Weekly Preview and Review - DOUBLE edition

Well, I didn't get a post up last week, so this is a double.

LAST WEEK:
Saturday - SCRAPBOOKING!
Sunday - SCRAPBOOKING!
Monday - WORK 5 hrs, Lessons
Tuesday - WORK 5, Lessons, E-eye dr., D-drivers ed
Wednesday - WORK 5, Lessons, D-drivers ed
Thursday - WORK 5, Lessons, Bob dr., D-drivers ed
Friday - WORK 5, Co-op
Saturday - Book Club, D-painting

This was the last week of being able to work 5 hours a day. I was able to earn quite a bit extra during these last two months when we were able to work extra without having to speak up for the hours.

David started drivers education. I made him pay for it himself, which he mostly did by ebaying stuff. He was apprehensive about this, but has settled in, I think. He will begin getting behind the wheel probably the week of the 24th. His is a large class, so maybe it will be the week after. His class goes 2-3 nights a week until Feb 10th and then I can take him for his learner permit. He has to rack up hours behind the wheel before taking Segment 2 of drivers training later in the summer.

To earn the last of the money to pay for his drivers training by doing that for me, David did some painting in the kitchen on Saturday and Sunday. Eleven hours got most of the cabinets and all of the trim. I think there are a few more hours in that job and I will pay him cash for that. I don't know when I would have found the time and I KNOW he did a better job than I would have! James wants to paint for money too, but I am not sure he's ready for that. We do have lots more trim to paint!

Scrapbooking weekend was lovely! I organized it with my friend Darlene as a fundraiser for the Regency Ball. Emily earned the money to cover her hotel room and gas money. We had 13 women come for all or part of the weekend and 5 girls to help with the meals and carrying things. We are already thinking about repeating the weekend next January!

THIS WEEK:
Sunday - Church, Suzy to a party
Monday - WORK 5 hrs, Lessons, D-drivers ed
Tuesday - WORK 4, Lessons
Wednesday - WORK 4, Lessons
Thursday - WORK 4 Lessons, Bob dr.
Friday - WORK 3, D-drivers ed
Saturday - No plans?

I have yet to manage adding any exercise back into my routine. I guess that the extra hour of work each day sort of eats that time. But I have been successful at eliminating sweets from my diet. I have had no desserts or candy or anything sugary in the last 3 weeks. It hasn't been too hard. I don't plan to eat like this forever, but I felt something drastic was in order to break the habit and to jump start the weight loss again.

Maybe if I only get my normal 20 hours this week, I will be able to add in some kickboxing. It's WAY too cold to do anything outside. I have not had any regular exercise since maybe November. I do still plan to train for a 10K, but I don't think I will be able to commit to that training until we have warmer weather and no slippery roads. Maybe next winter I will have a treadmill....

Bob had his pain doctor appointment again last week and they did a different sort of injection. It's outpatient at the hospital and I have to go since he is not allowed to drive home. If this works, then the doctor will explore further. The first two kinds they tried didn't help his pain.

Emily and James had friends over after co-op, Suzy went home with a friend for a couple nights and David spent Friday night at a friends' house too. Busy social night on Friday.

I've been doing a lot of swagbucks stuff lately - searching and surveys. I've earned enough for $30 of amazon gift certificates and have started redeeming them. I will just let them pile up in my amazon gift card balance and use that for Christmas gifts. If you aren't earning swagbucks, you really should be! It doesn't really add anything to your day, if you are already on the computer. And if you sign up under me, I get bucks for each buck you earn, too.

I cleaned out the back room on Saturday; that was satisfying. I've reduced my stuff back there by a whole file cabinet full! Downsizing! No point in keeping all those files since I always look online first nowadays.

Circus Creatus, Water Park, Rose Trellis

A perfectly wonderful afternoon at the water park was yesterday's highlight. I met my friend Sherri and her son there and we spent the afternoon chatting and watching the kids frolic in the water. The weather was just right - sunny and warm, but not humid or too hot. I wore shorts and a tank top for the first time this summer!

Earlier in the day, we attended a library program (Circus Creatus) to kick off the summer reading program. Joel Tacey juggled, told jokes, and did magic tricks. If you want to see some pictures from a similar show, click HERE. We laughed and giggled throughout, leaving with smiles on our faces. We didn't sign out any books since we'd done that just the day before.

I accomplished a little editing, but then I bumped the laptop and it disconnected from the power source (the outlet). It no longer holds a charge, so it has to be plugged in. No problem, right? Just reboot. Except David is the only one who knows the password. And David is at camp. Oops. So, I had to try to recreate all my editing changes on the desktop computer, effectively halving the time I spent editing, which was further reduced by the time I spent trying to guess his password. Finally I texted him and he did reply later in the evening with his thoroughly predictable password that I ought to have discerned.

Bob's been painting. He and the kids had to scrape some of the areas on the porch where the paint peeled off over the winter. Why it peeled we are not certain. But, it's now repainted, but may need another coat. He's also scraped and painted two coats on the barn where we had the rose trellis. He took that down earlier this spring and cut the roses way back in preparation for painting. Once it is nicely painted, he will put up new trellis and the roses will be growing up in front of a yellow background instead of grey. The whole barn will probably not get painted for a while yet, but the rose trellis needed to be done first so the roses had somewhere to go.

My two youngest are outside playing in the rain. LOL I'm not going outside today if I can help it. I did go running outside the last two days after I realized that I can't exercise in front of the TV while I am camping in a couple weeks. I jogged (ran & walked) 2 miles Monday and Tuesday. My legs are SORE. lol But it's a good thing. I will keep the exercise time the same and try to increase the time actually spent running.

A Little Blah-Blah-Blah

Going to my first AYSO board meeting tonight. Dinner - paid for! Woot!

Took the fam shopping today - Dropped the guys at Home Depot, took the girls shopping for party stuff. Cannot find a mini-tea set anywhere! Argh!

David had an eye appointment today - increased prescription, ordered glasses. Two to three weeks and they'll be in.

Party planning driving me insane. Why did I volunteer for this again? Eeeeeek! She wanted a nice easy sleepover. lol OK, when the sleepover sounds BETTER? then I know I'm insane.

Watched Galaxy Quest for the first time this week. Very funny! Laughed and laughed. David found it extremely amusing too. On my second disc of NCIS Season 1. We like it. Remember I was looking for a current TV show to watch on DVD? Think I've found it.

Just something I wanna say - Whining drives me batty. For some reason, and I'm sure it's not present company, this has come to the forefront of my mind.

No house painting has happened yet. Monday it rained. Yesterday Bob realized he had no masking tape. Bought some today. So maybe now we can begin. Oh wait, yeah, PARTY on Friday. @@ and it's supposed to rain tomorrow. It was supposed to rain today too, but it didn't. It better not rain on Friday.

Both the queries I sent on Monday got rejections the same night. Dang, those agents are fast! Edited some yesterday. Maybe I can edit a little more before I have to head out. I've been working on the laptop, since it isn't hooked to the internet. Then I don't get as distracted. lol

OK, I'm off! You feel free to hang out and do your thing.

Weekly Preview

Still having a very difficult time working on the online scoring I am (supposed to be) doing. I am mostly NOT doing it. There's still a few days left in this scoring period for me to try to prove myself. But this may be the end of my involvement with that project. Not only is the scoring itself more challenging to master than I imagined it would be, it's also very difficult for me to arrange time to work on it without distraction. It requires TOTAL concentration. Needless to say, that's very hard to find around here.

Finished the taxes last week, so that looming task is no longer weighing on me. I have to finish reading Daniel Deronda. About 28 more chapters to go! Can't wait to see the movie too, since I have heard so many great reports about it.

Went to see 17 Again at midnight Friday (Sat. really) night with Debbie and Darlene. SO FUN! We laughed all the way through. I didn't really expect it to be so full of laughs and charming moments. Darlene was the one that mentioned she wanted to see it, and I am usually up for a good night out. It's your typical "if I had my life to live over again" theme, but done humorously and, as is usual with such movies, it had a good message. I'm sure I'll watch it again.

Bob and the kids have been edging the sidewalks and those look good. As soon as the weather is reliably warmer, we will start painting the exterior of the house again. It needs its second coat.

This coming week has 5 days of lessons, 3 soccer games, 1 soccer practice, 2 meetings, 1 book club, and as much work as I can stuff in.

Sunday - Sunday School, Church service, Raingutter Regatta and Carnival
Monday - Lessons, Work, IEW meeting?
Tuesday - Lessons, Work, Soccer Practice (S), Last Keepers Meeting (E/S), Soccer Game (J)
Wednesday - Lessons, Work,
Thursday - Lessons, Work, Soccer Games (J/S)
Friday - Lessons, Work, Youth Lock-in (D)
Saturday - Soccer games (S/J), Book Club (Daniel Deronda)

It's Yellow!!!!

Tuesday Toodles (ok it's corny)

I feel better today.

Finally finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I liked very much, but it wasn't a light read at all.

I am going to read something fluffy before going on to Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. At least I think it will be fluffy. It has a picture of a cupcake on the cover. lol Can't remember the author or the title.

I went to Walmart with David last night. Lots of school supply clearance! I bought a lovely notebook in which I will be writing fiction, as well as some brightly colored felt pens that I'll have to hide from my kids. lol David bought duct tape and then proceeded to annoy me happily all through the groceries section. I thought there was a RedBox movie kiosk in our Walmart but if there is, I don't know where. Anyone? Anyone?

We also went to Home Depot and got 5 more gallons of Melted Butter. Or paint. :-) It was on sale! That was a lovely surprise! (I'd even say serendipitous, if I didn't think I'd get teased for using big words. lol)

I have boxes of stuff to sort from my girls' room and I am going to go help Bob paint in a little while.

Monday Miscellanea

I didn't feel well at all yesterday when I woke up and so we didn't go to church. I sent Bob over there with the Sunday School book and an apology. I wonder if the teens did the "worship" again this week. I'm getting pretty tired of it. Maybe that sounds grumpy, but it's not the kind of worship service I care to attend.

By afternoon I was feeling somewhat better. I was supposed to go to a baby shower, but I was pretty dragged out and not presentable at all.

Instead I worked on painting the house a bit. Maybe we can get a pic up here. It's about half painted yellow now. It will probably need another coat, but we'll do that in the spring. I was just so worried about going another winter with peeling paint. I really felt like it was going to harm the siding. So, now it's got a coat of primer and a coat of yellow paint, so that should be good protection. I LOVE the color. While Bob paints (or both of us), people that walk by tend to give good feedback. :-) That's encouraging! (And also, a little frightening - how bad must it have looked! lol)

David went to a laser tag birthday party yesterday and he ADORED it. We are considering a combination party for David and James in December doing laser tag. I missed their half-birthday celebrations this summer, so they never got a party at all. Neither did Suzy. It was just so hard to get them scheduled when I didn't know what would be happening with work - would I work a Saturday? Would I be laid off? Where could we do a party on a Sunday that wouldn't be crowded? So, I procrastinated too long and then it was closer to their next birthdays. Sigh.

Today I woke up with a huge sinus headache. I took some kind of meds that Bob gave me and 2 cups of coffee later I'm still a bit headachy. I need food.

I also need to buy groceries. David wants to buy some duct tape for a project he is making. (See my Cornerstone blog for a sneak peek.) Bob thinks we may need to get more paint.

Our furnace is still not running. Bob is kind of stumped. That's not a good thing.

The dryer is also broken. It needs a part we can't get. Bob must improvise or trash it, I think.

I am thinking I want to get the second disk of The Tudors.

7351

I am now at 7351 words, which puts my Wednesday Word Count at 2072. I would estimate the story is half done, so I will probably end somewhere around 15,000 words instead of the lower estimate of 10,000. We shall see. I will write 2000 words a day until it is done.

The Nature Sounds radio is perfect for this novella - ancient sounding music, water sounds, nature sounds, some of the kinds of music you would imagine as movie soundtrack music. No lyrics, no rhythm to most of it. Usually very peaceful.

I am finding out more about Ancient Egypt every day. Today I researched briefly what kind of furniture would be in a Pharaoh's home, what kinds of plants would grow in his garden and which of those would smell sweet, what jewelry a Middle Kingdom royal couple would wear, and I am sure other things I've assimilated already.

Tonight was our first Financial Peace University class and we enjoyed it. The two younger kids had Pioneer Club, Emily helped in the nursery, and David ran the computer for the club. (Not quite sure what that entails.)

The house painting is moving along, but it looks like the yellow won't cover well over the grey - kind of what we were expecting, but hoping it wouldn't be a problem. So, we'll go tomorrow and get some primer to lighten up the grey before we paint yellow over it.

Melted Butter

Our long-awaited project is.....



Yep - painting!

What would we paint that would need a 5 gallon bucket of paint?

Yep again - our HOUSE!

We have needed to do this for a couple-three years now and finally have both the money and the time to do it.

Yep - we are doing it ourselves. That mostly means BOB is doing it. The kids are helping. I'm nagging. lol They've been scraping the old paint and re-painting the white trim.

What color? Well, we decided we wanted a change. So, it's the bottom one in the pic here.



Yep = melted butter is the name of the color. I've wanted yellow for several years, but was resigned to grey again. Bob, however, was willing to make the change, so he pushed for that. When pressed for color choices, I specified that I wanted butter yellow, and this chip is the color I picked without even knowing the name of it. lol

Our house has been grey since 1994. Before we moved here, it was white with red trim.




Hopefully before snowfall, I'll be able to post a butter-yellow picture of our house. Won't it look lovely with the fall colors?