I Wish I Had a Good Excuse

Really, I do. But I don't. I don't have one excuse as to my absence over the last week and a half. Laziness? Possibly. Lack of material? Likely. Kids keeping me busy? Definitely. But they do go to bed and I have considered blogging on a couple of different nights but just didn't. So here I am. Trying to remember and catch up all at the same time. It's been almost two weeks now that the kids went to my parents house and I spent a couple of days without them. Thursday night I was on my own and Friday night I was with Hubby. A week ago Saturday was my birthday and to celebrate we picked the kids up then took them to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. It was awesome! We loved it! I could watch Hermione hit Harry over the head every. single. day. because it was just that funny.

Fast forward to Monday where I took the kids to a local church for Vacation Bible School. Unfortunately, I missed our church's VBS in June so I had to take them to another church. They had a blast, there was no scaring involved and they certainly learned a lot. I even learned a tidbit. That was part of what kept me so busy, the fact that it ran from 6:30-9pm every night. Then this weekend was just a typical weekend of mowing, kids running around and just being us.

Then we jump to tonight. Tonight was the kids back to school night where they go in and meet their teachers (assuming they don't already know them), learn what is expected of them and get the mounds of paperwork that is sent home for me to fill out. They get their school shirts, play around on inflatable toys, and find out if their friends are in the same class. This year, Brady got to be in the same class as one of his best buddies and the little girl he has a crush on. He got Belle's fourth grade teacher so we know what to expect from her in the coming year. Belle didn't get Bryce's fifth grade teacher but found plenty of her friends in her class again this year. Bryce's class is the one who disturbed me and honestly if there was ever a time for me to consider homeschooling, it would be this year simply because of his class layout. But that isn't possible because I do not have the patience to teach him. The "I don't get it!" whine gets old fast and if you know Bryce, you know he is notorious for whining. What bothers me is that he is in the same class with another student that does not treat him well, to the point that I had a conversation with the principal about one particular incident a couple of years ago, an incident so uncalled for that they made sure he and Bryce didn't cross paths without a teacher present. So imagine my frustration when I walked into school tonight to find that not only was he in the same class with this child, but he was sitting right next to this child. So I had a chat, on back to school night mind you, with his teacher about how this setup was so not going to work. She was clearly stunned to see how much it bothered me, informed me that she didn't know about the situation, would rearrange seating assignments and make sure to keep an eye on things. We'll see what happens, because that's really all we can do at this point.

Another thing going on here is Hubby and I have been having serious discussions about relocating. So serious that we have even brought it up to the kids and that is a huge no-no unless we are almost certain we plan on doing it. Hubby has been driving a truck for the last five years and is really wanting to come home full time, not that I blame him. I would love to have him home full time. There aren't really any good paying jobs around here so in order for him to be home full time we would have to move somewhere where we could both find jobs. I am still currently looking for a job here because we've got some work we need to do to the house and school is a week away from starting. The kids seem to be ok with moving for now. Hopefully they will still be ok with it when the time comes.

Oh and remember the cleaning job that I started a few weeks back while the kids were in Indiana? I am thisclose to finishing my kitchen. Tomorrow, after I sweep and mop I will have a clean kitchen. Cabinets, refrigerators, ceiling fans, windows, doors and walls are all clean. My task after I have finished cleaning each room the way I want it? Wallpaper. The ugly wallpaper in the kitchen is coming down! Until then, at least it's clean. Now that I have caught up, I am headed for sleep.

Random Events Make Up an Excuse for a Post

Things are getting back to normal around here, some of them slowly and others in rapid time. Such as children fighting. And not listening. And getting out of bed 10,000 times even though I told them not to. Can you tell that one is a current issue? No? My kids would never get out of bed after I told them to stay in it.

Hubby has had a strange week this week. Instead of running one long run and one short run this week, he's running three short ones. Two of them sent him right by the house so we got the pleasure of spending a bit of time with him yesterday and again today. Today he was home long enough to trim the yard while I finished mowing, wash his car and have dinner with us. It's been nice to see him much more this week than usual. Almost seems like he has a regular job rather than one that keeps him away so much.

Guess I also should've mentioned that one of my sisters-in-law has sold us a car that they didn't need. It's sitting for now since it needs tags but a car! So I don't have to keep driving back and forth to Tennessee! One that will save money on gas because it has a little bitty four cylinder engine! I'm not excited or anything.

I had a short chat with Janjanmom Monday evening about how she was coming to my town on Tuesday. She wanted to get our kids together for a play date so Belle, Brady and Bryce met Kayla, Erika and Lilly. We met at McDonald's where we had ice cream and the kids went out and played while we had adult conversation. Oh how I love adult conversation! Over an hour and a half later, we loaded up six hot kids and headed home. We had a great time!

As I said previously, today I got up and started to mow. Of course tonight we had a flood when storms blew through so that I will need to mow again tomorrow . I honestly feel that I was on the mower most of the day, no matter how much I know I wasn't. I also finished cleaning one half of my kitchen. I like four full cabinets and four half cabinets, fridge and stove having my kitchen clean. Oh and mopping of course. It will be nice to know that I don't have to do these things for a while now. Or at least the odd stuff like the cabinets. Next I get to start on the living room. Oh and I also mailed off three resumes this morning in the hopes for a job. I'm hoping that these three will break the streak of me sending them and not receiving responses. We'll see.

Tomorrow the kids are off to Mom's for their couple of days at her house. Brady was so excited earlier this week that he was willing to pack today for the occasion. Luckily he didn't. That gives us something to do tomorrow to pass the time. Hubby will be home on Friday evening so tomorrow evening will be my time then Friday evening will be our time. It's nice to fit both times into the same weekend.

Here shortly I will be heading off to bed so that I can watch more CSI. Tomorrow I hope to get some reading done after the kids leave. How has your week gone?

Getting Back to Normal

Last week was awesome! It has been so long since I've had some much time to myself that I couldn't even remember it. Wednesday, I did as I had planned. Nothing. I watched two episodes of Army Wives. I went to lunch and shopping with Mom. I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix because ohmygoshHarryPotterandtheHalfBloodPrincecomesoutthisweekend!!!! Not that I'm excited or anything. So not excited that I'm considering having a Harry Potter marathon with the kids on Wednesday to get ready to see the movie Saturday. Nope not excited. Thursday I lingered around the house until Hubby got in that evening. I picked him up here in town so he could shower before taking his truck back to where he has to leave it. Then we went out to dinner before walking through the door at 10pm to watch a movie. Friday, I introduced Hubby into the art of doing nothing. He didn't understand it at first. How could we sit there, watch a movie, return them and spend the rest of the day doing absolutely nothing productive? But we did. And he survived.

Saturday Hubby got me on the kick that I was bored. I wanted to do something. Anything. So we went bowling only to realize that neither one of us could bowl worth a flip that day. So we left and drove to the next town. We went to Books-A-Million where I scored a Patricia Cornwell book for $3. We went to Pet Smart to visit with the adoptable kitties only to find they had dogs there as well. I found this beautiful six year old cat that was white with grey. She was spayed, declawed and sixteen pounds! She was huge! She was also very long haired, so long haired that fur was shedding in my hands as I petted her. I wanted her! But Hubby informed me that if I got a cat he got to pick out a dog. I found that to be completely unfair since we already have three dogs and only two cats.

Sunday, the kids got home about 12:30 and we started running. While we were at the mall on Saturday night, we found backpacks at Spencer's for 75% off. We showed the boys pictures of a couple of them and they decided they liked them so we went and got them since quantities were limited. There, they made their selections and we proceeded to the checkout where we expect to be paying $10 each for the bags. We found that not only were they 75% off the original price but an additional 50% off the final price. We got two Pirates of the Caribbean backpacks for $10! We immediately left that town and headed to Tennessee to take Hubby to work. A drive that is normally 2 1/2 hours took an additional 45 minutes. The kids were so exhausted from their week that Belle asked if she could go to bed at 9pm even though the boys weren't out of the shower yet.

Today has been a lot quieter day. I took the kids to the library to borrow new books because I returned theirs last week. We then went to the store and picked out a couple of things for lunch. They're adjusting to being home again and I'm adjusting to being mom again. I'm striving to be a more patient mom. Today I've done better than I have in a very long time. I cleaned today. My sister-in-law had all of the kids clothes washed when she got here so all I had to do is wash what Hubby and I have wore and the clothes the kids wore home. I have wiped down all of the cabinets on one side of my kitchen, inside and out, as well as cleaned my window above my sink. I hope my violets appreciate that. Now I'm off to watch a couple of CSI episodes while I wash one of my last load of clothes. Getting back to normal.

Smorgasboard

This summer thing is trying to kill me! I went to mow last week and the steering went out on my lawnmower. I cannot tell you how disappointing it is to spend forever trimming so that you can mow and be finished only to find that the darn mower is broke and there will be no mowing! All that time trimming wasted!

Now jumping right into my next topic - when I'm writing my posts, in my mind everything makes sense. Usually because I know the background that you need to know or I hold something back for one reason or another. I did that on this post about faith and religion being difficult. While I put them together in one post, I do understand that are two totally different things. One thing I hate about religion is the politics that goes on behind the scenes. Arguments about what is best for the church but what God has in store for the church never seems to be considered. My problem with religion on this particular day was when someone accused me of not allowing my daughter to attend VBS because we are baptists and the church holding the classes was church of Christ. Not only did I have a problem with that statement but I had an even bigger problem with the fact that the statement was made to Belle's friend and not to my face. No I didn't keep her home because of the denomination of the church. I kept her home because of what had happened the week before. Because I knew the friend was planning on declaring her salvation and I couldn't help but wonder if the friend went home and told her parents, grandparents what Belle had told me. Or had she been scared into it. So Belle stayed home and if I had the opportunity to make the decision again, it would not change. Yes the friend is still coming around, but I still have issues with grandmother for not confronting about my choices to my face. Leave the kids out of it.

I went and picked Hubby up from work on Thursday morning and on the way home, he let me know he was wanting to go to Indiana to see his sisters for the holiday weekend. So we went on a road trip across the Ohio River and visited with S and J, and C and her boyfriend M. The kids played with their cousins, went swimming, watched fireworks set off in S and J's neighborhood, played on a make-shift slip-n-slide, fished, and played kickball. I had adult conversation! We went to a party of strangers where the only people we knew were S and J. I can't tell you how hard I laughed watching Hubby and J join in a game of kickball with C's neighbors and our kids! As the weekend wore on, C told us that she wanted the kids to stay up there with her for this week because she had to come this way on her way to Memphis this weekend and could drop the kids off. After some consideration, Hubby and I decided they could stay. So I am sitting in my living room with no kids. And no Hubby. Just. me. Cool.

So what have I been doing with my new found freedom? Cleaning. Hubby didn't go back to his truck until this morning. Last night, I started cleaning out my laundry room and I finished it up this morning. Hubby fixed my lawnmower yesterday so I mowed today as well. I have wiped down cabinets. I cleaned my living room windows and the carport door windows and they are still clean! I didn't know it was possible! I have thrown stuff away! That never happens! So tomorrow, my plans are to veg. I may or may not finish my kitchen. I will read. I will catch up on Army Wives. I will be me. Not mom, not wife, but me. Now? I'm going to sleep. Because I can.