Ramblings of a SAHM

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Wednesday, August 30, 2006

This is good...

I'm feeling pretty content with life at the moment. The kids are adjusting to back to school and I hadn't realized how nice it is to only hear 2 demanding voices instead of 5 most of the day. Plus Kyle and Kelly have always been excellent together by themselves. The addition of either of the twins or sometimes Zach riles the Little 2 up. Sometime it's almost like having the house to myself while Kyle and Kelly play.

So we've been in Maryland for a year now. It's nice to know the area and not feel like "I need ABC and can't find a XYZ place to buy it." While the only person I was really making friends with moved over the summer (what crappy luck is that?), it was nice to be greeted by several people at the school's open house last Friday. Either that or they just like to see the walking circus show that is my children and me.

Mentally I'm in a good place too. I have several tasks to keep me busy and that also make me happy. The kids are healthy, Greg's employed, the sun is shining... Okay well the sun isn't literally shining, we're actually having an overcast 30% chance of rain type day. But you get the idea, good stuff is happening around here.

And the entire time I've been typing this post, I've been knocking on my wooden desk. Because knowing my luck, a freak hurricane will hit tomorrow, the kids will come down with the chicken pox (they've been vaccinated), and Greg will decide to quit his job and weave bamboo baskets for a living (don't get any ideas, dear). If I could ask for one thing, it would be that Maryland was closer to Ohio and Indiana, I miss our extended families and friends. I guess it's only 8-12 hours, we could be living across an ocean or something. Still it would be nice to share this contentment with more than 6 people.

Quote of the Day: "Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for." -Joseph Addison

Katie at 8:58 AM

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Wow... That went surprisingly well! Go Verizon!

We did drop our home phone line in the switching process. Greg kept pointing out how stupid it is to pay $30-45 a month just to have a local number. I agree it is dumb but I liked having a home phone and a local number (our cell numbers are still Ohio area codes). I hate the occasional cell call that has terrible reception, home lines don't have that problem. And long conversations on cell phones suck because cell phones are all goofy shaped and get hot and cause brain cancer...

There was another point to this post.

Oh yeah, I'm pysched because the Verizon guy showed me how to set the TV parental controls. No more Cartoon Network on the kids' TV! Bwahahahaha!

Katie at 4:20 PM

A quick post before I lose internet connection because we are switching out providers (Comcast to Verizon). I hope things go smoothly so I'll be back tonight.

Yesterday while sewing, I deeply cut the tip of my pinkie with a pair of scissors. My left hand little finger. I figured, eh no big deal, who uses their "wrong hand" pinkie that much anyways? And then I sat down at the computer and realized that's my "A" and "shift" finger. I don't type correctly either and use the left shift button always, never the right one when I capitalize letters. ow, ow, ow...

You want more? Oh poor me and my injury.

The kids' first day went really well! They were thrilled when they came home with "homework" for me to do (filling out new emergency contact cards, etc). I've meet 2 of the 3 teachers and I think we're in for a great year.

Kyle and Kelly also got into the swing of "Home School Pre-School." We worked on the letter "A", colored a bunch of pictures of dinosaurs, and put stickers on spiral notebooks (okay that one doesn't really have anything to do with schooling, I was trying to keep them busy while I sewed). It went well but they were rather upset when we didn't go to recess (travel to a playground is what they wanted). Kyle was sweet and put an apple on my computer desk because "all teachers have an apple on their desk." Aww....

Anyway (okay my finger is bleeding again now) have a lovely Tuesday!

Katie at 8:38 AM

Monday, August 28, 2006

1st Day of School, 2006

Man, 7:30 is really early to get up in the morning (yeah yeah I'm spoiled, don't throw your alarm clocks at me).

Emily, Ally, Zach

So...

Is it 3:30 yet?

Katie at 8:31 AM

Friday, August 25, 2006

After browning 14 pounds of ground beef (I froze 1lb) yesterday, I've decided I really, really need an apron. But I can't decide. Which do you like better? This one or this one?

3 lasagnas, 100 meatballs, 6lbs of sloppy joes mix, 2 shepherd's pies, a mess of stuffed shells and lasagna noodle roll-ups, and homemade spaghetti sauce with meat, I'm thinking like the Chick-fil-A Cows...

"Eat Mor Chikin."

Katie at 9:37 AM

Thursday, August 24, 2006

I just saved a bundle on my car insurance.

No, not really but these week's grocery bill was $175.80 (my budget + $.80). With $35 worth of coupons and store cards, I saved $187.97, 52%. Woohoo! The biggest savings was on ground beef, I bought 15 pounds for $25. ($1.79/lb is cheap around here, it's usually $2.49-$2.99. I've never seen $.99 like I did back in Ohio.) So today I'm doing a mini-30 day freezer gourmet session with beef. Meatballs, lasgnas, shepherd's pie, sloppy joes, and freezing a few pounds by itself for baked zita and chili. (I know taco mix would seem like a good candidate too but the kids don't like tacos.) I hope chicken is on sale next week.

If I didn't lose you all with the boring grocery stuff, here comes the knitting news...

I'm working on the Etsy site for my knitting needle organizer. I plan to have some products made and the store started on Sept 1st. Of course between now and then I have 2 open houses, the 1st Day of School, a doctor's appointment, a Girl Scout meeting, and Verizon techs switching out our Comcast cable stuff. (If they screw up my internet connection, there will be hell to pay.) But I figure at least I'll already have dinner in the freezer!

Quote of the Day: "In Seattle you haven't had enough coffee until you can thread a sewing machine while it's running." -Jeff Bezos

Katie at 9:10 AM

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Auf Wiedersehen!

I think I've been watching way too much Project Runway because I keep hearing Tim Gunn say "it's so boring!"

Anyway the jumpers I've promised the girls for forever are finished. The pattern was super simple and therefore the end result is super boring. I really like the fabric (it's hard to see in the picture, it's a light weight corduroy with a thin silver line) but I wish I had done something a little bit more fun with it. I need to go to JoAnn's later today, maybe I can find something to add a little pizzazz.

The models don't mind (other than they complain the jumpers don't help them "jump" any higher, not a good idea for runway in the first place) and their hair stylist needs to become reacquainted with a hair brush (the middle one must like that "boy look") but I have the feeling the judges will hate it. I'm so "auf-ed."

Katie at 10:16 AM

Monday, August 21, 2006

Nope, the kids still aren't in school. (Although I'm really enjoying everyone else's 1st Day of School pictures.)

Next Monday...

I have mixed feelings about this. While it will be nice to not run errands with 5 children (2 tag-alongs sounds semi-sane), I'm not looking forward to all the rushing around the school year involves. Having been a stay at home mom since the beginning, all the kids being home seems normal. It's times like these when I wish I had the balls to homeschool.

The activities will be starting soon. The other day I received an email to pick up Em, Ally, and Kyle's soccer shorts. Zach's hockey practice will be on Fridays. Slowly our weekly schedule is filling up. I'm not looking forward to quick dinners and hurried homework in the evenings. It's not that the kids do that much (and I'm totally breaking my joke of "Kyle and Kelly aren't allowed to do anything" because Kyle is in soccer now). But after a summer of no where to be, no time to be there, a Friday hockey practice at 5:30 seems like a huge road stop in the week. (I haven't heard from the soccer coaches yet.)

The ironic thing is that I personally have to send out emails and add stress to other parents' schedules. Brownie Girl Scouts! I have a co-leader this year and I'm not sure how much I'm going to like this. "My" troop is now "our" troop. It'll be interesting...

So I'm going to enjoy this last week as much as possible. We don't have anything planned and I like it that way. Em and Ally have put together a brown paper bag puppet show, Kyle and Kelly are coloring in Christmas themed coloring books (gah, don't even mention Christmas!), and Zach has challenged me to another game of Clue (I'm so glad we are past Candyland). I look forward to hearing "I'm bored!" My answer will be:

Good. Enjoy it.

Katie at 9:21 AM

Friday, August 18, 2006

I've been trying to type out my grocery shopping post but it is getting way, way too long. I think I have some good hints and tips plus I'd love to hear some feedback on what works for you as well. So it'll get published here eventually, I just need to figure out a decent format so it's not 10,000 words long.

In the time being, I will give you a summary on what I saved this week by taking an hour to "shop the sale ads", make a weekly menu, and clip/match up a few coupons beforehand. For the record, I used to be great at the "grocery game" back in Ohio. But I've slacked off here in Maryland to the point that I've been shopping at one store (Safeway) without checking the sales ad first and using maybe $5 worth of paper coupons if I remembered them. Also this week the pantry was really bare with no meat stocked up in the freezer and I needed some household stuff (batteries, trash bags, etc).

Giant: spent $56.60, saved $45.35 ($11.05 paper coupons, $34.40 sales), percent saved 45% Highlights: 200 tea bags for $4, 3 jars spaghetti sauce at $1 each, two 4lb bottles of Heinz ketchup for $6 total plus a pound of free hamburger, 4lbs of pork chops for $6

CVS: spent $15.66, saved $13.99 ($7.10 paper coupons, $6.89 sales), percent saved 48% Highlights: 16 Duracell AA batteries for $6, 2 big boxes of band-aids for $4

Costco: spent $17.78 I have to throw in my "you don't have to have a warehouse membership to save" speech here. The big reason I went to Costco this week is because I'm doing my own version of a price book (except not that extreme, will explain in a moment). I know it is completely possible to combine regular store sales with coupons to get a cheaper price than a warehouse store's bulk rate. I can check both Safeway and Giant online so I needed to write down all Costco's prices to compare at home. I think I will be shopping at Costco more since they make buying in bulk easy ("easy" can be worth more than "savings" sometimes) and I will need "bulk" when I cook 30 meals in 1 day. So what did I buy? 300 kid vitamins for $10.89 and a big box of the new Fruity Cheerios at $6.89 so the kids would have something to be excited about while I wrote down prices.

Safeway: spent $176.00, saved $66.18 ($8.00 coupons, $58.18 sales), percent saved 28% Highlights: 6lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $11, 10 boxes Kraft mac-n-cheese for $5. Like I said, I didn't have much stocked up so this wasn't a huge "savings" trip, more like a normal "we need food to eat" trip with a few coupons thrown in.

Total spent: $265.52, total saved: $140.52, $26.15 in paper coupons (figuring $15 savings at Costco) Also none of the above stores offer double coupons.

So without trying very hard and with nothing stocked up, I managed to save 35%. Next week my goal is 40%!

Katie at 1:04 AM

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Since I'm a lemming and like to follow the trends of the internet world, I'm back to couponing and store ad reading. Err, I mean I'm trying to save money and eat better and therefore shopping more wisely. But I'll go into my version tomorrow (mostly because I need to go to one more store before I can show you my savings this week). Today I want to discuss Freecycle!

I like the concept, you post about a gently used or new item that you no longer need and people in your area can email you and then you can give it to them (and they usually pick it up too, no mailing costs. Free!). Kinda like "Random Acts of Kindness" without the random. I decided to give it a try because eBay's seller fees are looking way too expensive and the items I have would probably sell for next to nothing in the first place. And I still haven't found a local Goodwill store.

So I have these unopened printer ink cartridges. 3 of them, two color and one black. The printer was Greg's and I think it was struck by lightening or fed too many peanut butter sandwiches. Anyway we don't have a printer for the cartridges and on eBay, some crazy power seller has them on Buy It Now at about $1.05 each. (After eBay fees, I think they are losing about $.95 per item.) I have no idea where we bought these either, it was in Ohio and therefore over a year ago and oh lord, don't make me look through our boxes and boxes of receipts.

Therefore Freecycle seems to be the perfect place for this! I signed up for the local group and made my offer exactly as they suggest (I received like 6 long emails with the rules and guidelines and "don't let strangers into your house" warnings). I figured I'd hear from someone in a few days and then pass the items along and be happy that they aren't under my desk anymore and I'm doing my itty bitty part to reduce waste in landfills.

Imagine my shock when I received 15 emails overnight. Huh? Now I have to choose... And the confusing part is that some of the emails are "I'll take one color so I'm not hogging them both" and then another was "I could really use the black one only" and another "I'd love to have both color ones so I can have some fun printing." (I can't say I've ever found printing "fun" but maybe I'm just weird.)

"Oh oh! Pick me, pick me!"

So do I spread out the Freecycle love and give 1 cartridge each to 3 different people? Or make it less confusing for myself with pick-up schedules and give all 3 to say, email #7 on the list? This is kinda freaking me out and making me not want to post anything else on Freecycle because my Libra tendencies show, I.can't.decide.please.don't.make.me.choose.ACK!

To be honest the real reason I joined Freecycle (obviously before I realized how stressful it would be), was for the slim chance that someone offers a freezer. Cause with all the stocking up on sale that I plan to do in my new "save money on groceries" and "30 Day Freezer Gourmet" goals, I need more space. But I'm thinking that if I received 15 emails overnight on stupid printer cartridges, there's no way I'm ever getting a freezer this way. (Saving the money I save on groceries to buy a new freezer is probably the most reasonable plan at the moment.)

Email #9 maybe? Or the one who is closest? Or didn't capitalized the beginnings of sentences? Gah...

Katie at 11:39 AM

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Repeat after me:

It's only hair, it'll grow back. It's only hair, it'll grow back...

*sigh*

Unlike last time, Kyle was the one cutting her hair yesterday. Ally had asked to use the scissors and didn't put them away and I completely forgot about them while steam cleaning the upstairs carpet (my life is so glamorous). Why Kelly let Kyle cut off her beautiful curls in the first place is beyond me. And the girl's hair grows slower than a drunk slug traveling through molasses so it's going to look awful for quite awhile. *sigh*

Katie at 10:48 AM

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

To our garbage pick up people:

Thank you for taking away our trash every week. We really appreciate it especially on the rare Monday morning when we stack boxes and boxes of "why did we move this from Ohio?" crap alongside the curb with our normal 2 cans and 2 bags.

However... A basketball that rolled under the bush near the curb and trash cans is not trash.* Especially not an imported from Cincinnati 2005 Skyline Chili Crosstown Shootout basketball that I bought because 1. it's from Skyline (one of our favorite restaurants and we miss it so much that I flew 10 cans of chili back to Maryland last October), 2. I went to Xavier University, Greg went to UC (Xavier won the game last year, na-na!), 3. I grew up in Indiana where you are born with a basketball in your hand (it makes for interesting deliveries but can't be avoided, Hoosier law).

If you had taken a second to look around the yard, you would have seen scooters, soccer balls, plain basketballs, bikes, and inside toys that are brought outside even though I yell all the time "do not take these toys outside!" Therefore it would be easy to assume that my kids don't know how to clean up after themselves and the basketball was not trash, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.** If you really want to trash items from our yard, how about the empty juice boxes and granola bar wrappers instead?

Thank you for your attention in this matter and I hope it will not happen again.

* Now if you stole my basketball, I'm going to stop double bagging the really gross stinky leaky trash and leave it outside in the 90 degree heat for a week or two. Don't mess with me and Skyline/Xavier/Hoosier-basketball-roots.

** We know the garbage people took it and it's not just lost because Zach tearfully admitted to leaving it under the bush Sunday night and then couldn't find it Monday afternoon (it's his favorite ball too).

Katie at 11:56 AM

Monday, August 14, 2006

The weekend was fun although it started painfully. Friday at lunchtime I managed to pinch a nerve in my neck and therefore couldn't move my neck or shoulders without severe pain. I popped too many pills to count and spent most of the day curled up with a heating pad on my upper back. Friday's to do list quickly went down the drain... Oh, how did I pinch the nerve? Get this, I was flipping my hair over my shoulder after changing shirts. Only I could injure myself getting dressed. *sigh*

Saturday I was feeling much better so I was able to go shopping at the fabric and scrapbook stores (Friday's plans). Sunday we went to a local forest preserve for a walk. As Kelly puts it, "we're a hiking family."

Then there's today. Thank you to all the volunteers who agreed to look at my knitting organizer. I actually threw together a 3rd one this morning. I need to take pictures, write up the information and questions, and send out the email. If you don't get it by oh, 10-ish eastern time this evening, leave a comment because I probably got your email address wrong.

Also today there's laundry to do, groceries to buy, drycleaning to drop off, garage organizing to do, bathrooms to clean... Anyone perfected that 27 hour day yet?

Katie at 2:16 PM

Friday, August 11, 2006

American Inventor, katiefleck style

I have this idea. Except I don't know if it's any good or not. I'm really new to knitting and you all know I have this thing about organization. I had this drawer full of circular needles and double points and straights. And it was messy and hard to find the right size needle when I needed it. I also hated how the circulars curled back up while laying flat. I started searching online for an organizer to hang the circulars and hold my other needles as well. And nothing available was even close to what I wanted. (Do you see where this is going yet?) A quick trip to JoAnn's, several minutes with a calculator, a few hours with the sewing machine, and I made my own organizer!

Greg thinks with a few improvements, I could sell the organizer. But since there's nothing like my idea out there (that I've found), I'm nervous about showing it online at the moment because I'd rather not have someone steal it. (Course I have like 2 knitting readers? Who also sew?) But I want opinions. On whether or not a knitter would buy it. And what modifications they'd suggest. What color would they like? What price would they pay? Would they want a matching knitting tote for yarn and projects? How much would they additionally pay for that?

If I get some positive feedback, then comes the marketing aspect. I really like Etsy.com (like eBay but for crafters) because the site already has a large following. Setting up a new website is an option especially if there's a demand for matching totes or custom orders.

I would like to have a focus group before I go forward. If you don't knit but feel that you could give an opinion on the subject, I'll send you the information and questionnaire too. If you join the group, I'm offering a 10% discount on your purchase of the knitting organizer (to you non-knitters, my heart-felt gratitude). Leave me a comment with your email address if you'd like to help. Look for the email on Monday, I'm going to make a second prototype over the weekend. THANKS!

Katie at 10:14 AM

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Today is Zach's 9th birthday! So we're off to the grocery store and then do some laundry. Oh wait, that's my to do list.

For Zach, we're going to Barnes and Nobles to use his birthday gift card and Fuddruckers for dinner. The birthday cake will be a chocolate pudding pie (his request). Pictures later!

I can't believe he's 9...

Katie at 9:50 AM

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Does anyone else have the separate To Do list with all the junk that you know needs to be done but you really don't want to do? I've been trying to hack and slash through mine but sheesh, I'd rather be scrapbooking. Or knitting. Or grocery shopping with 5 children.

Yesterday I crossed "Greg's shirt buttons" off the list (he bought a couple of new dress shirts that really needed another button hole and button at the bottom to tuck in "right" and I know I totally could have paid the dry cleaners to do it but hey, I'm cheap).

Today I will attempt to cross off "steam clean Kyle's mattress" (he's still having bed wetting accidents a couple of times a week and yeah, I have a plastic cover on his bed, I don't get it either). And while it's out, I should run the steam cleaner over the guest room carpet (Kelly spilt clear nail polish on it) and the big sofa is beginning to look a bit dingy.

Other stuff on the crappy I-don't-wanna-do-it To Do list:

"wash tarps" (our camping ones, covered in dirt from Girl Scout and Boy Scout camp)

"dermatologist appt" (a mole of mine has kinda changed shape and size, my mom has a benign cancerous one removed so I really shouldn't put this off. But I am...)

"mail rebates" (some software Greg bought, I'll claim the money if I deal with this)

"sew jumpers" (the same jumpers I was suppose to make last fall for the girls)

"eBay items" (you know, that stack of random "new" stuff that you can't return to the store anymore but there's not enough for a garage sale and I should probably just donate it all to Goodwill except I can't find one in Maryland)

"order GS checks" (my Girl Scout Brownie troop treasurer moved so until someone else volunteers, I need to do this. I do have a co-leader for the year but she doesn't want to handle the money aspect. I have to go into the bank because I can't put a street address on the checks and all the online check order sites mail them to the address on the checks, doh.)

"find my writing muse" (just kidding. sorta...)

Katie at 12:57 PM

Monday, August 07, 2006

Things that make me smile right now:

The weather "cooling off" (high today 91F/32C), woohoo!
Scrapbooking... I'm finally over the hump of Christmas 2003 and all that red and green. I'm loving the spring and summer colors I've picked out for some 2004 pictures.
Greg waking me up and hugging me when I had a bad dream the other day.
The kids playing Dance, Dance, Revolution.
An email from my sister.
Soccer and hockey for the kids will be starting again soon (although this may be making me grumpy a few weeks in, hehe).
My squeaky guinea pigs.
Em and Ally decorating a "Family Flag", creating a "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" game (using double sided tape for the tail), and making half a dozen cards in preparation for Zach's upcoming birthday.
Hot tea with milk and sugar.
Reading Time: the kids have taken to curling up with me on the sofa to read books after dinner. All the struggles with the twins learning to read were so worth it now.
Kelly snuggles.
"Birthday Season" (6 of the 7 of us have birthdays in the next few months).
Driving with the windows down and good music playing.
Blog comments (hint, hint).

So what's made you smile lately?

Katie at 10:44 AM

Friday, August 04, 2006

The kids are still alive, the library book is still missing, but the house is really clean. Except for the spots on the carpet because I ran out of "pissed off" energy before I could get to those. But the bathrooms are scrubbed, the floors vacuumed/swept/mopped, the toys put away, etc. Although I'm wondering why I didn't do laundry because the basket is overflowing. Stupid yesterday self...

We didn't have delivery pizza last night, I ordered Chinese instead. After paying the bill, I remembered why I don't order Chinese more often. $52.17... EEK! But it was very good and probably explains why this morning I weigh:

138 pounds

What the hell? What's the point of working hard to lose weight if it comes back when you are not looking? I stop posting my weight weekly here and I gained 5 pounds. Okay, okay I know that's not really the reason. It's because I let my Mountain Dew habit go back above one 12oz can a day (more like two 20oz bottles or three 12oz cans, lord that's like 600 calories or half my daily suggested intake). Plus there's the little fact that I've worked out at the gym exactly once since the beginning of July. *best Napoleon Dynamite voice* Idiot!

So I apologize in advance but obviously in some strange way that should probably be diagnosed by a professional head shrink, I need the weekly public weigh-ins to hold me accountable. The goal is 10 pounds. I will see a 1 and a 2 next to each other on the scale again! Although at the proven rate that I lose weight, that'll take me 12 weeks. Why can't lettuce taste like chocolate? *sigh*

Quote of the Day: "Avoid any diet that discourages the use of hot fudge." -Don Kardong

Katie at 10:12 AM

Thursday, August 03, 2006

I'm losing it again.

Motherhood is not pretty. Especially not in August.

The kids... The house...

The kids want to do fun things. But they make it so difficult. For example today: "Get together your library books, we'll go to the library." And they can't find one book. (Before you suggest it, yes I do have a designated spot for library books. Seems to work about as well as putting ribbons on frogs.) So I help them look for it. I can't find it. And meantime Ally's now watching TV and Kyle and Kelly are dumping the new school glue all over the furniture. WHY?!?!?

I want a clean house, I need the clean house. And yet the kids do everything they can to keep this from happening. Can't they see that the more messes they make takes time away from the fun stuff we could be doing because I have to clean up? And for the love of pete, when I tell them to put away their stuff so we can go somewhere, why does it take hours and so much arguing to pick up a dozen toys that would take me 5 minutes?

And the fights... This one drives me nuts. Em and Ally can pinch, smack, and kick each other all day long but the second Kyle bumps one of them, they are screaming bloody murder. Emily's the worst, she had this screeching fake cry she's been using that will stop the instant she's distracted by something else or if I don't answer quick enough. Why must they pick on each other so much? Is it really that much fun to hurt each other and then yell about it? I don't understand.

Everything seems to be backfiring on me: today's library trip (probably not happening now, I have to make sure I have all the glue cleaned up and they still haven't found the book, they probably aren't even looking), the IKEA's playroom, and don't get me started on yesterday's grocery shopping. Ally holding her nose and making gross comments through the produce aisle, Kelly knocking over a display of apples and then knocking over several glass jars of applesauce (I don't know how but none broke), Kyle climbing into the meat coolers, and Zach deciding halfway through the store that we must be done and starting towards the deli for the free sample cookie. (Emily was at the learning center.)

It's like why do I even bother? I should just let them watch TV and play video games all day. I'll get rid of all the toys so they don't have to pick them up, I'll go to the library by myself (man, I really wanted to go to the library today), and they can eat delivery pizza on paper plates for every meal.

It's not that I need the kids to go away. I need them to understand. I don't know how else to teach them that hitting is not good even though I say and do all day long: "Hitting is not good, you will get in trouble and go to time-out/lose computer privileges/etc." I need them to understand that throwing their toys all over the freaking house is not the way to get me to take them to the children's museum. And why is it so difficult to brush their teeth without completely destroying the bathroom every night?

Today I'm just so tired of trying. There are spots on the carpet I just cleaned, the kitchen floor needs mopped again minutes after I finished, and we can't even make it out of the house because Emily called Kyle a baby and he hit her and he's now sitting on his bed in time-out and Kelly peed in her underwear.

25 more days until school starts. And I'm beginning to think that $8865 a year is very reasonable for preschool.

Katie at 3:48 PM

Some random pictures...

My kids and Kristy's Mia. You can see more pictures from Kristy here and read about their trip to Baltimore here. Oh and my kids are dressed all goofy because they were putting on a fashion show for our guests.

The Christmas Stocking I mentioned. I suppose it's not technically finished as I still need to do the little loopy thing to hang it by and also the red area will have someone's name stitched in. I think the next ones will have a longer "leg" area.

My Scrapbook Mess. Although it's all put away now and I've taken over the dining room table (since my computer desk will probably never ever be clear again) to finish Christmas 2003. 2004 pictures here I come!

Now then, anyone have a spare bottle of motivation?

Katie at 9:27 AM

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Yesterday was a rough day. After lunch I had a terrible migraine and then almost forgot to pick Greg up at work. I hate migraines and the medicine makes me spacy (hence almost forgetting to go get Greg). Poor Zach had a stomach bug last night too. He and Greg blame my spaghetti for dinner but I'm going with the flu instead. So far today, no health woes from anybody.

Therefore I'm cleaning up the computers (mine and the kids'). I've already spent most of the morning on the kids' computer, deleting old programs and running spybot and adware programs. Currently it's defraging which is taking forever... Then I need to reload some java scripts so Zach can play Club Pogo without getting on my computer. Not that my computer is running so well lately either. I actually compressed air'ed and vacuumed the dust out of the case itself and checked my virus/spy/adware stuff too. But I did a stupid thing last week. I ran Microsoft Update even though several friends have been hit with the "Genuine Windows" thing. And for the record... Well we have legit copies of Windows XP Pro and Home editions. I just don't happen to have one on my PC... *waits for Big Brother to strike and destroy the computer*

In more fun news, I'm also cleaning up my scrapbook stuff. I just kinda piled it all into a cabinet after the crop I attended in May. One of these days I'll finish Christmas 2003...

Quote of the Day: "Heat, ma'am! It was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones." -Sydney Smith

Katie at 11:38 AM

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

To the wench at IKEA bragging about how she didn't let her daughter go to the restroom so that she was able to beat us in line to get her children into the child play area and I would have to wait an hour*, fuck you. I understand that theoretically you were first as you stepped up in front of us while my kids were taking off their sandals. But you went a little too far when you went on and on about how you almost had to wait an hour and now you didn't and "praise Jesus!" while my kids' expressions turned sad because all they wanted to do was play in the ball area and color IKEA pictures for a little while today. I would have smacked the smug expression off your face but I'm trying to teach my children that violence is wrong.

And yes, I'm in a bitchy mood, thanks for asking.

* We didn't wait.

Katie at 11:05 AM

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