Ramblings of a SAHM

Friday, September 30, 2005

You wanna know what makes me happy?

$8 worth of "print them yourself" return address labels ($8= 25 sheets of 80 labels, 2000 total)

I'd have a wish list at an office store if I could.

Katie at 4:18 PM

Thursday, September 29, 2005

I am so hooked on this knitting thing! For the exact same reason I like sewing: I'm cheap. Frugal, whatever. I see these pricey clothes at the store and figure, heck I can sew (knit) that for a fraction of the price. So the $25 knit poncho at the store instead made at home? Five dollars...

I call it "Kelly Green." hehe

Katie at 10:25 AM

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Stay at Home Mom Fashion

Is there such a thing? Or is it a slightly stained t-shirt and jeans from the late 90's that still sort of fit after a pregnancy or two?

I need to go clothes shopping and I'm really kinda dreading this. Sure I pick up a few pairs of jeans now and then when the old ones have ripped holes in the knees (you, stop laughing). My current t-shirts are from an Old Navy shopping trip with my younger sister two years ago. I have the odd ball dressy outfit that never seems to be in the right season when I need a dressy outfit. It's like the "just gone to the grocery store but have nothing for dinner" conundrum. I have a closet full of clothes but nothing to wear.

And then there's the stores. I swear they make it impossible to have a nice casual wardrobe (I think that's what I'm suppose to look for). I don't need business attire ("don't throw yogurt on Mommy's blazer" ha!) and I'm not a teenager with .001% body fat. I'm also not 50 years old and ready for print capris and matching sweater sets (no offense to those who are, they are just not me). So this leaves me in some strange void, trying to pick out the most skin covering teenage outfits along with the least business like clothes and not edging into "I remember the 60's" fashions.

Which brings me to another problem. I can't coordinate worth a damn. At least for myself. I think my kids' outfits are just adorable and somehow I figured those out. It's like a block in my head, I can scrapbook but not stamp, I can paint walls but not pictures. My kids look like Martha Stewart dressed them but I'm wearing plaid with polka dots (well not really but you get the idea).

So this casual wardrobe... I can kinda see it in my head but can't seem to find it in the stores. I want nice shirts that don't say "pre-shrunk" on the tag. Pants that aren't always denim. Outfits with which I can wear my new (as of Christmas of last year) brown boots (worn exactly twice and I don't think they really went with the outfit either time).

Magazines are no help, TV fashion shows focus on business women or special occasion outfits, sitcoms have professional wardrobe designers and a budget 100 times larger than mine, and then I thought, look at what other stay at home moms wear! So I began scoping out other moms in my area. And what did the majority of them wear in my informal poll?

A slightly stained t-shirt and jeans from the late 90's that still sort of fit after a pregnancy or two.

*sigh*

Quote of the Day: "I base most of my fashion sense on what doesn't itch." -Gilda Radner

Katie at 8:47 AM

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

I'm one of those people who is more productive when I have a lot of stuff to do. There's probably some logic in that. (Lately I've been trying to prove to Greg I am logical but I was never that great with proofs in algebra.)

For example yesterday all I really needed to do was send a few emails, keep the kitchen clean, and laundry. Well half of the few emails were sent, the kitchen stayed clean but the laundry wasn't done. I think it's easier to put off one or two things but when the to do list is eighty million things long I know I can't put anything off or nothing will get done. Or maybe it's the "crossing off" game. One or two things don't make for much fun when I cross them off my list, it's much more satisfying to cross items off a 10+ list. Or maybe I'm just really good at justifying my laziness. hehe For the record Kyle, Kelly and I had a lovely day playing t-ball on the front lawn yesterday.

And then there's today. I need to go grocery shopping, drop off the dry cleaning, buy cub scout & brownie stuff (luckily they are at the same shop), water the plants (will it ever rain?), laundry, vacuum, and clean the bathrooms. Zach has chess club and cub scouts this evening. Kelly decided today is the day to potty train herself. Oh and did I mention I volunteered to help at the school from 11-1? Weeeee!

So no procrastinating at the computer today. Or knitting. Or wondering why my desk is such a mess (which is what I'm currently doing while I type, I'm multi-tasking!). I must go and do and triumph over the never ending to do list!

(Still here... I think I need to find a less cushy desk chair.)

Katie at 9:08 AM

Monday, September 26, 2005

Thanks for all the birthday wishes!

It was a good day even if it didn't turn out "story book." As we were going to bed, Greg said "I should have made you breakfast in bed and baked a cake and taken you out to dinner and had lots of wrapped presents and..." I made quiche for breakfast (which is so much easier than you would think). Except the kids kinda messed up the edges of the pie crust while I was preparing the filling so it leaked (even over a cookie sheet, guess they weren't lined up) and now I have a mess on the bottom of the oven to clean. Happy Birthday to me! LOL I did have cake, a neighbor dropped off cupcakes as a welcome to the neighborhood gift (but she didn't know it was my birthday). And we couldn't go out to dinner because of the kids' new time for religion classes. (5:30-7, we like to eat dinner at 6pm, kinda annoying)

Present time! The reason I didn't have any wrapped presents is because I didn't know what I wanted. I finally decided on this watch, isn't it beautiful? Thank you dear! Also my mom sent me a Tupperware orange peeler (long story but I did ask for it, hehe) and a gift card and my in-laws sent some nice clothes. I'm going to have to mention my birthday more often beforehand next year because I'm sure the kids would have colored cards if they had known (they like to make cards for every little thing including someone coming over to check the electric meter).

And for the last bit of my birthday day, Greg watched the little 2 while the big 3 were in religion classes. So I spent an hour at Michael's buying yarn. Evil, evil knitting. I know I said I wasn't going to keep knitting but I've only made two scarves and I have five children. Plus little girls in knit ponchos? So cute! But not at $25+ a poncho. I'm attempting this pattern (a bit smaller and different yarn). It'll give me something to do in between the 3 C's: cleaning, cooking, and chauffeuring. hehe

Katie at 9:06 AM

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Your Birthdate: September 25

Your birth on the 25th day of the month (7 energy) modifies your life path by giving you some special interest in technical, scientific, or other complex and often hard to understand subjects.
You may become something of a perfectionist and a stickler for details.
Your thinking is logical and intuitive, rational and responsible.

Your feelings may run deep, but you are not very likely to let them show.
This birthday makes you a more private person, more introspective and perhaps more inflexible.
In friendships you are very cautious and reserved.
You are probably inventive, and given to unique approaches and solutions.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

So 28... One more year until 29. And then at least 5 more years of being 29. *winks*

Quote of the Day: "A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age." -Robert Frost

Katie at 8:15 AM

Friday, September 23, 2005

I knew when we moved here to the land of $600,000 homes and a Lexus in every other driveway that things would be different. But what I didn't expect was how freaking hard it would be to find a babysitter. Why do you ask?

Because everyone seems to have a nanny.

A typical exchange on my babysitter hunt goes something like this:

New Neighbor: Hi, welcome to the neighborhood! Is there anything you need help with?
Me: Thanks, it's wonderful here! *slight pause* Well I'm trying to find a babysitter. You can't just look those up in the phone book, you know! *nervous laugh*
New Neighbor: *blank stare* We have a nanny. *end of conversation*

Or...

The side effect of living where people can afford over half a million dollar homes and new Cadillac SUV's is that their teenage daughters don't need jobs. You remember how some people thought we were being cheap paying our babysitter in Ohio $10 an hour? That's because if we paid her anymore, her parents would have been offering to watch the kids. Gotta love small Midwest towns where the majority of the population makes minimum wage.

So we don't need a nanny (I'm a stay at home mom for a reason!) and there are no neighborhood teenage girls who are willing to give up their Friday nights to make $50. Actually I take that back, we did get a flyer tucked into our mailbox from two sisters (twelve and fourteen years old) who are looking for babysitting jobs. Twelve is not a teenager. Twelve is only 4 years older than Zach. I suppose we could hire them both at the same time but $20 an hour to go out without 5 kids? I'll wait for the movie to come out on dvd and order delivery.

I know there has to be some nice 16+ year old out there and trust me, I'm practically stalking every person I meet. Neighbors, nice church lady, parents at the school's open house, new therapist (like how I sneaked that one in?), Girl Scout leaders... Greg thinks I missed a good opportunity during the PTA's Market Day on Wednesday but first, Market Day is 2 hours of intense box lifting, sorting, and waiting on customers and second, those moms probably all have nannies too. Next PTA function, I'll hit up all the parents just in case.

So here I am... "I'm looking for a babysitter, do you know anyone who might be interested?"

Katie at 10:07 AM

Thursday, September 22, 2005

I was in the crafting zone yesterday! First I painted 5 little boxes to serve as the kids' piggy banks. ($2 boxes x 5 plus $10 in paint and brushes, so much cheaper that 5 "real" piggy banks.) I've never painted as a hobby (walls don't count, I suppose) so I was a bit nervous about how they would turn out. Kelly's is purple with the pink bunny and spots, Em wanted purple with hearts, Ally wanted pink with flowers, Kyle wanted green with Stitch (the box is pictured on its back so you can see Stitch on the front), and Zach asked for blue with a shark on top and yellow and red fish on the sides.

And then I gave knitting another try. I've tried before and didn't feel like I was getting the stitches quite right. And plus the projects I tried were very time consuming and I like quick results. So I was in Target the other day and I overheard one lady by a clearance end cap, you can't even buy yarn for that price. Being the frugal person I am (haha!), I had to check it out. The "Knit This" kits were only $2.50, normally priced $15! The kit includes yarn, needles, instructions, and most importantly a dvd that walks you though all the stitches (several times from different angles). And since like the lady said, you can't even buy yarn for that price, I bought two scarf kits. Here's Kelly wearing the blue, the other is purple (the scarf has a little hole knitted in so one end can be tucked into the other):

I doubt I'll become some great knitter now though. It'll probably be more like my quilting habit, I know how but only do it occasionally when a really great project comes along.

Today's to do list? Enter receipts into Microsoft Money, figure out Maryland's excise taxes, laundry, make a few phone calls to form my Brownie troop, and organize 9 months of digital pictures on my computer. *groans*

Katie at 11:38 AM

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Quote of the Day: "Congratulations! You're not perfect! It's ridiculous to want to be perfect anyway. But then, everybody's ridiculous sometimes, except perfect people. You know what perfect is? Perfect is not eating or drinking or talking or moving a muscle or making even the teensiest mistake. Perfect is never doing anything wrong - which means never doing anything at all. Perfect is boring! So you're not perfect! Wonderful! Have fun! Eat things that give you bad breath! Trip over your own shoelaces! Laugh! Let somebody else laugh at you! Perfect people never do any of those things. All they do is sit around and sip weak tea and think about how perfect they are. But they're really not one-hundred-percent perfect anyway. You should see them when they get the hiccups! Phooey! Who needs 'em? You can drink pickle juice and imitate gorillas and do silly dances and sing stupid songs and wear funny hats and be as imperfect as you please and still be a good person. Good people are hard to find nowadays. And they're a lot more fun than perfect people any day of the week." -Stephen Manes, Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days!

Katie at 10:39 AM

Monday, September 19, 2005

Anti-Procrastination Day

So far I've taken out the trash, cleaned the guinea pig cage (which probably should have been done before taking out the trash, I'm an idiot), watered all the plants outside because we haven't seen a drop of rain since August 16th, emptied the dishwasher, sorted & started 3 loads of laundry, swept the entire basement, and have begun the Toy Room Purge. Which hasn't been done for like 5 months. Yes, I moved a ton of toys I probably should have pitched or donated but remember how I had like one week to pack everything up? Yeah, fun times. Let's not do that ever again!

So back to the Toy Room. Which has gone from one little 10'x12' room to an entire basement. And you know how gases expand to fill their containers? Interestingly enough, so do toys. Again this probably should have been done before taking out the trash but whatever. I said it was anti-procrastination day, not "do everything in an intelligent and logical order" day.

Quote of the Day: "Researchers at Harvard say that taking a power nap for an hour in the afternoon can totally refresh you. They say that by the time you wake up you'll feel so good, you'll be able to start looking for a new job." -Jay Leno

Katie at 11:03 AM

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Because you can't sell children on eBay anymore

Okay so I don't like to totally pimp out the blog with advertisements. I did add a couple of the "Ads That Shall Not Be Named" (rhymes with Woogle if you aren't familiar with Busy Mom) to each of the pages here and have made buco bucks! As in $7.03 Total. In 3 1/2 months. Don't spend it all in one place, I know. hehe I thought about taking them down but they are amusing sometimes so I'll let them stay.

Also there's an Amazon.com search link here. Which is kicking Woogle's butt because I've made $7.18 through them. So if you want to order something from Amazon.com, free feel to click through my link and maybe I'll eventually earn a book on mushrooms species

Next there's my web host, Bluehost.com I love them to pieces, very reliable and affordable. And they have blue in their name! (I'm a wee bit obsessed with blue if you hadn't noticed.) I receive $65 per new sign up on a click through from my site and I'm thrilled to say I've actually had one! Although they haven't cut me a check yet, I need to figure out why eventually.

(The end is near on this money making promotion, I promise.)

So remember when you used to sign up for all sorts of freebies and contests online and all that happened was your email inbox became full of junk? I actually found a site that is genuine and spam free: ClubMom. There are coupons and discounts on normal every day items that people buy plus a "point" balance you can earn for gift certificates, spa items, etc. I just received 2,000 points for signing up with NetFlix through their site and that's worth a year magazine subscription from their rewards catalog. They have a lot of popular stores in their "mall" (Gap, The Children's Place, Office Depot, Target, Disney, Barnes and Noble) so if you shop online much, I think it's worth it to sign up and click through their site to shop and earn reward points.

And now you're thinking, how much is this going to cost me? Absolutely nothing! Plus there are articles, message boards, contests, and more. I however make a whole $.50 per sign up. hehe So I'm really not as concerned with the money as telling you about a cool site that has the potential to save you money and earn rewards for stuff you buy online anyway. They have some nifty promotion banners but I will rarely bother you with them after today.

See now that wasn't as bad as a 6 hour hard sell for time shares to receive a free hotel stay, was it?

Katie at 2:08 PM

Friday, September 16, 2005

I spoke too soon. Emily had a complete meltdown at soccer practice yesterday. I ignored the first little whining bit (the coach calmed her down quickly) but the second time she started screaming at her team mates and crying to beat the band. So I yanked her off the field as fast as you can say Mia Hamm and she spent the rest of practice (50 minutes of a hour) in the van. (She was forewarned this would happen if she acted up.)

It's frustrating, all the other kids (and Ally for the most part) play because they like soccer and seem to have fun during practice. Emily's like some extremely competitive freak perfectionist and whines/cries/screams when things aren't going exactly her way. Her "way" seems to be she has the ball and if she doesn't they better be passing it to her now, no one can dare take it away from her, her goal shot has to go in just so and no one better block it. Maybe team sports aren't her thing? Or she's still too immature for this? But then why was she okay playing soccer last year? Help?

Katie at 8:57 AM

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Our new schedule is slowly coming together. I managed to get Zach into chess club after being on a waiting list. I know, chess club? But of all the after school activities offered at the school (Spanish, Gardening, Dance, Piano, Drama, and more), it filled up first. Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

Em and Ally are doing better in soccer. I know I didn't mention it before but they were dreadful at their first two practices. Crying and whining and generally acting like 2 year olds.

"I didn't kick the ball far enough, it didn't go the way I wanted, I don't understand the drill, she blocked my goal, she didn't pass the ball to me, I want to play goalie (Ally), I don't want to play goalie (Emily), my shin guards are hurting my legs," etc.

The coach wouldn't let me step in either. So after the 2nd and worst practice, we had a serious talk. This behavior stops now or you will not be playing soccer this year. The frugal part of me cringed at possibly throwing away $$$ in soccer fees and gear. Then we went to positive reinforcement. What do you do when you fall down? Get up. What do you do when someone takes the ball away? Get it back. Their game on Saturday went really well! I could see them tiring and almost whining but I shouted encouraging words at the right times. They made it through without a single meltdown and at the end both said they had a lot of fun. Whew!

We're still looking into ice hockey for Zach. Right now practice conflicts with religion classes but we may be able to switch religion class time. I think this will be the telling year if he sticks with ice hockey or not. He's not the best skater but he loves to play defense and goalie. Next year will involve try outs so we'll see how much he improves and if he still likes the game.

Brownies/Cub Scouts: I'm officially a Brownie leader. And I'm in way over my head already. Ha! I missed the monthly leaders meeting yesterday because I saw the main leader lady's email about it this morning and we also had 1st Grade Open House at school last night anyway. The cool thing that Greg pointed out is at least I'll be able to pick the date/time for the meetings. We have two possible packs for Zach's Cub Scouts, one meets at our church, the other meets at our school. We'll probably pick the pack that doesn't conflict with anything else.

I joined the PTA and am helping with Market Day once a month again. I filled out their volunteer form for a few other things that I may be able to help with but haven't heard anything back. With the kids' schedule and my new gig as a Brownies leader (do I have to wear the goofy uniform? Eek, maybe I should rethink this...), minimal PTA work will probably be it for me.

I'm thinking Kyle and Kelly will never be allowed to be in anything.

Katie at 10:25 AM

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

I'm feeling 100% better today, weee! So to celebrate I'm drilling a hole into our checking account and letting all the money flow out. $60 for chess club, $15 for PTA dues, $$ for the PTA birthday book program, $$ for the Innisbrook wrapping paper fundraiser, $$ for the twin's soccer pictures, $$$ for hockey, etc. Oh and the usual bills. I haven't received any utility statements for the new house yet, I wonder if I should be worried. I did set up the accounts back in July and we still have electricity and water so... *shrugs*

Katie at 9:09 AM

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Hmm, I think I just accidentally volunteered to be a Brownie leader (think young Girl Scouts) for 8 girls (including Em and Ally).

(Still feeling a bit icky and space cadet-ish, thanks for asking.)

Katie at 1:51 PM

Monday, September 12, 2005

I can never decide if it's better to suffer through a head cold and runny nose or take Dayquil to ease the symptoms but then deal with being a space cadet. For lunch today: chicken noodle soup.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes for Kyle, he's the bestest 4 year old boy I know. :)

Quote of the Day: "Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon." -Doug Larson

Katie at 8:25 AM

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Happy 4th Birthday Kyle!

(pictures from last week's impromptu birthday party while the in-laws were here)

Yes, he was born on 9/11/01. I wrote a bit about it last year here. (Sorry the pictures are gone, see yesterday's post.)

Since he's already received all his gifts (a set of dinosaurs, some Thomas the Tank trains and sets, the Stitch has a Glitch movie, and clothes) and had his requested "cookie cake" seen above (he helped decorate), we'll just make his favorite dinner after having ice cream at a local park. Odd as it may be, the weather has been perfect on every September 11th since, we've always spent his birthday outside.

Happy Birthday Kyle, Happy Birthday Grandpa (his 71st), Happy Birthday Dr. Scott (the kids' pediatrician in Ohio), Happy Anniversary Maggie and Jason.

Katie at 9:48 AM

Saturday, September 10, 2005

In case anyone has been clicking on archives or other pages here, yes I know I'm getting the dreaded "picture not found" red X's. I hosted a lot of my pictures through Delphi forums before I bought my domain space at bluehost.com A long story short, Delphi sucks. But since that would make a short blog post as well, you get the long story too! (Cause I'm just nice like that.)

I used to be a big online forum chick from 2000 to late last year (and then the blogging bug took completely over but that's another story). Delphi was my forum center of choice and to get their "extras" you had to be a paid member which also included 5mb of picture hosting space. So Delphi billed my debit Visa card every quarter for the "extras" and hosting space. Well earlier this summer some place where I used that Visa card got hacked so the bank canceled and re-issued it (without telling me first which made for an interesting trip at the grocery store). Then we moved to Maryland, blah, blah, blah, and since I wasn't visiting forums anymore I forgot to update my billing info there.

I realized yesterday when flipping through a few of my archive pages with red X's that my August Delphi payment probably wasn't made. So I raced over to Delphi, paid my $14.95, and entered the picture hosting area. All gone. Almost 2 years worth of random blog pictures dumped. And without any warning of course (my hotmail address was on file, a nice email that my credit card was declined and my pictures were going to be deleted might have been helpful). Since it's been a month and Delphi's customer service generally bites the big one, I'm not putting any stock in retrieving those pictures from their system. But I am however canceling my account and demanding my $14.95 back. Cause you know that's like 3 gallons of gas nowadays.

So there's another thing to add to my to do list: find the backups of all my pictures, upload them, go through 2 years worth of blog posts and fix the code to the new picture addresses. Don't mind me, I'll just be jabbing rusty nails into my eyes balls.

Katie at 8:17 AM

Friday, September 09, 2005

Weirdness...

Seems my friend Sherry and I have been linked in an online Canadian magazine article about stay at home moms. Here's the original article in French, Mamans a la maison - Les nouvelles rebelles. I used Babel Fish to translate the title, subtitle, and first paragraph to this:

MOMS AT THE HOME - NEW REBELS
Formerly, they incarnated the tender with ambient conformism. Today, they became rebels, living with counter-current in a world which runs

FAMILIES AVANT-GARDISTES
The mom-with-the-house also weave their fabric in Internet, where they share their tricks, councils, addresses and expertise by means of the blogists, these intimate diaries which do not save any detail to us cocasse their days filled well. The " soccer mom " of seven boys and her girlfriend who has " only " five children leave their domestic anonymity and their workshops of scrapbooking for bloguer to L'hour the nap.

"Only" five children? hehe Anyway the article goes on to talk about a book and how the interviewed stay at home moms feel that giving up their career/extra income was worth it to be home with their children. Stay at home dads are briefly mentioned as well.

It's not CNN but I'll take it. *winks*

Katie at 9:53 AM

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Weekly House Cleaning Day!

Since you all probably don't want to join in on that fun, here's a question: if you could be any animal in the world, what would you be and why?

I would be a duck. Because then I could fly, swim, and walk, the best of all worlds. And I could quack. Quack, quack, quack. I like Mallard ducks although it sucks that the males have the pretty green feathers and the females are only boring spotty brown.

And now that I am done being all 1st grade homework assignment-ish, I'll go back to scrubbing toilets.

Quote of the Day: "Rubber Duckie, you're the one. You make bath time lots of fun. Rubber Duckie, I'm awfully fond of you!" -Ernie

Katie at 11:01 AM

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Why when I cross one thing off my to do list, five more appear? I think my dayplanner may be possessed.

Quote of the Day: "I have... had a disturbing dream in which I break through a cave wall near Nag Hammadi and discover urns full of ancient Coptic scrolls. As I unfurl the first scroll, a subscription card to some Gnostic exercise magazine flutters out." -Colin McEnroe

Katie at 12:45 PM

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Random stuff I learned over the weekend:

Shipping 120 rolls of pork sausage from Maryland to Ohio is not as easy as you would think.*

I now know where to buy dry ice locally.

And to include special black and white diamond shaped safety stickers on FedEx packages when shipping dry ice.

Because dry ice is considered a hazardous material.

And if you don't include the special black and white diamond shaped safety stickers, FedEx will take them from the FedEx drop off point on Friday to the warehouse but won't put them on the plane for Saturday delivery and then won't tell you where your boxes are until Monday when all the dry ice has sublimed so the 120 rolls of pork sausage are beginning to thaw and the carbonics place is closed because it's Labor Day.

My freezer will hold 120 rolls of pork sausage and very little else.

Grocery stores in Maryland not only do not sell beer, they don't seem to sell birthday party plates/napkins/cups either. So don't plan an impromptu birthday party when all the party supply stores are closed.

I really really miss my digital camera.

A house feels so much more like home with pictures hanging on the walls.

Shopping at IKEA with an interior designer is slow going but definitely worth the cool placemats as a house warming gift at the end.

The secret to my mother-in-law's beef stroganoff is... Ha! I now have her "add *ingredient* until it looks good" recipe in quantitative amounts.

It may be easier to just get rid of the kids' toys instead of buying enough storage pieces to house them all.

A weekend with the in-laws isn't scary at all because I'm lucky and have great in-laws. Even through they iron everything. hehe

* My mother-in-law works for a consumer research company and one of their clients wants to test pork sausage from all over the country. So she agreed to pick up a special brand sold in our area to ship back for testing while she was here. This morning I had the boxes refilled with dry ice and then dropped back off at FedEx. Fingers crossed they actually make it to Ohio this time.

Katie at 3:07 PM

Friday, September 02, 2005

Crap I lost my wallet. I never lose anything! The last stop we made yesterday was JoAnn's Fabric store and I know I had it then because I paid for clear plastic to protect the new kitchen chair fabric seats. So at 9am when they open, I'm going to call and cross my fingers they have it. I've already canceled the two credit cards in my wallet and there was about $40 along with $20 worth of stamps and all my assorted store discount cards in it. But the big kicker is that I spent 2 hours yesterday at the Maryland's DMV to get my new drivers license. Yep you guessed it, it was in my wallet. I know it could be worse, I could have lost my entire house in a hurricane.

Anyway I'm off to the airport to pick up Greg's parents who are spending the weekend with us. No set plans yet other than I hope we don't drive all over creation. Stupid gas prices, stupid hurricane, stupid "I feel so hopeless and wish I could do more than donate money and pray." And on that cheery note, I better get going.

Edit: My wallet was at JoAnn's, woohoo! My in-laws are here safe and sound as well. I hope everyone has a nice Labor Day weekend.

Katie at 8:48 AM

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Philip at The Blue Sloth is beginning his "new year" in September and has invited other bloggers to join him. Back to school time seems like a very good chance to do this. The kids are getting back to "work" and I have 7 hours with just the Little 2 so it's easier for me to complete projects. (I'd tell you about how great Kyle and Kelly are getting along by themselves but I don't want to jinx it.) So without further ado, here's my list:

Scrapbooking: 3 things here, first I'm going to make albums for the kids. The actual album part itself. The cheapy Pioneer brand ones that I've been using are falling apart and it's next to impossible to find any decent 8 1/2"x11" albums without spending a fortune. $50 times 5 kids times 2-3 albums each? I don't think so. Initial cost estimates seem to place making the albums myself at about $7 each. (I have all the page protectors, just need the book to put them in.)
Next I want to catch all the kids' albums up to at least the beginning of 2005. I'm currently working on Oct 2003 and I think once I'm in the groove again, it shouldn't be hard to knock out 10-20 pages a week. I'm guessing I need to do about 200 pages to reach Jan 2005.
The last item (and probably least likely to happen) is scanning my pre-digital photos into the computer and organizing all my pictures into an online album.
Writing: Boy have I ever slacked off on this one. First I'd like to complete my fantasy series, book 2 is almost finished, book 3 is at least halfway and book 1 is maybe 1/4 finished (I'm very backwards). Next I'd like to cobble my Unofficial Guide into something that might be marketable. Yeah yeah, every blogger's dream to be published, lalala. I'm not sure how far I'll push on that but it never hurts to try. Also NaNoWriMo is coming up in November!
Sewing: A bunch of projects here. I need to sew my brother-in-laws suit, a valance for the girls' room, slipcover a chair, line Kelly's denim jacket, and make a bedskirt for the guest room. Halloween costumes are just a month away and I'd like to sew some dressy clothes for the girls before Thanksgiving. There's also the possibility I'll make a quilt for the guest room bed as well.
Random other stuff:
Potty train Kelly.
Update all the pages on this website and create the scrapbook gallery of all the kids' layouts.
Volunteer as much as possible at the kids' school and PTO.
Organize and print nice copies of all my recipes to put in a binder.
Get into a healthy eating and exercise routine.
Read one book a month.

I think that does it. I might update this list a bit over the next few days as I remember items I forgot. My brain and my to do list haven't been meshing as well as they should lately. No idea why... hehe

Katie at 9:16 AM

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