Our First "Official" Day of Summer

Yes, I know. It's June 30. The last day of June. The kids have been out of school for over a month, but today was our first day of summer with no other plans/classes/VBS/etc.

In anticipation of the mayhem that would ensue today, the kids and I worked on our summer schedule last night. I'm not usually a "schedule Nazi" but during the summer my usual ways of operating have to go out the window.

Our schedule includes:
-The time by which everyone will be done with breakfast and dressed with teeth brushed
-Caleb's "pay-back-Mom-and-Dad" chores (trimming bushes with me every day for an hour while the girls get to watch TV)
-science/cooking/art/park/farmers' market and library times - not every day. We do one thing a day.
-lunch
-swimming
-"quiet" time (I still have hope that C & A will nap in the afternoons)
- video game time
Then just for good measure I put on a daily hour of cleaning time in the morning (not that I expect anyone but me to actually work for the full hour) and 15 minutes of quick picking up at bedtime.

"So how did your first day go?" I hear you asking...

Both big kids lost all 3 tickets by the time we got home from the pool and then because they were still being little toots, they lost the privilege of coming out of their rooms after any naps they might take. Usually they get one ticket back and can come out of their room post-nap, but NOT today. Caleb and Audrey have been playing very happily in Audrey's room for the past 90 minutes. They're making up a superhero game with all of their stuffed animals.

On to other things...Stupid Cat (a.k.a. Gray Cat) woke me up early Sunday morning (2 a.m.) CRUNCHING something in the living room. Nasty. I knew she was out there eating something, but as long as I didn't hear her chasing after it, I decided to leave her to it until morning. When I got up for my run, I found a little stomach on the carpet. She will eat EVERYTHING except the digestive bits. Can't say I blame her.

About my run that morning...I was able to actually run the whole thing. My calf muscle that I pulled 2 weeks ago seems fine now. I'm relieved. It was becoming easier and easier to ignore doing any type of exercise because of my injury. No excuses now. I even got the headphone/microphone adaptor thing for my new cell phone so I can use it as my MP3 player on my run. Makes me feel safer somehow. Not really. Makes me feel cooler. I have a purple phone that I can listen to music with.

Now for something totally weird. My legs feel different. When I put on lotion after my shower, my legs feel smaller. It always surprises me. How long before it doesn't surprise me, I wonder?

Anyway, I hear Steve coming in the door. Bye for now.

Updates

1 - I'm at 180 and holding. 49 pounds lost. I haven't been able to run for the last week because I pulled something in my calf. I'm hoping to start again tomorrow morning. Saturday I tried to run but only got about halfway through then had to walk. It was bothering me so much that I called Steve to come get me. I've been taking it easy over the last 10 days in the hopes of letting it heal a bit. We'll see tomorrow.

2 - I got a new phone that plays MP3s. So now I'm going to use it on my runs instead of my MP3 player. I'll feel a bit better if I have a phone with me in the wee early hours. And that's how I called Steve up in #1. Plus it's purple. Can't beat that (unless it's pink...).

3 - Were halfway through swim lessons. Caleb and Audrey are both in Level 2 and Julie is in the pre-beginner class (they blow bubbles in the water and some are even brave enough to go under). They are all having fun and Julie has announced that her teacher Mr. Bryant (a college sophomore) is her best friend.

4 - I'm working on a fiction piece for my writing class. It's tough. I had started another piece, but discovered 833 words into it that it was going to be too long for the assignment (700-1000 words). I was only about halfway through the story at the 833 mark. So I stopped writing on it and am saving it for another time. It's a good one. Really inspired. About a single mom whose son hits a baseball through a window and also manages to break an expensive crystal vase. The widow lady who lives there pays for everything, but then starts meddling in their lives. The single mom realizes what's going on and starts scraping money together to pay for the window and vase. She decides to have a garage sale. The old lady knows they're having a garage sale, but doesn't know what for, and (unsolicited) she gives them some good stuff to sell. They get enough money for the window and vase, give it to the old lady and that's it. Except the old lady gets mad and slams her door in their faces, but not before she takes the money. So that's my story.

That's about it for now. Time to get ready for swim lessons.

Good Morning...Albeit Earlier than Usual

We got a call a little over an hour ago...4:30 a.m. our time. Nothing earth-shattering, but somewhat important. It was Steve's sister in Houston with some important last-minute details regarding her 12-year-old daughter, Connor, flying to Albuquerque this morning to come see us for a while.

So I've been up since 4:30. It's now 5:51. I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't, so I got up. I've puttered around a bit - turned on lawn sprinklers, made coffee, had cereal, read a bit of 1 Samuel. Now I'm waiting for the timer to go off on the sprinklers so I can take a shower. We've been asked to restrict our lawn watering to only 3 days a week and this is one of our days. We have an odd house number, so we get Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday to water. Even days get T, Th, Sat. Nobody waters on Monday. So after our showers this morning, I'll turn the sprinklers on again in the front yard to get the other half and I'll water our little garden in the back, then we'll head out to Albuquerque to pick up Connor.

Our garden...what an interesting topic. We have 7 or 8 tomato plants (none of which has produced anything as of yet), a couple of bean plants (from a Mother's Day "gift" Julie made at school), some cosmos (a "gift" from Caleb), some sunflowers, and a few watermelon seeds that Caleb retrieved out of his snack a couple of days ago. He asked if he could plant them instead of throw them away. It's a tiny little garden in parched soil, but the plants are still alive and even managing to grow. That's a step up from last year - we managed to kill everything.

We paid the neighbors a couple of days ago for the broken window. Our share was $183. Steve and I decided that in addition to his regular money-earning chores around the house, Caleb would help Steve wash both cars 3 times and he would help me prune all of the bushes in the front yard to work off his debt. I don't think he realizes there are 13 bushes. I've been working on bush #1 for several days now. It's going to take a while. Good lesson for him, though.

Water timer just went off. Time to go.

Overdue News

I'm dead. Here are my socks of doom that came on Saturday. They're comfy and pretty cute. I'm going to have to fix the toe seam - I can feel the seam that my assassin made, but I learned a technique that creates a "seamless" seam. Much more comfy.

Here are the kids on the first day of VBS last Monday. We let them create designs on their shirts. Audrey has a "hula hula" girl of her own design, Julie has a lei that goes around the back of her shirt also, and Caleb and Steve drew a volcano on his shirt, complete with a little man running from flaming balls of lava coming at him.

The little kids are singing on Family Night here. Audrey was FABULOUS. (She's 2nd from the end on the right with her arms up.) She turned to the little boy next to her (blue shirt) and basically shouted at him, "Come on, Andrew, DO IT!" She was so excited to be performing that she wanted everyone to perform, too. He ended up standing there with his hands in his pockets the whole time watching her. Julie shook her maraca for one song, then stood there looking angry. The little boy behind her kept trying to "help" her when they had little cardboard ukuleles, but she just stood there. We have some blurry pictures of Caleb, when the big kids were singing, but, well, they're blurry. Not much fun to look at.

I survived the 6th grade class and coordinating the drama. I've helped with the drama for several years, but this year it was just me. There were a few things that almost didn't get done because the other lady has handled those things in the past - like having risers for the kids to stand on up on stage. But everything came together and we did the drama Friday night then again Sunday morning since Pastor Chuck is out of town. Out of the country, actually. He's in Finland with his family visiting their daughter Joy.

Anyway, I'm tired. I skipped my run this morning. I couldn't make myself do it. I have to catch up on housework in a big way. It's almost as bad as when I was wrapped up with Sock Wars. I was about to tackle the kitchen when I realized that I hadn't posted anything in over a week. So it's your fault I'm not working. Yeah, if I keep telling myself that, will it make the excuse legitimate?

So after I finish my part of the housework, I need to get kids wrangled so they can do their part. We still don't know how much the window will be, but Caleb can start working now for his portion of it. The neighbors were very nice. Speaking of neighbors, Audrey mispronounced their last name yesterday. It's Rossmeisl. We were talking about the Rossmeisls on one side and the Degidios on the other. Say those names out loud. Not easy names. Anyway, she blurts out with the "Marshmallows" - no clue how she got that permutation, but we all had a good laugh.

We went to the pool for the first time Saturday. Audrey was at a birthday party, eating pizza and watching "Kung Fu Panda" at the movie theater, so I figured the rest of us could go to the pool. Caleb really likes jumping in from the side while yelling "cannonball!" and Julie discovered she likes to float on her tummy while holding on to the steps. We all got a bit sunburned around the edges where the sunscreen missed, but we went back to the pool on Sunday. I think we got the sunscreen on correctly that time. The water was 84 degrees, the air temp was about the same - maybe a bit higher, but there was a breeze. If it weren't for the breeze, it would have been perfect.

So I think I've run out of things to say now. I'm hungry - time for my second breakfast and another cuppa coffee.

No Catchy Title Jumps to Mind...I'm Still Shocked

I caught Caleb this morning throwing a rock through our neighbor's window. On purpose. Just because. He thought it would be fun. He and a little friend did the same thing 2 days ago, but I didn't put 2 and 2 together until I caught him red-handed (or should I say "rock" handed).

Steve and the other boy's dad are setting up a meeting this afternoon/evening between the dads and boys. The other boy confessed to breaking the window on Wednesday - it's the smaller of the 2 windows. So we have a large (maybe 5x5 or larger) window we get to replace. Caleb is going to be working that one off for a looooong time. Good thing we just went to the toy store last weekend with his money, otherwise it would now be MY money.

More later.

Just Desserts - I Feel Ill

I made the mistake of polishing off an open bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips and now I'm unbelievably nauseous. How stupid was that? I munched on the chocolate for about 30 minutes, but 3 hours later I'm still feeling sick.

Wednesday Morning

It's 8:06 a.m. I've already been for a run, gotten all 3 kids breakfast, watered the new grass seed in the front and back yards and now I'm getting ready to shower. Full day already.

I didn't get to knit any on the socks yesterday because I decided I needed to excavate my office. It was in bad shape. Now it's lovely. But I have a laundry basket sitting on the dining room table full of stuff from the office that belongs in other rooms. I'll work on that later.

I got this in an e-mail today. Too funny!

Today I want to get some planning for VBS done. It's next week and I'm teaching the 6th graders. I'm also "directing" the drama for Friday night and Sunday morning. I would also like to get Audrey's hair cut today up in Los Alamos - it's starting to look shaggy and since her layers are grown out, there are more tangles, which means more drama when it's brushing time. The pet store in Los Alamos is also on my "to do" list - I want to get Gray Cat a collar WITH A BELL. I'm hoping this will help cut down on the number of animals (both dead and alive) that she brings in the house. Bell = noise = prey running away.

TTFN

Alive...for now

No mail for 2 days has given me the opportunity to finish sock 1 and begin sock 2. I'm at the point on sock 2 as I was when I received sock 1. You can tell the difference in knitting on the first sock - target's is from the heel up, mine is from the heel down. I imagine the socks will fit differently since the cuffs on the socks look to be different widths. But the target can frog it (rip it, rip it...say it out loud) and fix it if she wants. I want to, but I'm afraid that all's fair in knitting and war...

So today is the first official day of summer for us. Steve's off at work and it's me and the kids. We have to go up to the church today at 9:30 to work on the VBS drama - I'm the "director."

I'm watering the lawn right now. We put down some grass seed in some bare patches. Hopefully our yard won't look so pitiful. But I have to wait to shower until it's done. So I blog.

I'm still losing weight. Yesterday I was at 179.0, despite a few days of pizza, birthday cake, and the like. Makes me wonder what the number could have been if I had been responsible with my eating. Oh well.

Caleb went on a run with me Saturday. He was on his scooter. It was ok. He kept up (actually was way in front of me) for a while, then he crashed and we started uphill. We ended up walking for much longer than I would have liked, but we were outside enjoying the sun, we were moving, and we were spending time together. It was fine. But I don't anticipate Caleb asking to go on any more runs soon.

We have a meeting tonight, so I don't think I'm going to get that much knitting done today. I need to vacuum, sweep, mop...I guess those things don't take that much time, but it's time away from knitting. I'm resigned to my fate - life or death - because I can't spend another week like I did with sock pair #1. Ignoring housework is not in my nature anymore. What a weird thing to change.

Timer has beeped. It's time to turn water off outside and take a shower.

P.S. Spell check isn't cooperating - sorry for any mistakes.

I'm Still Alive

I got the unfinished socks from my target in Sock Wars yesterday. Actually it was 1/2 of a sock. So I need to finish 1 1/2 socks before my assassin finishes my socks and kills me. But my assassin isn't responding to e-mails from either me or her assassin. So maybe she's gone AWOL - that will buy me more time. I'm hoping the socks don't come tomorrow because I think I can finish my SIP (socks in progress) over the long weekend. The yarn is very cool - a variegated yellow, green, blue, purple, and red. I'll take pix and post them sometime.

Caleb's b-day party yesterday was a success. He had a great time, as did his guests. The girls, however, weren't as pleased. The boys were not ill-behaved, but there were 7 first grade males in the house playing. A testosterone overload. Do 7-year-olds even have testosterone?

It's raining again today. Unusual for here. It was COLD today - in the 40s. I went for a run after I dropped Caleb off at school. Steve was home today for his every-other-Friday off and took girls to school. While I was running, it tried to rain on me twice, but nothing more than a few drops came down. It rained after I got home, but stopped in time to get kids from school. Everyone got out at 11:30 today.

We went up to Los Alamos for lunch at Subway (the big kids LOVE Subway) and Caleb started crying on the way. He thinks he won't see his friends all summer long, and when you're 7, summer seems like it lasts forever. But a yummy sandwich followed by a trip to a cool bookstore to spend his birthday money & gift certificate quickly removed all sadness.

We've enjoyed a quiet afternoon at home - 4 of us napped, Caleb played outside until it rained, then the neighbor kids came over for a while. Three girls: Jade (age 9-ish), Cyra (7 or 8), and Hannah (almost 3). They live 3 houses down and we know them from Bible study. Jade and Cyra were adopted from India and Hannah was a "blessing" baby. All 6 kids get along very well and it's been fun to watch them at the beginning of this neighborhood friendship. I remember my friends from my days living "in town." Paula Umstead, Angie Butler, J.J. Chapa. I know there were more, but I don't remember their names.

Parting note: one of Julie's many pink poodles has an interesting name. Pifi. Not Fifi, but Pifi. A mispronunciation that stuck. Too cute.

Officially Official

As of this morning, I have lost


50 pounds


179.7 lbs.

But I'm not done yet. I still have "bingo wings" - what one Brit called "under-arm dingle-dangle" - and extra padding on my hips and tummy, so I have my work cut out for me. We'll see how much of that I can make go away.

Sock War Weirdness

I haven't had any replies from e-mails sent to my assassin and target, but I have corresponded with both my target's target and my assassin's assassin. The assassin's assassin is dead, so my assassin has a few more days to get her act together and finish the socks for me before her new assassin kills her. My target's target is still alive and struggling with her SIP (socks-in-progress). She has a couple days of amnesty before things start moving against her...maybe. If my target doesn't change her status to "dead" by tomorrow, I can send an e-mail to the Supreme Commander (the organizer) with proof of mailing and she'll contact the target and light a fire under her to get her SIP sent to me.

Make sense?

I've been cleaning kids' rooms all morning. Lots of stuff to throw away. That's why I insisted on working alone. Less hassle/drama when stuff gets chucked.

Wow...

I did it. I submitted a short story to 2 different competitions. One is for new writers, so maybe I'll have a decent shot in that one, but the other is just a free-for-all.

And I got my piece back from my writing instructor about Audrey and her bag. I'm going to need to do some significant re-writing on that one. I wasn't really happy with the ending, and apparently my instructor agreed. If I can get it fixed before the end of the month, I'll submit it to the contests, too. How's that for progress?

No word yet on either my assassin or target in sock wars. I know the socks I mailed are in San Diego, but so far they haven't been registered as delivered. I sent an e-mail to my assassin asking her when I can expect to be off-ed. No reply yet.

Caleb's Baptism

This is the abbreviated version.

Before and After

Are you ready for this? Before and after photos. Two years in the interim. 50 pounds. The only good thing about that first picture is that it was taken in England.

I probably can find better pictures, but these are the ones I have on hand. The bottom one was from this weekend right before Caleb's baptism. So there we are.

I DID IT!!!

I finished the socks and I'm still alive!! Yippee! I can CLEAN my house now! I'm so excited!

I'm going to get the socks in the mail first thing in the morning...to California. So the question now is do I send it via Priority Mail or do I go all out and do 2nd day or overnight? Hmmmm.

Unbelievable...Still Alive

I honestly don't believe it...no socks again today. I don't know whether to be relieved that I have 24 more hours to finish my sock or sad that I still have to work on my sock. I've finished the heel and am working on the foot part. I'm in the back arch area. My house is very cluttered and in need of a good picking up because I've ignored it for 6 days now.

The Tooth Fairy visited Caleb last night. Turns out she takes Sundays off. (Doesn't matter that Caleb lost his tooth on Monday, not Sunday...) Her note was very gracious and she left 4 quarters. Caleb was pleased.

I'm going to go now and work on the sock some more. The kids are watching a Scooby-Doo movie set in Scotland. How much better can life get? One of their favorite cartoon characters in one of their favorite locations with other characters speaking in their favorite dialect.

Bullet (Socks, Actually) Dodged for 24 More Hours

No socks in the mail this afternoon. I had to look. I was wavering between wanting to continue and wanting to be done. My left index finger and right "tall man" finger have band-aids on them...knitting injuries. Actually, the band-aids are acting as very thin, but very effective, thimbles. These needles are so tiny that the tips hurt if I am continually knitting, as I've done today. Maybe, maybe, maybe I can get finished with the sock tonight. That would be cool. I have to go now. It's 4:45 - time to unload and load the dishwasher and get dinner started. We're having spaghetti. Very easy on me - more knitting time. Plus we need to finish up Caleb's meteor diorama due at school tomorrow. Not much more to do.

Sock Wars

So I got my sock knitting info on Friday afternoon. I didn't get to knit as much as I had planned this weekend, but I did finish the first sock last night at 10:45. I've started the 2nd sock and I think I might have a fighting chance at finishing it today. I would like to finish before I'm killed. I have a feeling my socks will come today. I don't think I'll check the mail until I finished the sock. That way I'm not officially dead until after I finish the sock. I won't even watch the mailman put the mail in the box like I do sometimes. I'll pretend that it's a mail holiday and I won't even think about it.

I'm waiting on the girls' pizza to come out of the oven so I can get them eating and get back to knitting. I think I'll have enough yarn left over to make some socks for Jules. Another reason to finish the socks myself - I won't have to give away the extra yarn.

Hmmm.

I'll post pictures of the finished sock(s) later.

Chalk One Up In the "Bad Mom" Column

Caleb lost a tooth yesterday and the Tooth Fairy didn't show last night.

Oops.

He came into our room this morning, tapped me on the shoulder to wake me up, and said in a little pitiful voice, "My tooth was still under my pillow this morning and there was no money there. The Tooth Fairy didn't come." Yikes.

So now I'm thinking of different excuses for tardiness the T.F. can write in a note to leave under his pillow today...any suggestions would be appreciated. Right now I'm going with either an overabundance of teeth lost in France or elephants losing heavy tusks in Africa. The silver lining is that this gives me an idea for a children's book: "The Tooth Fairy is Late!"

We're going to walk to school this morning. Actually, Caleb will ride his new scooter he got for his b-day, Audrey will ride her bike, and I will push Julie in the stroller. Gotta go change a stinky little girl.

Audrey's Teeth

My wonderful daughter was standing in a kitchen chair, trying to put a footprint in some "floam" (slime-type stuff mixed with little Styrofoam beads) when she fell out of the chair and bumped her front teeth. Again. This is the 3rd time she's massively creamed her two front teeth since November 2005. That's why one tooth sticks out funny and the other is chipped. This time she bled more than the other 2 times and it just looked different, so we got her an appointment to the dentist first thing this morning. Just like the other 2 times, there is nothing they could do, but they told us to keep an eye on it.

So she can't eat - claims that chewing on the back teeth hurts the front tooth. We went to the store and bought yogurt, pudding, chicken noodle soup, and chocolate nutrition drinks. I think she managed to kill the tooth this time. It looks bad.

I ran again this morning. It was 56 minutes today. I'm down to a size 14 - got some new clothes int the mail this week (size 14) and they fit nicely. Yay me. Still not up to the 50 pound mark yet...maybe next week.

My brain is mush today. I'm signing off.