemon-berry slush from Sonic every day we were there except the day we left! I even took a picture of the sign and one of the menu board. When I'm not feeling pressed for time I'll post a few pictures. Friday night Sam and I were with the old east crew. I laughed like I haven't laughed in such a very long time! I needed that night!

There's the condensed version of the trip, I know I'll be posting more stuff later on. Yesterday was 12 fun filled hours in the van. I don't think I slept more than 3-4 hours a night while we were there (just couldn't sleep well) and we were up early yesterday and we hit the road 5:30 am Wichita time so I spent most of the drive in an exhausted haze. Which I think in some strange way made the trip seem faster. My sense of time wasn't quite on track so that helped.

And I'll end this post with I think I have some blog-stalkers that live in my neighborhood. Which wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't probably the same people who can't seem to be bothered to talk to me at the bus stop. No idea what I did to start it all but I'm sure my "out of touch" post from last week has them buzzing again. If you don't care enough to get to know me (and I did make attempts which had me even further out of my comfort zone than the move had already place me!) then why do you care enough to search me out on the web and read what I write? No rancor intened in that statment, just an honest question. So in the interest of my children I deleted it. I don't care what people think about me, the older I get the more I don't care, but I don't want them "penalized" for it.

So now I'm off to clean my house and go pick up Miss Daisy and Miss Belle! Have a great day, y'all! And to those who will know what I'm talking about I can not get that old commercial out of my head where the kids yell "Hey Kool-aid!"

Morning conversations in my house

Now that K & R are in different schools their schedules are such that I get some alone time to gab with each one in the morning before the big yellow bus comes lumbering down the street to gobble'em up each school day. Sometimes, especially in the case of the PRETEEN (a breed all its own!), the gab sessions are full of 'tude and eye rolling and the occassional stomp stomp stomp up the stairs. Sometimes they are full of goofiness and giggling. There are those dawdling mornings where the gabbing seems to primarily consist of me saying "Have you done x, y and z yet? Well, hurry up! The bus will be here soon!" Then there are the mornings that will actually leave the child in question speechless and if you knew my children you would know how rare an occurence that is!



Yesterday morning was one of those mornings. The BOY was telling me that he had read there was a new Mario (as in Mario Brothers) game coming out and that it was the "last ever Mario game they're making". Then he says "Well Mario is OLLLLLLLLD." I looked at him and asked "So, I'M old?"

The boy: "I didn't say that!"

Me: "Well, I'm older than Mario."

The boy, chewing on his lip and looking around the room like he was trying to find an escape route marked out in neon lights, "Huh."

Gotta find the humor when you can! lol

Foilage

The pictures are from two small patches of "woods" near the house. The changing of the leaves seems to be spotty so far, meaning a couple of trees might be changing while everything else is still green or completely leafless. I just wish the pictures did the trees justice!

Irritants and joy bringers

Last night in all my gracefulness I managed to slam my arm into one side of my glasses while they were on my face and bent them out of shape. To look at them off my face they looked fine but once they were on they were definitely crooked and screwing with my vision. It's bad enough that I'm wearing progressives, have astigmatism off the charts but throw in the vision problems from the keratoconus and moving how the lenses are sitting on my face just a millimeter and we're talking major vision disruption. Everyone has something special about them, I guess crappy beyond belief vision is mine!

So add the now disrupted vision on top of an already emotional me from watching The Biggest Loser and you get a me that just needs to call it a night! I love that show but it starts trying to unearth memories and feelings I've buried over the years while I'm trying to keep them covered and I tend to get a tad shaky. Someday maybe those demons may come to full light and be dealt with but, to quote a good friend, "not today!". And a BL sidenote: There are three people on there that I do not like and want them gone! I want them all to do well and get healthier but I wish someone would throw a medicine ball at those three's heads!

So this morning after getting the kids off to school I head to the library to return a book due yesterday and then to Target for some needed items. I got to the library shortly after it opened and went to the desk to pay my fine (all of a quarter) and the woman behind the desk tells me that the first hour the library is open is a grace period so I have no fine. Well hey! A good thing to try to balance the scale against the crappy stuff!

Walking out of the library I walked through "leaf rain". I LOVE that. The colored leaves falling around you and hearing them as they scatter across the ground. It's a sound I've been missing since we don't have any big trees in our yard but I stood in the library parking lot just listening to it for a few minutes. Another drop onto the happy side of the scale!

Going into Target I remembered they had an optical center so I went in. They weren't quite open yet but the woman behind the counter listened to my story and said sure she could try to fix them for me. She managed to get them looking level on my face but they still feel "off" a tad but it's much better than it was and I can hopefully live with this until we get to KS next week and I can get my one of my former eye doctors' offices to fix them for me. She didn't charge me anything and was very sweet about the whole thing. Another drop on the happy side of the scale!

I went to CVS next to get their generic allergy meds that seem to work the best for me. I scanned my saver's card and got a coupon. Hey! It's for the exact item I came in for! They also had some bags of Halloween candy on sale plus I had coupons so I got some Snickers and M&Ms for $1 a bag after their sale price and my coupons! The neighbor across the street told me there were probably close to 200 trick or treaters last year so I've been stocking up a couple of bags at a time. And getting "good" candy for a buck a bag? Who can't be happy about that?

So I still have slightly skewed vision but it's better than last night, I didn't have to pay my whoppin' quarter fine, I got some good deals and got to hear the leaves rain!

And is there a word for "joy bringers" like there is the word "irritants"? I couldn't think of one and there should be one. Maybe it's time for me to make up another new word?!

Cardstock snob?

In an effort to try to use up my stash I started going through the paper holder with all my non-Bazzill cardstock. All those paper packs from DMD that I got half off at Hobby Lobby years ago. Can one become spoiled by cardstock? Because I was almost sneering as I felt how flimsy and oddly colored most of this stuff is. I pulled out what I need for an 8x8 album for Robbie but that was just a few primary colors (which is evidently what I used the most of before I found Bazzill because there weren't that many sheets of the colors I needed!). The rest of it is back in the paper container but in "color order" now instead of with their package buddies. I think that cardstock will be stuff that K or R can use for projects or be donated to the scout troops. Some of that stuff has to be older than Robbie is! I can't imagine using most of it myself at this point. And it's not that I have stock in Bazzill or anything but it just feels so much sturdier than the other stuff and there are so many pretty colors of it and most of them aren't the weird colors the old stuff seems to have become!

So does that make me a cardstock snob?

It's sad but there are quite a few things in my stash that I've been unearthing and thinking "WHY did I buy this?" Some of it I know I bought for a specific reason that now escapes me but other stuff I must have been heavily medicated while buying it! That's the only explanation I can come up with!

5 Guys

A public post to tell Jeanne she was right once again! (She is truly one of the wisest women I know for so many reasons!) Mark, Robbie and I went to 5 Guys for supper last night after dropping Katie off for her scouting event. Like Jeanne said, definitely not a place to go when you're thinking healthy but OMG is it good! But I've learned that the next time I'm going for the "Little Cheeseburger" instead of the regular one! I thought Robbie was going to eat up all the fries, he kept talking about how good they were as he kept shoveling them into his mouth! He even said that if 5 Guys had a play area and a "happy meal toy" that that would be his favorite place to eat. He said we should eat there every week and I told him I didn't think our arteries would like that very much!

Oh and Kel, to further the "false advertising" there were SEVEN guys working at the one we went to! LOL

My patriotic duty

This morning, only in order to do my patriotic duty and stimulate the economy, I went shopping. Hey! That's my story and I'm sticking to it! After being enabled by my eldest last night (you should ask her about the news she shared in Hobby Lobby...don't know where the girl gets it! 0:-) ) I had to go to a Hobby Lobby here and find the Core'dination Black Magic papers. It was as if Lady Liberty herself was saying "Go child, get thee to a Hobby Lobby and put money back into the economy!" (If only you could hear me humming patriotic music as I type!) AND the paper was on sale so I was doing good by my family's budget as well. Win-win for everyone! But they had some cute treble clef and music note brads that I HAD to get for all of Katie's band concert pictures! And I found Zip Dry there! I didn't know you could get Zip Dry at Hobby Lobby! I only knew of one place that I had seen it before and can't go there anymore so had no idea where I would find it but the adhesive gods shone upon me this morning and said "There it is!" (Anyone else getting worried about all the voices and personalities living inside my head?!)

Then I headed into Indy to Archiver's because last night they called me to tell me the newest Ali Edward's book had come in. They only got enough copies in to cover the requests so I had 48 hours to look at it and buy it if I wanted it. So I grabbed that and some more ribbon for a secret project I'm working on. Since I was just wandering around in there yesterday I didn't let myself look at anything else. I'm helping the economy but still have to be fiscally responsible you know since *I* won't be getting a multi billion dollar bail out!

Then I picked Mark up at work and we went to Panera for lunch where I ate healthfully! I picked the veggie soup over the broccoli cheese soup just for the health factor. And I picked an apple over chips or bread as my side to go along with my soup and Turkey Artichoke sandwich.

So I've stimulated the economy AND made smart choices. Pin a gold star on me! Now you all know these smart choices won't continue right?! 'Cause there's still the "GIMME CHOCOLATE" voice living in my head too!

Big-a**ed spider!!!

I went downstairs to the kitchen after my last posting with the dogs traisping along with me. Belle started swatting at something on the floor (as best as a dog can swat!) and then I saw IT. One humongous, big-a**ed spider! I used a word that I don't normally use and then using Samantha's spider killing techniques grabbed the Mr. Clean and sprayed him until he was stunned and then I could use a shoe (Mark's of course, not mine!) and squished him. When you can HEAR the spider go "splat" you know it's one honkin' big spider! (Insert picture of me shuddering!)

So let me share the word with the Indiana bugs and rodents like I did with the Kansas ones, "Stay outside and I'll leave you be but cross over the threshhold into my house and you MUST DIE!"

some layouts

Blogger is giving me a headache! I tried several times last night to upload my layouts and it kept flipping the one onto its side and it's doing it again this morning. So just tilt your head to the right and you'll get the idea! Then I tried to add two more layouts and it goes through the process but the photoss aren't there when it's finished. I don't know why!

But anyway here's the first set. I'm very proud that both sets of layouts are photos from the year we are currently living in, quite a feat for myself! AND...it's all stuff I already had on hand! I only bought one piece of cardstock so I'd having matching cardstock on the other layout but everything else is from one of the kits I used to get from Scrapbook Obessions over two years ago. So a few sheets from my stash were used....only a few hundred more to go!!!

When Legos go bad

or a trip to the Children's Museum

Mark and Robbie had to go to the local boy scout council in downtown Indy yesterday and since it's just down the street from the Indianapolis Children's Museum http://www.childrensmuseum.org/ we decided to go there to actually use the membership we bought when Sam was here and we all went.

They've torn up the entrance area since we were there in July so they could add on to it and there are Lego construction guys all over the place. This is what happens when they are over-worked.....

And this must be thanks for a job well done?

Just a picture I took at Turkey Run State Park in July. It makes me think of the line "Tree stars" from The Land Before Time even though the baby dinosaurs were talking about leaves to eat and not the light coming through the leaves. It's another one of those pictures to me that my definition of the photo changes with my mood. My friend, Kelli, has an amazing bench shot like that in her amazing Ireland photos. I want to take pictures like her when I grow up!

I was trying to find a song in iTunes today and can't find the original version of it. What About Me? by Moving Pictures. One of those emotion saturated pop songs from the 80s but I've always liked it a lot just the same. I found the video on YouTube today and it is definitely an 80s video! And in a sidenote I never realized until today that they were the same group that sang Never on the Footloose soundtrack. The song playing when Kevin Bacon (and his dance double) is dancing his angry dance......another emotionally saturated moments of the 80s! C'mon what femal teen in the 80s wasn't waiting for Ren to dance his way to her and ready to tell Lori Singer what she could do with those skanky red boots?!

No scrapping zone

I haven't scrapped in the past couple of days due to cleaning Wednesday and errands yesterday. I feel like that layout is mocking me on the table over there! "You don't know how to finish meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" (Hmm, should I be concerned I've gone from having conversations with Belle and Daisy to having them with my scrapping stuff???)

All week I have been eating healthfully. I cut out all the junk food snacks with the exception of one Coke (down from two a day) and eating a couple of pieces of Robbie's birthday cake over the week. Normally I'm a stress eater and this week I've avoided all the M&Ms, chips, etc and have been eating fruits and carrots. So yesterday I go to the doctor for a follow-up on my upper respiratory infection two weeks ago feeling sure I had lost at least a pound. According to their scale I was .12 ounces short of a pound! That's just not fair! The nurse said they don't record ounces for adults so according to my chart I DID lose a pound. She got an eyeroll on that. The doctor asked me if I had been exercising as well and I told her "Ok, let's go over this again!" She laughed and told me to add exercise. There's no justice in the world, I tell ya!

Today I'm feeling a little wiped out so I don't think much is going to get accomplished today in the scrapping world either. That's ok, I don't think anything else around here will get accomplished either!
;-)

Birthday Boy

Yesterday Robtar (nicknamed as a baby after Reptar from Rugrats) turned 8. There are two things my son knows very well and they are Pokemon and all things Star Wars. We debate over which set of movies is better. I say the original three movies (Luke Skywalker and Han Solo??? le siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh!) and he votes for the newer set of three. We saw the animated movie The Clone Wars yesterday. It was better than I anticipated but still loooooooooong in some parts and no Luke or Han in sight! It was fun to watch Robbie get so into it though and he and Katie were whispering over a couple of scenes a few times.

So what do you get a Star Wars expert? Why this of course!

And I can bake pretty well but I can't decorate a cake all purdy to save my life! My kids have come to love those candy letters and decorations on their birthday cakes! Katie wanted to decorate this year so I let her go to town. The two orange stick looking things are light sabers. I did one and Katie did the other. Hey, have YOU ever tried to make a light saber out of icing???

I didn't think so!

I laughed, I cried...

and now I worry that I'm traumitizing my oldest every time I type or say "dot, dot, dot"! Those of you that have seen Mamma Mia will get that! lol

So I was going to write about this last night but after Gilligan's, I mean Robbie's, tour on the bus that was just too good to not write about! Yes, we're concerned that his bus driver doesn't know what the heck she's doing (she was late again this morning) but we had to laugh about it too. I kept singing "Where in the world is Robbie's scho-ool bus" last night. I'm just so witty!

But anyway...(heehee) while the kids were at school Mark and I went to see Mamma Mia yesterday. First time we've been somewhere without the kids since we were house hunting over my birthday I think! We were both laughing out loud several times during the movie and both trying to stifle the chair dancing during the songs. And then it happened. The scene where Merryl sings Slipping Through My Fingers. I had read the lyrics on Jeanne's blog and thought they were very sweet but couldn't place the song. That in no way prepared me for the impact of the movie scene and the lyrics put together! I sat there with tears literally FLOWING down my face and trying to not sob out loud so I wouldn't ruin the movie for others in the theater. For a good five minutes I sat there silently sobbing. And I thought I was a cynical person! I could apply the lyrics to my own life though and I was just verklempt! But we loved the movie so much we went straight to the Borders in the same shopping plaza and bought the soundtrack. I listened to it before the kids got home from school (well, before Katie got home since Robbie was on a pleasure cruise!) and I got weepy again during that song. Just rip out my mother-beating-heart and stomp on it why don't they?!

Now for the mundane...I took the van to Midas this morning for an overdue oil change and to find out why a low tire pressure light seemed to be stuck on since the tires looked fine to me. One of us ran over a nail and it was embedded in the tire and it was slowly losing pressure. Glad I took the van up there! So they repaired the tire, changed the oil and changed out the air filter. The guy brought it in to show me and said we didn't have to change it out but the thing was FILTHY. I asked him how much it would be to change it and he said "$900". I gave him the "I am not amused" look that my children know oh so well and he said "I'm kidding, I'm kidding! $19.95 and it's changed!" Hopefully his comic stylings will improve by the next time I go in there! lol

I went to Target after that and got Robbie's birthday present and because I AM such a cool mom I bought the kids the new Jonas Brothers cd that came out today. I'm told that someday Nick Jonas will be my son-in-law. 11 yo and she has her future planned out!

Eventually I'll get the few first day of school pictures uploaded to the computer. I only got one of Katie because she was giving me the "Mooooooooooooooom" attitude. We talked about how when she gets nervous she gets snarly. No idea where she gets that! 0:-)

the wheels on the bus go round and round

and round and round and round! Sit back, pop open a cold drink, put up your feet and listen to the tale of Robbie's bus trip that would rival the U.S.S. Minnow and it's three hour tour! Mark took today off so he was here for the fun and excitement too! We walked down to Robbie's bus stop more than five minutes before the bus was supposed to come this morning. There are several kids and parents there already. After about 10 minutes people are looking at watches or their cell phones and muttering things like "I wonder where the bus is????" Not one but TWO buses go by and both times the drivers wave and mouth "Not your bus" as they go by. So we all stand around and wait some more until 15 minutes AFTER the bus was supposed to get there it finally shows up. I should have known things wouldn't go well when I noticed the woman driving wasn't checking kids off a list or anything like that. But did I register that fact at the time? Nooooooooooooooo!

Mark and I walk back to the house and watch some tv for about 20 minutes until it was time to drive up to Robbie's school for a "Tears and Cheers" breakfast. As we're driving past the school to go to another parking lot entrance I say "That's Robbie's bus that just pulled in!" Did I mention this was after school was supposed to start??? We walked Robbie to his room and he tells us how they made "two big circles around our neighborhood" and the bus driver said she was lost. Ok, I'm assuming they were the last or second to last stop due to the timing of the schedule and the school's start time so it's a straight shot down one road and then onto another which is the same road the school is on! But again, I'm giving the woman the benefit of a doubt since it IS the first day of school.

This afternoon we head down to Robbie's bus stop. We and all the other parents wait and wait some more. This time we're seeing EMPTY buses go past but not our children's bus. 40 MINTUES, yes folks, 40 MINUTES later we see a bus coming down the other side of the road. It stops down near the little playground and a kid gets off. Mark exclaims "That's Robbie!" So he's now not only not at his stop but on the other side of the road (which happens to be the side we live on but that's not the point!). As Mark and I are walking down the median to cross over and get Robbie we see and hear kids on the bus pointing to the corner we were just standing on and almost yelling "There, there, there!" So then the woman stops the bus on the wrong side of the street and lets all the kids off. It was a swarm of parents running into the middle of the road (the main thoroughfare through the neighborhood that connects one semi-major road to another). We get to Robbie and ask him why he was let off down there and he said "She was asking us where we were all supposed to get off the bus and I told her this was our house."

Are you still with me? So this woman is asking kids in kindergarten through fourth grade where they're supposed to get off the bus. I called my mom, a veteran school bus driver, and she kept saying "no, no, no" as I was telling the story and I kept saying "Wait! It gets better!"

I asked Robbie if his bus went into any other neighborhoods besides ours and he said "Mom, we went by the same things so many times and she kept saying she was lost....I have NO idea where all we were!" I had to laugh. Poor kid! If Mark had gone to work today he would have beat Robbie home!

I've been humming the theme to Carmen Sandiego the whole time I've been typing his saga. I'm wondering if I should get the kid a GPS unit so he can direct the bus!

My girls

I'm still feeling cruddy and now Robbie has a cold too. But I couldn't just put him out there in blogville and not brag on my girls too. I'm not feeling very wordy today so today I'll just post this photo of my beautiful AND intelligent daughters!

This was taken at Botanica in Wichita at a Girl Scout Mother/Daughter Tea in April.

TGIF

It's been a day full of irritations and I was going to rant but sitting here typing I thought "I don't even want to go through the whole nit-noid mess again!" so instead I utter that familiar refrain when things start to irritate me in Indiana.....I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.

I will say that when we went to the ice cream social at Robbie's new school last night (more irritation there!) we had a surprise. We walked into his classroom, saw his teacher and we all thought she looked like she could have been a sister to his teacher from last year. Those of you who heard stories from second grade would understand why that might not neccessarily be a good thing! When I, she who hates personal confrontation, actually says as politely as possible to a teacher "I don't think at this point it would matter what he did, it would still be wrong." that should tell you something! But it's a new year and a new school. Funny story although it might not reflect well on my son's intelligence...lol....his desk is in a group of three and the father of the girl in his group was sitting in the third student's (who wasn't there) desk. He stuck his hand out to Robbie and said "Hi, I'm XXXX" and said the name written on the desk. Robbie just said hi and started unpacking his stuff but when we were eating supper last night he said "How OLD was that guy?! And how many times do you think he's been in third grade???" Mark and I lost it!

Then later on in the night the three of us were watching Ace of Cakes on Food Network while Katie was playing on the computer. They were making a cake for the premiere of Kung Fu Panda and one guy was working on dragons. Out of the blue my son starts singing Puff the Magic Dragon! What do you do when you're almost 8yo son starts singing folk songs from way before he was born? Why you start singing along of course! After we composed ourselves from cracking up Mark and I sang along with him.

I can't imagine a world without the Robtar!

Here I am!

Ok, since Jeanne has told me that myspace doesn't count here I am in blogger-land! Yet another thing to confuse me and suck away my time on the computer. Like I need another distraction!

I'm a recent transplant to the Indy area. Once my husband retired from the USAF in 2005 I thought we'd be planting some roots in Kansas. I guess we were only temporarily planted because now we're here in Indy for his new job. To say I was unhappy about the move MIGHT be an understatement. ;-) I hated leaving my oldest behind at college, hated leaving my job and the friends there that made it a tad less crazy and I might not have hated leaving behind being a girl scout c0-leader so much but I did hate leaving my friend and leader! After two months it's safe to say I'm adapting, I still miss Wichita like heck but I'm not feeling hacked off about it like I was. And now the urge to throw the kids into the van and head west on I-70 has pretty much diminished! A fact that my huband may or may not be happy to hear! lol

Ok, I feel like I'm writing a report on what I did for summer vacation! I have the crud and just got some prescriptions so I could start to ramble so I wrap up this first entry by saying in additon to my family and two dogs I love to read, scrapbook and take far too many pictures! I have so many talented friends who also blog (Jeanne, Kelli, Toni, Nikki to name a few) and post their art online. I'm not sure my stuff measures up but I'm sure I'll post some of it anyway! Right now I'll attempt to leave you with a favorite photo I took this summer. We met up with my parents and my brother and his family in Sandusky, OH at the Great Wolf Lodge last month. There's a shot of Robbie coming out of one of the tubes that I just love!

He was nervous about them at first but after he went on one with Mark we couldn't keep him away from them!