Bak 2 Skewl

DD started last week. The DS's got an extra week of summer, but they, too, are back in school. I so hate to see the summer end. Summer is sun and swimming, the beach and amusement parks, sleeping in and staying up late, vacations and visits. I love all the seasons, but summer is my favorite. This summer was especially great. The new pool lead to many days outside with the family. The barbecue was fired up almost every day. The patio got a lot of use, and we ate together as a family every night. Even DH said this was the best summer he could ever remember. PLUS, I finally caught up with a missing bff on Facebook, and we managed to get together for a weekend and meet each others families. Makes Labor day almost a killjoy. I am sad that the pool needs to be closed soon.

Strangely, the kids were ready to go back to school. DD missed her friends, and was looking forward to her Dance minor this year. She has already brought home the first fundraiser of the year, as well as the first field trip permission slip. They are going to hit the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire on October 14th. She will perform with the other 8th grade Vocal majors from Cab Calloway, and she has to wear a costume. Very exciting for her.

The DS's New School held their annual beginning of the school year tribunal. Noah wants to have a bug class. The boy is buggy about bugs! I can see him going into Forensics like Grisholm from CSI and being able to tell how long a body has been decomposing by counting the bugs and studying the maggot life cycle. Ewww!!!

Kenny is jealous about the Field trip. I did tell him he could write a proposal and set up a field trip as well, but he is afraid he can't do a good job. That is his focus for the year, to learn how to conquer his fear of nearly everything. I don't know how much of his issues stem from fear, and how much is from distrust and a distinct lack of faith in anything. but we will do what we can for this young boy, and hope for the best.

Another summer is gone, but Fall is just around the corner. Here comes the beautiful changing colors of the leaves and the denuding of the trees. Halloween is drawing near, always a fun holiday, and DD has asked for a Broadway show for her coming birthday.

My hope is that the mildness of the summer bodes well for a crispy cold and snowy winter, with lots of snow days, huddled in front of the fire place and nursing hot chocolate mugs to warm our frozen, snowman-making hands. Goodbye summer, you will be missed!

Stay-cation part 2

So, yeah, the landscaper came in at $2400, twice what I had left in the budget. So, we are doing the work ourselves, which leaves me with a big pile of dirt still in the backyard. I did find someone on Craigslist looking for fill dirt, I hope they'll take it all! But, since I wasn't paying for the landscaper, we decided to spend a little money on a new grill. Our old one, about 10 years old, was done. We got a good deal on a nice grill at Lowe's, and DH cooked out Saturday and Sunday night. All the kids had friends over at least once this weekend, and the pool is holding up great! We are getting ready for the middle Childs 12th birthday, and will be setting up for a luau this weekend. Aloha!

Stay-cation!

The pool is in! After spending all that money last year on landscaping the back yard (to help sell the house) we decided to stay. With the downswing in the market and nobody enjoying a whole lot of job security, we decided to stay where we are comfortable. So...we decided to put in a pool! This will pay for itself in 2 years, as we can vacation at home.It took one nice day for the great company we hired to put it in. Now its just a matter of getting the chemicals right. Of course, as it has rained 20 out of the last 24 days, our yard was more of a swamp than a backyard, and boy did the installation leave a mess! There's tons of top soil, not to mention the sod mixed in, left in a huge pile. And we still need to finish backfilling. Had a landscaper come today to tell us exactly what we can do with it all. He'll give me a price in 3 - 4 days, I'm sure it'll be a doozy! So, if anyone wants lots of clay filled, rooty, soddy topsoil, come have at it! and if you want to put in a little manual labor on the back fill, we'll put up some beer and a barbeque and a dip in the pool after!

Teddy Bear 5/11/1998 - 5/16/2009 Rest in Peace

Teddy Bear, you were a great watchdog. You were a loyal companion, never more than 3 feet from my chair. I'm sorry for those times I accidentally rolled over your foot, then yelled at you for always being under my feet because I felt bad. I'm sorry I didn't pay enough attention to you. I already miss your happy dance when I come home. I wonder if now grass will grow in your favorite pee spot. I feel guilty for not being able to let the vets run more & more tests until they found out what was wrong with you. I'm glad you have finally found peace and painless rest and I'll see you at the Rainbow bridge. I love and miss you, Teddy.

I Hate Tuesdays

Yes, I hate Tuesdays. It's my least favorite day of the week. Mondays are bad enough, having to return to the grindstone after a too short weekend. But Tuesdays...Tuesdays positively reek! Every single stinking Tuesday, World of Warcraft shuts down for "maintenance". Usually, you can't even tell what they've "maintained". I wish they would fix the flightpath from Dalaran, Dalaran is DC city. If you play, and you have a character over lvl 65, you totally know what I'm saying. But today, today is the big patch. Everybody in the guild has been talking about it. Swimming mounts, dual spec, shorter cool downs on the hearth stones, all very cool. What's not cool? Apparently my DPS. 850 Dps(Damage per second) is apparently very bad for a lvl 80 hunter. I don't know what the problem is. Ive got the best weapon I can afford, and haven't seen much better in the Auction House. I know some players have 1500 Dps, but usually they are Death Knights, and DKs are cheaters as far as I'm concerned. They need to nerf DKs bad. So I guess I'll have to suck it up and ask my guildies what I might be doing wrong, idk. Time to check and see if we are back on line again, and maybe check on the lasagna, too. =)

I'm high? and I can't sleep!

I have recently quit smoking. This is day 3. My head spins and I am dizzy, and a little silly. My friends tell me I am high on Oxygen. Hmmm. Why? Doesn't everyone breath oxygen? Apparently all the weird things in cigarettes block some of the oxygen receptors in our brains. Suddenly, I'm getting oxygen like I haven't in more years than I can count right now. Everyone is being uber supportive, and I'm really not suffering nearly as much as I thought I would. I'm cold turkey. Yes I'm cold alot. Plus, I can't stay asleep at night. It seems like I am waking up every hour. I don't know why, but I feel very awake. Then I just go back to sleep. I took the day off, and got some extra sleep this morning. I'm starting to be afraid to drive, I become so sleepy out of no-where. But thats it. A craving will come, for less than a minute. I wiggle my fingers and take a deep breath and it goes away. I'm good. I don't want to spend the money anymore, I don't want to die of Lung Cancer, I want to see my grand children someday (not soon, mind you, it can wait, lol), but yeah. So I am a non-smoker, big deal.

Did I Do That?

No, I am not actually a self-centered person, but with everything that is going on lately, I sometimes have this idea that it is all my fault. You see, around August of last year, we decided we were going to sell our house and move to our daughter's school district. Just to make everything easier on everyone concerned. So, in preparation, we paid off all our credit cards. No more interest payments, no more revolving debt, just to make sure we could qualify for the size of house we needed. We started buying what we needed with cash, which meant we bought significantly less. Now all the credit companies are failing, and I have to wonder, did we all have the same idea at the same time? I've often wondered what it would be like, what would happen, if everyone started living off of just what they have, like all the gurus suggested. Hm, maybe this is it? And if that's the case, the banks don't need a bailout, why continue a product that no longer sells? Of course now we are in the position that nothing is selling. We would buy a new car, but are afraid we'll lose our jobs, because no one is buying new cars. We would buy a house, especially now that prices have dropped so much, but oops, now we owe more on our house than we could get for it. This whole thing is a catch 22. What are we going to do? Everyone is saying that banks won't release the funds for new mortgages, I think its just that no one is asking. Hmm, what next? There are layoffs at work happening today, furloughs last month and next. Maybe if I stick my neck out there and tell hubby to buy a new car, everyone else will too? Come on, America! We need you to shop even more now than after 9/11, oh, but I'll wait til you're done, lol.