Busy Monday, September 29

Today's 'To-Do' List

• Get kids to bus 6:40 & 7:15
• Finish writing this blog - Truthfully started it Sunday just so much to cover and with me working I wanted to make sure it got done. 
• Go to work
• Lunch with Peter
• Get Groceries

Menu

• Grilled Chicken, corn on the cob, baked potatoes - Held over from last week because by time we got home yesterday I wasn't going to cook!
• Brats & Chips ? We ate a late lunch Sunday so we didn't actually 'cook' dinner just snaked a bit so still have Brats in the fridge. It's that or Chicken Nuggets & French Fries
• Tacos
• Eat at 4-H Tailgate Party
• Pizza
• Saturday & Sunday I'm unsure because we shouldn't have the kids home and it always gets confusing on what to cook for only 2 people. Maybe Spaghetti & Meatballs one day... Not sure on the other day we'll figure it out. 

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• Work -M,Tu, W,F - Thursday off. 
•  Clean up around the house - This is a permanent main stay. 
• Thursday gets hectic
•  9am-12pm Rain Barrel Workshop - I'm going to learn how to make rain barrels. 
• At 1:50pm I need to have Brielle picked up and over to the Orthodontist
• 5pm-7pm we are going to be at the county fair grounds for the 4-H Tailgate party. I'm trying to convince my friends with kids to come on out! If nothing else for free hot dogs. 
• Either Friday or Saturday my girls leave with the in-laws to go back East to the coast for Fall Break. We will pick them up from the airport the Sunday at the end of Fall Break.
• Mow the lawns
• Pack the kids for a week away
• Pull out Halloween Decorations

Last Week

So last weeks post I actually went through Tuesday it just has been very busy as of recently. Wednesday I just went to work nothing special there. 

Thursday, after work, I went down to the Community College I had over paid the fee on Brielle's college courses she's taking at the High School so I had to go write them a new check. It really made me think back to my college days on that campus. I kind of miss them though I'm not crazy enough to juggle work, kids, home and school again. Back in my younger days I might have been that crazy but not now.
Thursday there wasn't after school so after the college I hurried home because the bus gets to the house by about 3 o'clock. I end up pulling up in our lane just as Katherine is walking down it so I couldn't have timed it any more perfect.
It was a pretty dull couple of hours just picking things up until Peter got home around 5 and then we all went back down to the Elementary School for the Fall Festival. 

We ate pizza and hotdogs down there and Peter and I found a bench while we let the kids run around with their tickets to play games. Katherine won the cake walk first try and got a huge tray of cookies (Might I suggest never look at the calories on sugar cookies! OMG!) and then she won 4 cokes on the ring toss! None of the the people there thought that someone would get all 4 rings on so she came back over to me with this huge arm full of cokes. (Peter was off standing in line for funnel cake for me! Such a sweet man!)

Friday I had taken off of work because there was no school due to Teacher In Service Day. I got up at 4am to drive Brielle down to one of the county high schools for her trip to the University of Kentucky. I did not have the sense to go back to bed so this ends up being a 4am to 11:30pm day.
Katherine and I stayed home and I had intended to clean but I never got around to it. First we went out and picked tomatoes and had lots of cherry tomatoes but only a few larger tomatoes. We actually peeled all the tomatoes... yes even the cherry tomatoes. And I brought out my pressure canner and we canned up 2 pints of crushed tomatoes. Not exactly meant to be crushed but after trying to peel cherry tomatoes that is what it turned out to be. 

The rest of Friday I ended up sewing and seam ripping a lot! I got a little further on Katherine's Halloween Costume but I still have quite a bit to go.
While sewing I had something happen that has never happened to me before string up inside of my machine got looped around far far in the back. I had to take apart my sewing machine. These things really were not meant for individuals to take them apart. I had a pile of tools I had to use. 

I also received this package! I was so giddy! I won this the other week from Crock Pot's facebook page!
After going through the website to order it though the cost floored me. Each of these boxes is suppose to make 5 servings. These 4 meals would normally cost about $116 before shipping! That's a bit steep for me personally.
Which you'll notice the shipping date is off. I realized after I told it to ship that we were not going to be home that day because we were going to be in Memphis.

When I have planned to throw one of these into the crockpot instead of some other meal my schedule has gotten wonky. I'm going to wait off until the kids come back and when we start running around for 4-H and other activities again.
I will definitely give a full review of what I think of the meals. I will say this they were packaged well and with 2 day shipping because they are frozen goods with dry ice packaging that was well wrapped so you wouldn't hurt yourself. 

I went to go pick up Brielle at 4pm and then we came home and just had some pizza so Peter could get off to his card game and then I continued sewing. 

Saturday was busy!
We started the day at 7am and got everyone down to one of the Hospital's satellite campuses for 'Run for Your Life' they were having a kids free race and Brielle and Katherine both were participating in it. 

 It was a half mile race and they weren't really timing it but my slow poke children at least finished it and weren't in the back so the weren't ate by zombies this time. 
Can you tell the sun was really bright?!

 After the race we went over to the botanical garden for the scarecrow festival. We were sadly disappointed with this year because one of the local banks bought out the event and while it was free to get into some of our favorite things like pumpkin painting was not there and the food venders were not there. Right after we had gotten our food because we were at the front of the line they made the announcement that the food was for the kids only. It put a sour taste in my mouth that they wouldn't allow food venders there but parents weren't suppose to eat.
But enough of the complaints. The kids enjoyed going through the rose garden and they got balloon animals. Katherine asked for a dragon which the man worked very hard on we were impressed and Brielle got what we are now calling an alien butterfly.
The kids enjoyed the various games and we were there from about 10:30 to 1pm! This is an event we make sure to go to every year. I just hope next year they bring back some of our more favorite things.

 Right after the Botanical garden we left on a trip out of town to Trunnel Farms to meet with some friends and play. Peter met up with us later because he had to leave the garden earlier to get the dog down to the groomers.... We were seriously scheduled tight yesterday!

 The kids played on the hay bales.

 They played on these bikes that looked like tractors.

... Truthfully I played on them too!

There was this giant balloon thing in the ground it was like being in a bounce house!
When Peter showed up at the farm later we all went on it together.
You want to know a secret? Those things are a real work out if you try not to lose your balance and due to the slope on this you really didn't want to lose your balance otherwise you'd go straight for the pebble stone!

 We went and pet some little bunnies and they also had some young goats and other animals.

 This was a VERY slick slide! I didn't get to do it with the sacks they also had but just doing it in my shorts I can tell you it was SLICK!
The girls had so much fun with this that while I walked the pumpkins later out to the car they went back into the farm and did it some more!




It has been decided that corn mazes are evil! This one was exceptionally complicated and we were trying to find all the 'who done it' posts for the farmyard CSI case. After a long while though and after being very lost we ended up finding our way out through the entrance and said enough was enough of that! It was very tiring going up and down hills under the hot sun!

The kids had fun though but I think we've had enough of corn mazes for this year! I swear if we didn't cheat and walk through a few sections of corn they really would have had to send a search party out for us!

We took a tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch and while there was no cost difference on the pumpkins it was still fun to walk through the pumpkin patch and get to pick out our very own special pumpkins.













Sunday we took it pretty easy and then grabbed some late lunch out and then came home and picked up a little and I had the kids folding clothes while we watched a show as a family. We did a lot of walking that day but only because we decided to wander our dying mall to see what was still in it. 

That's pretty much it or as it as it is going to be for now. Have a great week folks!

Busy Monday, September 22

Today's  Monday's 'To-Do' List

• Get kids to bus 6:40 & 7:15
• Write this blog
• Go to work
• Menu
• Coupons Organization
• Grocery List loaded onto phone
• Grocery Shop
• Get Katherine
• Make Dinner

Today's  (Tuesday) 'To-Do' List

• Get kids to bus 6:40 & 7:15
• Go to work
• Lunch w/Ladies from work
• Back to work
• Go to bank
• Go to High School for Parent Teacher Conference
• Pick up Katherine
• Pick up dinner on road
• Go to 4-H project Club - get out around 7:30
• Home for homework, showers & other night time routine things.... I think we are going to miss our 8pm bedtime or the kids.
• Finish Blog

Menu

• Hamburger Helper & Green Beans
• Crockpot  - Scratch that Eat Out
• Spaghetti w/ Meatballs
• Grilled Chicken, baked potatoes, corn on the cob
• Pizza
• Chicken Nuggets & Fries
• Brats, Chips & Baked Beans

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• Wed & Thurs Work... 
• Thursday - PTO Fall Festival, No After School care will need to be home early for Kat to get off the bus. 
• Off Friday for Teacher in Service, Drive Brielle to the other High School at 5am for her field trip to UK's engineering department.
• Saturday - Katherine Marathon Run, Dog goes to groomers, Scarecrow Festival @ Botanical Garden w/kids, Katherine has Pokemon League
• Sunday I think it will be just getting ready for the week again as I have to work this next Monday also. 

Last Week

Tuesday Katherine had her last race. She'd still get ate by zombies but I know she had fun at least.




Brielle got her Halloween costume in. I may be making Katherine's but I'm not crazy enough to try and sew two costumes from scratch LOL

She's very happy with it and now I just need to get her a wig for this anime character she's going to be. I don't know the anime but she really seems to like it.





Friday Peter and I went to Memphis and walked around until show time for Penn & Teller. It was a neat experience and the magic show was really neat. 

It was nice to get out of town though it was also nice to get home Saturday.

Saturday night Peter and I went to a Magic the Gathering Pre-Release. I don't play the card game very often, normally only one Pre-release game a couple times a year. I'm not big into the game but I like doing stuff with my hubby.

A church I thought was neat. 

Another neat church but funny enough it was up for sale. Peter and I started coming up with crazy ideas for it. 

Brielle had her Birthday Party at the bowling alley Sunday. The kids had a lot of fun and those of us adults still around got a lane to ourselves and also bowled. We remembered it had been such a very long time time since we had been bowling!

I just had to take a picture of dinner one night. I didn't know what I was going to make so I found this recipe for caramelized garlic chicken. I over cooked the chicken sadly but otherwise it wasn't too bad. I may try it again sometime.

Busy Monday, September 15

To Do List made on break

So how about a non-traditional Busy Monday because I don't feel like going back and pulling up my template to go through everything this week.
I was actually at work this morning though I started off the day by having to drive Brielle in for school. I swear she's never missed this bus so many times before in one year let alone in just a couple months.
In any case yup it was back to work today. As you all might or might not know I only work part time. A flat 20 hours no less and no more... well until last week. I got called in to Monday.. you might recall from last week I was out sick Thursday and Friday and I got the call Friday to come in on Monday. I worked Monday-Friday and by Wednesday I had already had my 20 hours in and deadlines were upon us and all hell was breaking loose at the plant. Normally just being a drafts-woman I sit in my office and draw my pretty little lines, fill out paperwork and forms and sometimes go walk the lines (okay more than sometimes) and from my office which is so far remove from the other offices I rarely get pulled into ... as one of the engineers puts it... the puzzle palace. This was not the case and so I worked 30 instead of 20 which I'm not saying is a ton I know there are a lot of full-time moms out there! It's just the first time in over 7 years I've done it. It's actually nice in some ways because you're there long enough that doesn't feel like you're restarting a project over and over again. -- To note I am the ONLY drafter for this chemical factory so it's not all peaches and cream because I'm trying to do what could easily be a 40 hour job in 20 hours and if I wasn't good at what I did I might have to work 40 hours but I like being able to spend some time with my children so I work my tail end off.

Anyways so last week was packed and busy and I still tried to keep all the balls in the air and plates spinning at home also. I pretty much had a nervous breakdown but was better after that.

Friday, Peter went on call and because he got called in to look at a PC he wasn't able to go to his normal Friday Night Magic (FNM) so instead we had our oldest watch the youngest for a little bit and we met some friends at a bar. I tried to order a shirley temple and the bartender couldn't figure that out... I guess they aren't used to people ordering things without alcohol.

Saturday I felt bad about not getting any sewing done on Katherine's halloween outfit so I worked on that. I really hate sewing tulle I have found out. -- Oh and Brielle and I went to the fabric store so I could get some more fabric I found out I needed; we did that while Katherine and Peter were at Pokemon League.

Sunday was Brielle's birthday! My god I have a 14 year old!! We took it pretty easy and then went out for dinner.

Today as I said I went to work, I got the grocery shopping done and I've started using an app called Grocery IQ. I'll tell you what I think about it in a few weeks. I got the front lawn string trimmed and mowed but I never got to the backyard so that will have to be pushed off.
I wanted to get Katherine picked up early but sadly that didn't turn out to be the case because it took forever to check out and then the line to get fuel was really long too.
Utility bill is ready to go in the mailbox and I found out the college payment (for the classes Brielle is taking in high school for college credit) I can mail too so I wrote the check and I'll get an envelope set up for it tonight.
I did get to the hospital for my B-12 shot and was in and out amazingly fast though she really jabbed that shot in there.
I got some laundry done and some dishes done... It won't be on the list below but sometime this week I need to make up more laundry detergent I'm almost out!!
Pete had to go work a second job tonight he does PC work on the side on top of his actual job so he wasn't home until like 6:30 tonight so his dinner was cold sadly.
We had Breakfast for Dinner.

Tuesday I'll go into work.
After work I'm going to try and pick up Katherine early from After School so we can work on homework and she can have time for a bit of a snack before we drive out for the school running/track thingy we've been doing each Tuesday this Month.

Dinner plans is Spaghetti with Italian Sausage. Pete's going to make dinner... I wonder if I should be scared.

Wednesday... Yup more work how did you guess?

Hamburger Helper and I'm going to see if that salad in my fridge is still good by then.

Yes, you can look at the picture and cheat and see Friday but on to Thursday!

 Thursday...
You guessed it more work!
I also need to verify with the baby sitter if she is picking up Katherine at After School or if she wants Katherine to ride the bus home. I also need to take to the babysitter some sleeping bags and pillows.
I'll then go get Katherine.

Dinner plans are Chicken, pasta and peas.

Friday!!! I send the kids off to school and then Peter and I get ready for our one night vacation as we head off to Memphis, Tennessee. Peter and I are going to go see Penn and Teller and are excited about it. We can't be more grateful to our babysitter who agreed to take the girls for us!





Saturday Peter and I drive home early and go get the kids because we don't want to abuse the good graces of our friend. Saturday night Peter and I will be out at a Magic the Gathering pre-release tournament.

Sunday is busy too! We are picking up the birthday cake for Brielle and we are going to the bowling alley to have a bowling party with her friends. Why is it a week late? Well some of her friends come from splitt homes so she wanted to make sure that her friends were with the parents that would let them come.
After the birthday party Peter goes off to play at another pre-release. My plans are to get work clothes clean, chores taken care of and if there is time maybe get some sewing in.






Some pictures from last week...

Kids lined up for last Tuesday's race.

Katherine finally making her way in I teased her and told her she would be zombie food. 

Lazy cat found her way to the table and in the background is some jars I've been painting. I haven't quite got the hang of it yet but I'm getting there. 

This one and the one below are some candy molds I picked up. I thought they were super neat. I need to practice making them so that when Halloween gets here I'll be ready. So far all I've accomplished is eating the oreos before even messing with chocolate. 

Busy Monday, September 8

Today's 'To-Do' List

• Get kids to bus 6:40 & 7:15
• Write this blog
• Go to work
• Drop off 4-H Registration Forms
• Sign kids up for Canning with 4-H

Menu

• Chili Dogs & Chips
• Spaghetti & Chicken
• Breaded Pork, Peas, Mashed Potatoes, Pan gravy
• Chicken, Pasta & green beans? (may change that veggie)
• Pizza
• Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes, Corn
• Eat Out for Brielle's Birthday

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• Work... Lots of work they are talking about me working every day this week I'm not sure what's going to happen to my hours. Lots of stuff going on at work.
•  Clean up around the house 
• Take Katherine to Race on Tuesday   
• Library - This is either going to the library or remembering to renew everyone's books online. 
• Mow the lawns
• Catch up on paying bills
• Call family - Haven't talked to my grandparents for awhile and just need to make a solid effort to give them a call. I've been so busy and then sick. I know they understand but I still want to try and make this a priority.  

Last Week

So let's talk about Tuesday...
The directions to the Run were bad and so Katherine and I ran for probably half a mile or more trying to find it. I was still in my work clothes and dripping with sweat. When we finally got there Katherine had already basically ran a marathon and then she had to run again! She did finish though and I'm proud of that we did a lot of running that day. 

That night I got sick...
I stayed sick too. 

I went to work sick on Wednesday and after that I couldn't do it any more and I ended up calling into work sick both Thursday and Friday.

Friday even though I wasn't well still that night I did get some sewing in. I'm still trying to work on this Halloween costume for my daughter. It's a lot bigger project than I had really realized fully. I should have but I just wanted to do something for her you know. 

Friday was also Sadie Hawkins at the High School.
It's hard to believe I have a kid in High School. 

Well that was pretty much it last week. I got some cleaning done but that is about it. I was really just too sick. Saturday we went to basically a giant Flea Market and I zombie walked around for the most part just coming in and out of being there and being very snappy at the children because I was still very sick. 

Sunday, Peter went grocery shopping with me and we restocked up the house. It was more than I had planned on spending but we were out of paper goods (toilet paper, tissue paper, paper towels) and stocked up on some stuff to last us for a while. 

Today, Monday, I went into work because Friday work called and my supervisor seemed a bit in a panic with me not there and out sick since we've had so much to do so I agreed to come in today. It was a long day and it's going to be a long week at work. I have a lot of stuff I have to do and being out sick two days put us 2 days behind schedule which I got chided for but not too much because as one of the engineers put it, "Boy you look like shit." That is a quote. I'm not 100% but there's just not a lot of time to be down sick. 

Busy Monday, September 1 (Tuesday Edition)

Today's 'To-Do' List

• Get kids to bus 6:40 & 7:15
• Write this blog
• Go through coupons
• Go to work
• Grocery Shopping
• Fill Fishtank -- Started this but since I'm not taking the fish out right now it means I have to wait for each container of water to become room temp and then I get distracted so it's a slow process
• Cross Country Race at 5:50 (have to be there by 5:30) for Katherine. 

Menu

• Beef tips, Mashed Potatoes & Gravy, Corn
• Hamburger Helper & Green Beans
• Sloppy Joes & Chips
• Spaghetti & Meatballs
• Pizza
• Breaded Pork, Peas, Mashed Potatoes, Pan gravy

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• Go to the gym -- I won't lie I didn't go last week I forget what happened on my gym days but it just did not happen. I need to figure out something but I'm going to keep making it a weekly goal.
•  Clean up around the house 
• Take Katherine to the bank so she can cash her birthday checks. -- Nope haven't done this one either I'm really slacking!   
• Brielle has Sadie Hawkins Friday

Last Week

I think I need to make posts more than once a week though finding the time to do that will be hard but by time the next posting day comes around I'm completely lost on what happened the week prior. 

Monday I took Katherine down to the 5th Grade Orientation. Everything went well though I'm going to have to come up with a lot of money due to new laws that make fundraising mostly prohibitive towards actual earnings vs time and effort. Long story short the school is still offering the 5th Grade DC trip but as a private function so you have to come up with the money on your own.

Tuesday I got sick and my poor husband had to cook dinner and take care of the kids. I just really felt badly. I had made it through work that day but that was as far as I could get.

Wednesday I was also very sick but I pushed through work and then took Brielle and Katherine down to the community college for the launch of the new First Lego League challenge. One of the 4-H folks sat down with us and I had a lengthy discussion about the club leader who was not at this event nor had she been scheduling meetings and come to find out she hadn't been doing anything to set up the funding required for the club. In any case hopefully something gets done, the kids had fun and we ate pizza there.

My day, Thursday,  started out at 5:15 though because Brielle had her clock set wrong and Katherine came in to wake me up because she thought I had overslept for them to get to school.  I mumbled something about the time and passed back out. 

It was also picture day for Brielle and while I was going through Lifetouch's website I found a package only listed at $3 it even came up in the market as only $3 so I said what the heck and took advantage of it. I'm guessing it was an error on their part. They will either get back a hold of me and we will work out some other package or they will fix their error and let this order through is my thoughts.

Then that morning after everyone left I busied myself around the house and I was actually getting a lot of work done before work and I was impressed with myself. The dog went to the bathroom though by the clothes washer and so I had to pull it out to clean under the washer. In the process of doing this I broke the drainage pipe for the washer!! I'll have you know we don't have any crawl space in that part of the house it is just a floor built on top of a poured foundation so this meant needing to cut into the floor and potentially taking out the floor.
Work was hell that day too (which is a hell I'm getting ready to go back to today) and by the end of it I was so fed up that I wanted a cup of coffee and to vent and a friend of mine offered for us to meet up so I could do just that. It was really helpful.

Thursday was also the Tailgate party for Brielle at the High School and their first football game at home so she was that for the evening. It is just so odd to have a child in High School. 

Friday there were discount cards due back to the High School and I didn't realize this until late Thursday night so after I got off of work I went and picked up the leftover cards and money from Peter at his work and then drove them down to the school. I then had to go meet a lady that I was selling a shirt to from my garage sale pile. Friday also means Friday Night Magic for Peter so he went out because I kicked him out and I got another sleeve put onto Katherine's Halloween Costume. It is a slow process but I will get there.
I cut my night short on sewing and started the process of moving things out of the laundry room for us to start on the construction Saturday.

Saturday we worked on the laundry room. 

Thankfully I opted for a no glue laminate floor so we just had to pull it up.
Thankfully the broken piece wasn't too far in and we didn't have to bring up all the floor. It really could have been much worse. 

We spent our day doing that and then finished it up and got the floor back down Sunday.

Sunday for our 'fun' for Labor Day weekend we went to the town 40 minutes away where they were showing Ghostbusters for the 30th Anniversary. We all love Ghostbusters so seeing it on the big screen was just a treat for us. 

Monday, I got up at 6:30am and started putting things back into the laundry room.
Peter and the kids worked on goofing off mostly when they did get up. They went over to a friend's house to play cards that afternoon and I stayed home and continued to try to clean around the house and I got the lawns mowed and since I got a new string trimmer because my other one died, I went around and trimmed and edged things and trimmed back branches in areas too. Pretty much I was working my tail end off which is why this post is going up a day late.

There's last week. No nifty projects finished though I do have some started so perhaps next week I'll have something more to show for myself.

Have a great week folks.