Never Mind

I hate when I over-plan my day. I decide that I am somehow going to do the 352 things on my list in 4 short hours, even though there is no possible way it's gonna happen. And I know this about myself, and yet, I keep planning too much when I have some time to get things done. And then, I sabotage my own plan by adding even more things to the list~ For example:
Get home from taking Tater to MDO...
"Hey, I love this song! I'll sit in the car and listen real quick."
"Hmm, while I'm listening, I can go ahead and get all the trash out of the door pockets..."
"Well, since I'm cleaing out the trash, I can get all the other stuff out of the truck too..."
"Gee, since I've got everything else cleaned out, I might as well vacuum too - it really needs it..."

... and before I know it, I've lost an hour. An hour of the four hours I should have used to get the house clean. But I've decided that my friends will love me even if I have a dirty and/or messy house, so I wasn't too stressed over it. Plus we ended up postponing our play-date anyway, so never mind.

Ancient Chinese Proverb

for the girls coming to play tomorrow:

The true measure of friendship is how messy a friend's house is when you come over.

Lovin' every minute of it

Any tiny shred of regret I had over not being able to teach summer school is gone. I have had the best week with my little boy! Even though we haven't done anything monumental, we have done the park thing a few times, gone to the library, watched movies, had fun grocery shopping... and today we made play-dough. For one whole incredible hour he was fully occupied and engaged in the stirring and squishing, followed by the rolling and cutting and balling and more squishing. Too much fun!!
Then while we were eating lunch, it started to rain... a not-so-common occurrence around here lately. I couldn't drag him away from the kitchen window ("Watch that rain, Mom!"), so I pulled his little table over to the window so he could see. I just love watching the wonder in his little face...

Ah yeah... these days are the best.

PLAY-DOUGH UPDATE: Added Tuesday 6-25...
(I love that play-dough is the biggest thing I have to update about!)

If anybody's in search of a quick, easy, no-cook play-dough recipe, here's what we made:

PUFF DOUGH

3 c flour
1 c salt
1 c water
3 Tbsp cooking oil

Just mix it all together and then add food coloring if you want. I split it in half and made 2 colors. Super easy and I like the texture. Keeps awhile too.

Here are a couple of pictures. He decided that blue was his and purple was mine, and not five minutes later took over my purple. Little stinker...

I need to lay off the caffeine...

I can't seem to make myself get tired tonight. Perhaps it's the coke at lunch and 2 glasses of tea I had today. Perhaps it's the 3 chocolate cookies I had after dinner. Perhaps both. But I can't sleep and I can't turn off my brain, so here's a little randomness.

• My son has a new fascination with tattoos. He found some rub-ons and just had to have one. He picked the smiley face wearing headphones. I had to play along and put a butterfly on my foot too.
  

Randy is now worried that he will grow up and be covered in them. A tattooed bull-rider. That should be interesting.

• I went to a pretty cool workshop today about Web 2.0 stuff. I got some really good ideas that I will be able to use easily if I move to writing... will need some creativity to fit it into reading. I really have to integrate more technology though, no matter what I'm teaching. Randy went today too, so that was kinda cool to hang out with him. In the 3 years we've both been in education, there have only been a handful of times we've "worked" together.


• I have a new self-tanner that I really love. It's the Coppertone Endless Summer. It actually doesn't turn me orange.


• Tater was having issues with what blanket to use each night. It has been a toss up between Feet Covers (baby feet blanket from the hospital) and Tiny Covers (thin receiving blanket from Old Navy). Tiny Covers has been the favorite, but it's too short for this growing boy. So I took 2 other of the same type of blanket, cut them both in half, and stitched them back up in blocks. Sounded great in theory, but in reality, it's the worst sewing job I've ever done. Inexperienced me sewing thin, stretchy knit was not a pretty sight. The blanket may be ugly and Suessically long, but it serves it's purpose - for this summer anyway. Hopefully by next summer we can handle an actual sheet.

• This Sunday, Randy and I will have been married for 6 years. Funny, it feels longer than that... :)


• Tater and I are going to the park tomorrow morning. If anybody is actually up and reading this before 8:30 or so, feel free to come join us!


• We decided tonight while watching the news and seeing the forecast that we are moving to Montana. We'll FedEx a snowball.


• My project for next week: cleaning out Sam's room. When she's not here, it becomes the catch-all room (read: place to stash all my crap), and it really needs an overhaul. Plus if I plan to do any scrapbooking this summer, I must unbury my supplies.


• I got a flat tire Monday - evidently ran over a really sharp rock. Since I didn't go anywhere yesterday, it went unnoticed until Randy got home. As Tater watched him putting on the spare, he said, "OOooo, truck broken. Daddoo fix it." Then he looked at me with his brow wrinkled up, pointed his little finger at me and said, "You drive too fast."


• I want to have a play date at my house next week, maybe Wed or Thurs (need cleaning time - I'll be out of town this weekend). Anybody interested? I'd love to see how many kids we can pack in this house.

OK, that's all I got. Here are a few more pics of the boy for your viewing pleasure.

Stupid Nature

There is a bird. It resides in a sweet little nest just outside my window, where it likes to sing its sweet little song...
at FIVE O'CLOCK in the morning!!!!!

And it's not really sweet. It's freakin' annoying. It's piercing four-note so-called "song" reverberates through the entire house.

This bird became my mortal enemy about the next to last week of school. Many grumblings were aimed at this winged creature; but one day, all of a sudden, as if in answer to my prayers, it disappeared. Ah, relief. Sleep.

But no. Evidently, it just went on vacation to it's little birdie time-share in Florida, because it's back. Came back late last week, but somehow it seemed quieter. Or maybe my summer sleep frame of mind let me tune it out better, I don't know. But this morning, there was no tuning out to be done. I think the dang thing had a megaphone or something. It woke up me, the dog, and, unfortunately the son.

At 5 AM.

I naively attempted to get Tater back to sleep. After rocking, shushing, back rubbing, a disatrous trip in the dark to the kitchen for water that involved shinbones connecting with toddler chairs, and more back rubbing, I gave up.

So did Randy. At 5:30, he came out to let the dog outside. I smiled at him sweetly and gave him a warm morning welcome:

"That bird must die."

His plan, not mine

So I'm not teaching summer school, like I thought I would be. We got there on Friday, and the principal started out with, I really hate doing this, but..." and proceeded to tell us that due to low enrollment, 5 of us were without a job. Guess who was one of the "lucky" ones.

Now don't get me wrong, I was not totally heartbroken. The only reason I was doing it? The money. So I started wondering what God was trying to tell me. I had thought he wanted me to be responsible - do my part to bring in a little extra money to get rid of the bills that I'm always griping and stressing and worrying about... Oh.

Yeah, I love it when he smacks me on the head (like on the V-8 commercial) and says, "Duh!"

So... I am no longer worried about finances. I asked Him to take the worry and the pressure, and true to His word, He did. With my pay-off-everything crazy haze lifted, I see we're doing just fine. We're getting the hang of this strict budget thing (although I would die for just one Old Navy shopping spree). My poor nagged-to-death husband just sold his beloved bass boat and we paid off a card. I have let go of this weird desperate need to get the entire world paid off next month and have decided life is too short. There are definitely more important things. Like spending 19 more days with my son instead of a bunch of teenagers who'd rather watch War and Peace than to listen to me teach. We will continue to be diligent, and the bills will be gone when they are gone. It's time to enjoy my summer.

Ugh

Summer colds are the worst. I have had a cold since Saturday. Yep, my entire week off before leaping into summer school, I have been sick. Which means I have gotten very little on my list of to-do's checked off (poo), I have NOT gotten to see Baby Owen yet (double poo), and I am out of time. Tomorrow is in-service day at Lee. Ugh.
I did, however, manage to get 4 loads of laundry done this morning. And got in some snuggles with my boy, which is worth any day off. But for now, I sit here with a pounding head and over-flowing shnoz.
Ugh.

I promise my next post will not be so whiny. I need to put up pictures of the man-cub, which is always a happy occasion.