Veterans' Day Holiday--Nov. 10, 2006

Today the kids didn't have school because of Veterans' Day so we got up later than usual and kind of lazed around in the morning. I needed to go grocery shopping and wanted the girls to clean up the house because tomorrow is the Veterans' Day Parade and they won't be home in the morning and won't feel like doing anything in the afternoon because they will be so tired. Hopefully my mom will get some good Parade pictures and I can post them later.

I went to the bank to get money from the ATM for Tim to pay some of our workers, Trader Joe's and Winco (our grocery store) and finished shopping for most of the week and didn't get home until 3:30pm. Alyssa wanted to have some friends over to play Karaoke Revolution, but I had told her she couldn't until I inspected her room and her cleaning job. She wasn't happy because I got home so late, but life goes on. They got to come over later, but then couldn't stay long because she had to work at 6pm. They stayed until about 5:30 and I got some more laundry done and everything ready for bill paying. I didn't actually get to paying the bills because of lack of time, but I only have a few to pay this week. It takes me a little longer right now because of sorting through the "house building" bills. We have been charging absolutely everything on credit cards so we can get airline miles for them so I have to sort through what is "house building" related and what is regular expenditure related. We spent A LOT of money on the house this month with everything we bought off ebay for the bathrooms, etc. We are thinking we might want to take a trip to Italy next year to visit some good friends who are running a cycle tour business over there and I think we need to do some research for decorating the house. It is "Italian Villa" style, you know.

After I took Alyssa to work (she works at a local ice cream place) I came home and we fixed dinner. I say "we" because the girls did help make the salad and set the table before I got home and Tim sauteed the mushrooms and cooked the steaks. We found these inexpensive steaks at Winco that come in a family pack. They are petite sirloin steaks and are not too bad...not filet mignon, mind you, but good for everyday food. Tim was raised in the meat business as his dad owned a meat market until the time we met and Tim had worked there since he was seven years old. He is really good at cooking steak so that is always his job.

After dinner we tried to sit down and watch "Cars", but I fell asleep a few minutes into it and Tim fell asleep not much after that. I am not sure why I was so tired, I didn't do a lot out of the ordinary yesterday and it was only about 8:30, but I was. I did wake up at about 9pm to go get Alyssa from work. I can't wait until she has her driver's license and can get herself to and from work...especially on the nights she works until closing. Last night wasn't so bad, but on weekends they close at 10:30 and then I have to wait for her to call me when they are about finished cleaning up.

Last night (I am posting this on Saturday morning) the wind blew horribly most of the night. They had put up some columns at the house that are going to have a trellis on them when they finish them and Tim and I were so afraid they had blown down. He left early this morning to go over to the house and see how everything was because the guys are coming today to lay pavers (they prepped everything yesterday) and these columns are right where they are going to start them. He just called and said nothing had blown down. Praise the Lord!

Well, this morning I am off to our rehearsal for the Christmas Musical. It is from 9-12n and this is the first time we have run through the whole thing with the choir and the drama portions together. I am excited to see how it is going to turn out. Our choir director wrote the drama portion of it and picked Christmas songs from other musicals we have done as well as other random songs that go with the drama. It is going to be fun.

Busy...Busy Thursday --Nov. 9, 2006

Okay, I have to admit, I did all right last night with getting stuff done. I made a grocery list and menu, got my class planned and worked on my bible study. Tim playing his new games helped me out a lot as he will play them for a long time and not mind that I am doing other things.

Thursday is always my busiest day. This morning I did NOT get to walk. Tim informed me we needed to pick up the truck from the mechanic and so I didn't have time. I got ready this morning and we went straight to do that and had to go right to bible study. I took Tara with me so I didn't have to come back home afterwards and we made it just in time. Sammy and Alyssa stayed home to do schoolwork...which reminds me...I need to go check Sammy's schoolwork. Alyssa is at drill team for ROTC so I will check hers after I pick her up at 4:30. After bible study I went home and got Sammy and we came back to co-op. All we were doing today for my cooking class was planning a menu and making out a schedule. We are doing a full turkey dinner so Kathe (the other teacher) and I will have to be there early and start before bible study and Sammy and Hunter (Kathe's daughter) can work on some of the other stuff while we go to at least part of the study. The kids are coming early (about 11:30-12noon) to get started so we can eat and clean up by 2pm. I will be so glad when this class is over. It has been fun, in a way, but I am not sure what I was thinking when I volunteered to teach. Oh, yeah, I thought we would be in our house by now.

During second hour of co-op I had to run home to get Alyssa (good thing we only live a mile from church) and take her to the school for drill team. They are having an extra long practice today as they are getting ready for the Veteran's Day parade this weekend. I have to miss it! This is the first one I have missed since Alyssa started 3 years ago.

Tonight will be a YOYO night for dinner (Your On Your Own). Usually that means leftovers or whatever you can find. The older girls need to be back at church by 5pm to get ready for the Jr. High Group (which they help lead) and Sammy, Tara and I will have to be there at 6pm for me to attend worship team practice. Sammy is involved in the Jr. High Group, which starts at 7pm. My choir practice also starts at 7pm and lasts until 9pm. I have a lead part in the drama for the Christmas Musical so I haven't actually been singing on Thursdays during choir. I really am missing it, although, I absolutely love acting! I did it a lot in high school and college and it is a blast for me. That is why I can't be at the girls parade Saturday, because we have our first big dress rehearsal that morning. It's okay, though, they have a drill meet the next Saturday and I will be able to go to that.

While we are all gone, Tim gets this one night to himself. I know he really enjoys his time to be alone and "veg" so I take Tara to childcare at the church. She loves to go to childcare anyway so it all works out.

Gotta run and pick up the older girls....

A Day of Running Around--Nov. 8, 2006

Okay, so I still have not exercised even ONE day toward my goal. Every day has been something else...okay, well I actually could have gone yesterday, but the girls did not have school (I try and follow the public school schedule because of the two who are in school) and I hate to go when they aren't in school. Today, we had to take the truck (the one my mom is loaning us for house building that used to be my dad's before he passed away) in for some kind of repairs. It ended up that I actually could have even worked out this morning because when Tim tried to start the truck, it wouldn't start and needed to have a battery charge. I had to go the dentist anyway, though, so I was ready to go early even. We did eventually get the truck in, but now it is there at least until tomorrow. It is a good thing we have two vehicles (actually three if you count the Harley) not including the truck. Of course, tomorrow is Bible Study and I usually don't go those mornings because of lack of time, but maybe if I can get Tim to take the girls to school on his way to work on the house at least I could get a 30 minute walk in....hmmmm...I will have to run that by him.

Otherwise, I got not much else done today. I need to go and work on making a weekly menu/grocery list, work on my Bible Study for tomorrow and make sure I have everything ready for co-op cooking class (we only have two more, yeah!) tonight. Tim got two new video games that came out today and he is busy playing those so, hopefully, I can get some of this stuff done before I pick up Sammy and Tara from AWANA and then finish afterwards. I don't have that much to do for class as tomorrow is the day we do menu/grocery and schedule planning for our Thanksgiving dinner the next week. I am not very good at working at night (my brain actually shuts off at about 4pm, I think) so I will get done what I can.

A Mini Vacation

Okay, so some of you might not consider it a vacation, but dh and I went to an NFL game (we have season tickets for our team) Sunday and got to stay overnight in one of our new neighbors' (in the new house) loft in the city and come home today. It was sooo wonderful! We love to be able to get away and do it more often in the fall because of football season than any other time of year. We left yesterday morning at 3:30am and went to pick up Tim's mom (she is going to the city to visit her mom for a month and we drove her) and then headed on in. We got to see Tim's grandmother for a few minutes and then headed over to the park. Now for those who don't know, tailgating is a major event in our football season life. We have another couple (their daughter is a cheerleader for our NFL team) that we tailgate with and then another fireman who works with Tim is also there most of the time (he has season tickets, too) and whoever our friends bring with them and anyone else we know that is going. We get to the park at about 8am and have some breakfast and visit, then about 10am or so we start fixing lunch and eat at 11am and go into the game at about 12-12:30pm to see the pregame show. We have a great time watching the game with the other couple and whoever they bring (our tickets are right next to theirs) and then afterwards, we go see their daughter (a lot of times their son and son-in-law are there tailgating and visiting as well as they are both married to cheerleaders) and daughter-in-law and we have some dessert in the parking lot before heading out. We used to go home after our post-game tailgating, but we get so tired, we avoid it now. Our new neighbors have a loft in the city he uses about once a week and so they said we were welcome to stay there any time. We drove around for a while and finally found it (road construction detours, etc. and we were a little lost...thank goodness for the internet and yahoomaps on my phone!) and brought our stuff in to stay the night. What a blessing it was to be able to have some alone time with dh and also not to have to drive home last night! Thank you especially to my mom who was the girls' chauffeur today and got them where they needed to be today.

Today we got up, got ready and drove home, stopping at several "home" places on the way to look at stuff for the house. It was also nice to be able to look at stuff without anyone bothering me. We got home this evening and unpacked the car and are just enjoying our quiet evening together. Yeah!!!!