Westward ho!

I go to work in a bit and then after work Samantha and I will be hitting the road. Mark and the kids are going to come over with Sam in her car and pick up the van and then we'll jump into evening rush hour traffic--oh the joy of that timing. @@ Sam seems to think she can drive the night away. I'm useless once it's dark thanks to the kerataconus and no night vision so things could get interesting tonight! We'll make it at least to St. Louis but she wants to push further. We'll see what happens. I have visions of her being juiced on Amp and my wondering how I can safely knock her out and get some peace and quiet! lol

I have mixed emotions about going. I'm excited to see Mary and Sarah and everyone but feeling guilty about leaving too. Katie has a busy schedule these days which means Robbie will have to ride along as Mark ferries her about. Which they would all say it's no big deal but it's just the tip of the Mommy guilt iceberg. We'll all survive though and Mark already told them it was Ci-Ci's for supper tonight so they were pretty happy about that!

So look out, Wichita, I'm on my way!

A month??

Almost a whole month since I've blogged! I started a couple but never finished them. What can I say?! Apparently not a whole lot..at least not on the electronic page!

My first Saturday off in a month and we had to get up at 0 dark thirty to get Katie to the school by 6:50 this morning so she could board the buses with the rest of her junior high band and go to their competition. I'm surprised the kids were walking a straight line that early on a Saturday let alone play three pieces of music beautifully in my opinion! All three judges scored them in the GOLD category so way to go FJH Varsity Band!!!! I was trying to take a picture of Katie on the stage before the concert and you could tell when she spotted me in the crowd from the expression on her face! LOL It was like "Oh geez, here she goes again with the camera!" Then I had to sneak pictures during the concert since the announcer said no photos as the flash could interfere with the musicians, but I didn't USE my flash so I don't think I'm really a rule breaker!

After the concert we brought Katie home for about an hour before Mark ran her to an event she had to volunteer at to get her hours in for National Junior Honor Society. The girl is in 7th grade, I thought we had another two years before she was overbooked!!! She also joined the track team too. Whoda thunk a child of mine would enjoy track?!? But so far she seems to be enjoying the practices so good for her! So band, NJHS, track, Girl Scouts, Campus Life and CTV.....I THINK those are all her activities on top of classes and home! No wonder I'm so tired all the time, it's from watching my kids go in a gazillion different directions!

Robbie went down to the playground today and evidently climbed a tree and has said several times since he liked it. I've seen those trees, they're rather young and I'm not sure their branches are strong enough to hold a tall 9 yo boy for very long! I envision a trip to the ER in our future! I miss our old house and backyard! There was a GREAT tree for climbing in the back! Katie used to climb it all the time.

Speaking of the old house, Samantha and I are leaving after work Wednesday night for Get Scrappy 5 in Wichita! Well, she had a gazillion plans with all her friends but I'M going to hit Get Scrappy both days and she'll be there on Saturday. I have plans to hang out with Mary on Thursday evening and I'm really looking forward to that! I miss our talks, the phone is great but sometimes you just need that face to face interaction with a few "Are you NEW????"'s thrown in! lol And Samantha and I will re-create the "noisy table" from last year with Sarah! I miss her a lot too! I miss working with people who understood my "quirks" like talking to and answering myself or dancing in an aisle to 80's music and getting caught doing it by a customer! I just miss my "peeps"! I guess Toni and Nikki can't make it to Get Scrappy this year and that makes me kind of sad but that's life. sigh

And I really should get off of here and start figuring out what I'm going to pack for the crop! You think Mark would get worried if I just packed it all?????

At least it wasn't snow!

After a beautiful sunny Friday (and with 40 degrees it even felt warm!) we've had nothing but dreary drizzle since early Saturday morning. It's helping to melt the snow (we found we still have a deck!) but it's creating yucky, dreary looking mud pits instead. But at least it isn't more snow! And the yucky dreary looking mud pits were going to have to happen eventually so maybe we'll get it all out of the way in the next week or so just in time for March and hopefully the beginning of spring! But I really hate looking out and seeing nothing but dirty snow mounds and mud buuuuuuuuuuuut at least it wasn't more snow! (Notice a theme here?!)

We had a scout filled week-end this past week-end. Robbie's Blue and Gold Banquet was Saturday evening. Next year he'll be a Webelos II and crossing over to Boy Scouts and if next year's ceremony is like this year's I'm sure I'll be a bawling mess! I appreciate the value of ceremonies and marking achievements but boy is that rough for a parent sometimes! ;-)

Sunday we spent over five hours at Thinking Day for our local Girl Scouts. Katie's troop's booth was Costa Rica and they did a great job! It was really neat seeing all the different countries that were represented. Some of the troops went all out on their booths! And there was a group of Pakistani dancers that were just awesome! I know the dancing told a story and I wish I knew what the story was! But it was so cool to watch even if I was clueless!

Today I had the day off from work so I've cleaned bathrooms and have spent the day washing towels and bedding. Wheeeeeeee! I've also been listening to Celtic Thunder's latest CD. I think they could sing the phonebook and I'd buy the CD and enjoy it! They just make me happy and when I think back to Katie's excitement at the concert last November and Ryan putting his arms around me and Katie ("He touched my shoulder!" "I know, he touched mine too!") it just makes me even happier. I can't remember another group that I can listen to over and over and never get sick of listening! And their version of Amazing Grace IS amazing. That was my Grandma Lambert's favorite song and even though she never got to meet Katie (whose middle name comes from Grandma) listening to this song with Katie just makes those family ties seem tangible. I'm not putting it into words very well but it's an amazing thing!

Now I think I'm going to maybe go scrapbook!

It's been awhile

It's been almost a month since I've blogged. I wish I could tell you (and by you, I'm thinking it's just Jeanne and Kelli who are reading!) that it's because I've been living a fabulously exciting life and had no time to write but alas, I'd be lying! (It's so easy to use the word "alas" when writing but how often do you hear it used in vocal conversation?!)

It's just been a routine kind of life lately which sometimes is a nice thing. Take care of the family, go to work, fight this never-ending crud that won't seem to completely let go of any of its victims, be Cookie Mom for Katie's troop and swear, once again, that I will NEVER do it again. I think I mean it this time though. I don't want to go publicly into details but it's just been frustrating on my end. I was told I was the "odd one" for being responsible and on top of things (and not saying all the other parents are irresponsible parents) and I just don't have the need to add that frustration to my life again.

There's also been the never-ending snow this year. I think this year it's just been spread out over a longer period so it just feels worse. We did have glorious sunshine yesterday but today it's lightly snowing again and the weather folks are saying it's going to get pretty ugly Sunday and/or Monday. I was threatening to find the bleepin' groundhog and hang him last week.

Bright spot is, even though I didn't think I'd make it this year, I'm going to Get Scrappy in Wichita at the end of March! I'll get to hang out at the "noisy, cool kids" table again and hopefully get some mass quantities of layouts scrapped! Ok, with all the laughing and noise there may be not be mass quantities!

And now I've rambled for a bit and it's time to go serve some food at my cafe on Facebook!

The brighter side of my old job

My Sunday paper was missing the actual paper this morning. I had the ads and the Sunday magazine but no newspaper sections at all which meant it didn't take too long to peruse it! So I got on the computer, and while listening to what sounds like the wind trying to blow the house apart, I got onto the 2 Peas website and started perusing CHA sneak peeks.

There are so many cute lines coming out! And bright, vibrant colors in some of the lines! You wouldn't know it looking at my house but I like bright colors! It's hard NOT to be happy when you're scrapping with bright colors! And I hesitate to admit this again out loud to some people but I could take or leave most of the Basic Grey lines. There have been a couple that caught my eye in the past but they often seemed "darker" to me so I was never a BG junkie like some people I know! lol But they have some cute lines coming out and there's one out right now, I think it's called Sugar Rush, that is really cute too! And I loved all the Bo Bunny peeks I saw and then there was Fancy Pants and...and...and...!!!!

I do miss that part of my former job. The CHA review nights and then seeing everything when it started arriving in the store. Standing up there at the counter, pulling stuff out of the boxes, and sometimes squealing in delight or hearing one of my co-working friends squeal in delight! I miss that! The stashes that were started in the hold drawer. Certain people who could look in the computer system and see how much money employees had spent that year being sworn to secrecy! lol It was always baaaaaaaaaad when CHA stuff started coming in! They should have just paid me in merchandise and saved the paper check during that time frame!

And I miss working with some outstandingly creative women too! It was so easy to appreciate everyone's different styles because they were all so great at what they were creating!

sigh......I miss my peeps! So now in between scrubbing bathrooms today and maybe doing our taxes maybe I'll sneak in a few more peeks at what's to come and then go try to use up some of my stuff so I can make room for the new!

New job

I've only been back to work a month and I'm already relishing the fact that I have tomorrow off! I like the job but I had become such a quasi-hermit that this interacting with the public every day is rough! lol

I've hit my assigned goal for mortgage referals and the contest isn't over until the 12th so that's pretty good! Today I had a customer in the drive thru asking about the "4's and 5's" hanging in our window so I explained to her about our mortgage rates. She said to have the mortgage banker give her a call next week. It was during "power hour" where we were to ask every customer if they wanted to donate to St. Jude's so I mentioned that to her and she said to take money out of her cash she wanted back for it. My co-workers were complimenting me and I kept saying "It's beginner's luck!" I don't want the to upset the Fates with too many praises, doncha know?! ;-) I did say though "If I knew I was going to be validated like this I would have been here a long time ago!" LOL

We started a conversation about family taking each other for granted but then a customer came in so we got side tracked off of it. I think that's probably just a natural part of family life is you can take each other for granted. All I know is no one has ever sang my praises over how clean a bathroom was! LOL And considering the owners of my former place of employment....well, let's just say praise was not exactly forthcoming. Which is not something I really expect so it's sort of hard to get used to with this new job!

There's still a lot to learn but I definitely feel better about it than I did a couple of weeks ago during "school"! And everyone at the branch has been great about answering questions and not making me feel like a nuisance or an idiot when I need help with something! Including when I forgot I had put the card with all my safe codes on it in my pocket and washed it the other night! I felt like a kid saying "My dog ate my homework." but instead of getting upset my supervisor and the co-worker that I share codes with and had to write them all out for me again both just laughed and said at least I hadn't lost the card somewhere and everyone had to get new codes. Definitely would not have been that calm of a response at a former place of employment!

I'm afraid to say this in case those pesky Fates are listening but my work life is good! Maybe the fact I got salt water out of my bathroom sink this morning (stupid water softener is going haywire!) is the balance of karma?! ;-)

I am a rock star!

Whose drawer balanced yet again? And WHO got her first referral for our mortgage banker today?! Yeah, that's right! ME!!!! We're supposed to get so many referrals each month anyway but right now there's a contest on and I have to get five in the next month. My second official day on the job (minus training) and I have a referral! Go meeee, go meeee!

Certainly helped turn my day around after the first two people I asked said they had already refinanced or just weren't interested.

And I have caught Katie's cold and feel like my head is stuffed with cotton balls and just generally feel cruddy but go meeee, go meeee!!!