I Need Ten More of Me.

Yes, Mom, I am alive. Just busy being torn in five different directions. At some point, my left arm will reconnect to my torso, at which point I will be able to blog again. Cheers!

Hope everyone is healthy and happy!

A Break, Finally!

Today the high is 61. SIXTY ONE measly degrees! Yesterday was 95, with 97% humidity. You can imagine why I'd welcome a cool day. Which is kind of funny, because everyone was shivering in their jeans and sweatshirts today, and it really isn't that cold. ;-) I think anything below 50 is getting chilly. Anything above, well...I guess all those years in Wisconsin made me hardier or something.

Tomorrow is supposed to be more of the same. I love it! But then all next week we're back up to the mid 80's. BLEAH.

The kids have a "banked" day today. Which is only a half day. I guess after the crazy ice storm last year, where kids were out of school an entire week, made the school officials think. As long as we are here a half day, it's counted as a full day. So we have one half day a month, and call it a "banked" day, so if we get another awful ice storm like last year, we won't have to make the days up like we did last year. I think it's smart. And the kids LOVE half days. Everyone wins. I think.

Thing Two has a scout hike this weekend. I guess I'd better switch out his warm weather sleeping bag to a cold weather one--just in case.

I am just realizing what a BORING post this is! I guess since I still have a head cold, humor isn't part of my repertoire. So, I guess I'll attach something that made me laugh. My favorite Superbowl commercial of all time. Enjoy. Have a good weekend!

Tranquility.

Despite feeling like a cement truck dumped it's contents into my skull, I went for a run this morning on my favorite nature trail after I dropped Thing Four off at preschool.

It was gorgeous. Green, tranquil, perfect. On my last leg a doe walked right across my path about twenty yards ahead of me, and when she entered the trees she stopped and looked back at me. She didn't seem skittish, just curious. She was a young doe, I could tell she'd been a fawn recently. She was so pretty. I greeted her in what I call my "puppy" voice, and she just stared at me as I smiled at her and broke into a jog on the path.

Gotta love mornings like that.

Hubby is traveling, and my kids are over their colds, but I am in the middle of mine. I want to give a big kiss to whoever invented Advil Cold Liquid gels, because they are AWESOME. Nothing else works for me.

I am nearly finished dejunking the third floor. (The place I shoved all my moving boxes I didn't want to deal with.) I've been writing here and there, but honestly, if we are going to have people over and have them watch movies upstairs, I need to make THAT a priority. Next week, I want to get in 2K a day. (Words, not kilometers!) ;-)

Tomorrow is supposed to be cold. The high is in the mid 60's. The HIGH. Woo! I'm breaking out the Postum. Okay, it's not really Postum, it's actually a not-so-potent substitute called Pero, but I will call it Postum because that's what I've called it my whole life. I just wish Nestle or someone would buy the darn recipe from Kraft and start manufacturing it again. I miss it.

Happy Thursday everyone!

Kids Are Funny, Part VIII

Thing Four, who is four years old, never fails to crack me up. My daughter was sick yesterday, so she stayed home from school. (More on that later.) Anyway, while I was running errands, I went ahead and left him home with her. I came home afterwards, and he was watching TV downstairs, and I went and sat next to him and started chatting with him, and I realized two things: A) He was wearing inside-out shorts, and B) they weren't the shorts he was wearing when I left.

When I asked him about it, he got all embarrassed, and admitted he'd had an "accident" upstairs and hadn't quite made it to the toilet. Apparently he hurriedly put the wet underwear and shorts in his dirty clothes basket, ran to his room and got clean underwear and shorts out of his drawers, and put them on.

The funny part is, I wouldn't have even noticed, if he hadn't put the shorts on inside out, on accident. But I'm glad he did, because I never like finding surprise wet stuff in the dirty laundry. ;-)

Cracked me up, though. He sure was efficient in his "cover up" attempt! And he almost got away with it!

Hubby left for Alabama today. They're touring stores. He wont' be back until the weekend. Thing Two has another Scout Camping trip on Friday and Saturday, and Thing Three's first soccer game is on Saturday. My weekends through October are CRAZY, I'm realizing. Because either Hubby is traveling, or we've got games and campouts. I guess you can camp year round here pretty much, because it's the South and it doesn't deep freeze like Wisconsin did. They don't even blow out their sprinkler systems, here. It's actually kind of nice to not have to worry about that!

So, yesterday I had to take Thing One to the Dr. with a blocked salivary gland. Turns out she had scar tissue that had formed from a previous blockage/infection two years ago, and they had to cut it open and fish out this huge calcified rock-like thing from her gland. NICE. She was a trooper about it, but she is also suffering from a sore throat/fever, so it wasn't super fun for her. But at least she can "salivate" again! (And yes, she would die of embarrassment if she knew I'd said that. Heh heh.) But that's what moms are for. Our teenagers give us a hard time, and we give them payback in the form of embarrassing them. Good Times.

Let The Germs Begin...

Now that School is back in, I've been bracing myself for the inevitable: Acute Viral Rhinopharyngitis, also known as the Common Cold. My kids are healthy as horses during the Summer, and as soon as they return to the Communal Germ Associations known as school, the colds begin.

It hit Things One and Three yesterday. Thing Two has been feeling yucky all along, he just doesn't whine like the other siblings do. So, apparently my three older kids all have colds, but since two of them don't have FEVERS, off to school they go. I've been monitoring Thing Four. He was grumpy yesterday at preschool (apparently he hauled off and hit a mean kid in the face with his lunchbox), which frankly isn't like him, so who knows what today will hold.

Me? I'm feeling fine. I'm downing Emergen-C like there's no tomorrow, because moms Don't Get Sick. ;-) We moms have to take care of all the sickies.

Hope everyone has a great, germ-free day!

Jimmermania.

The BYU vs Texas game was a disappointment--they were winning until the second half. And to lose by ONE point!! But Texas outplayed them in the second half, pure and simple. Hubby had a great time with his brothers, though, and hanging out with Jimmer Fredette! Jimmer was there to see the game and sign basketballs at an earlier function and Hubby was able to hang out with him for a little while. Yes, you can color me pea green with envy. ;-) I think my 10-year old was wayyy more jealous than me! Jimmer is his hero.

But now we can add this fabulous basketball to our signed Jimmer Jersey we have in the game room:

Notice how I've had the game room painted in BYU colors? Oh, and yes, that would be a football signed by Ty Detmer to the left of the Jersey. We are very lucky in who we know. ;-)

Hubby flew home safely on Sept. 11th, and we were glad to have him home. We explained to our kids about the tragedies of Sept. 11th (our oldest was three on that day so our kids don't remember) because we want them to understand how important it is to remember and be thoughtful of this day.

We had a good weekend otherwise, busy but good. I made some super yummy green salsa enchiladas, and we watched Serena get her rear-end kicked in tennis. :-( Oh well. I'm cheering for Djokovic tonight, he is ON FIRE!!!! Go Novak!

Hope everyone has a great week!

Fall's A Comin'...

I love love LOVE Fall. Favorite season ever. Probably because it's the prettiest, the shortest, and I love the clothes I can wear. Well, generally. Maybe not in the South. ;-) But I put my Fall wreath on the front door, and it looks awesome! I'll wait until the last week of September to deck the rest of the house out in Halloween stuff. Fun fun fun!

Hubby is off to Texas this weekend for the BYU game, I won't lie, I'm really nervous he's flying home on 9/11. (And his brother is flying INTO New York!) It just makes me nervous. But this trip has been planned for months, no changing it now!

I was looking at pictures of the smoke above the Austin skyline. I feel so bad for the people who have lost their homes and lands from the fires. Hopefully they can contain it soon.

So, it' just me and the kiddos this weekend! We'll probably go to the pool one last time, mow the lawn, do all the regular stuff we normally do. I'll just be glad Sunday night when Hubby is back home, safe.

I hope everyone has a good, restful weekend. My thoughts are with the families affected by 9/11. I will never forget.

Ah The Irony...

Now that I have my 4-year old in preschool four hours a day, you would THINK I have more time on my hands! Well, I don't. I was lamenting to a friend it seems now that I have those hours during the day, I spend them running around trying to get done what I normally wouldn't want to drag a 4-year old with me to.

If that makes sense. So, yes, I've been crazy busy! But it's a good busy.

It's been chilly in the mornings--it was 57 this morning, and my kids are wearing sweatshirts to school. Granted, it gets to the mid 80's during the day, but the mornings are nice. Fall is coming! I am going to break out my Fall wreath next week.

Thing Four is LOVING preschool. He's having the BEST time ever. But man, they sure wear him out! He gets 30-45 minutes of playground time, and I have to say, he passes out after his nightly bath now. I get him in those jammies and we do one story and he's OUT. Which is good. Because I know he's learning, having fun, and gaining social skills. :-)

It's Thursday! I am tempted to make my crockpot chili recipe, but I think it needs to be about ten degrees colder for that one!

Hope everyone has a great day.

I need to get to Belk today. Their clearance is like a bazillion percent off, plus our associate discount PLUS the coupon, so all the clearance clothes will be like, 90% off or something crazy like that. I need to stock up on shirts and shorts for my boys in a size larger, because I have a feeling, with the way they're growing, they will both be in different sizes by Spring.

I'm resisting the urge to put a Fall wreath on the door. I want to wait until the last week of September. I know every time this time of year comes around I say this, but I LOVE the months of October through December. My absolute favorite times of the year are those last three months of it. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. So festive, the weather is (more or less) not sweltering, and everything is fun.

Thing Four had his preschool open house yesterday. Like a complete idiot I had put into my phone that the open house was TODAY (still not sure how/why I did that) and by a stroke of Providence, I ran into one of the moms at Target yesterday, whose daughter is in my son's class. They had just come from the open house. I dropped everything and Thing Four and I ran out of Target immediately, and drove straight to the school and caught the tail end of Open House, thank heaven. I would have been so embarrassed to miss it and show up on the wrong day. We got lucky.

Tonight should be fun. I am cleaning the house from top to bottom, and we're having company over for homemade chicken alfredo pizzas. They are SOOOO delish:

LARA'S CHICKEN ALFREDO PIZZAS:

INGREDIENTS: 1 pound boneless chicken, cut up into pieces, 1 large onion chopped, 1 package sliced mushrooms, 1 jar Alfredo sauce, 1 large loaf French bread, cut horizontally in half, and in pieces, 1 Cup shredded mozzarella. (I usually use more than a cup of mozzarella.)

Cook chicken, onion and mushrooms in skillet over med-hi heat, stir in Alfredo sauce. Place bread slices, cut sides up, on baking tray. Toast in oven on broil setting until crispy on top. Remove from oven, spread with chicken mixture, sprinkle with cheese. Broil in oven until pizzas are hot and cheese begins to brown.

Serve with a green salad!

Of course you can substitute Italian sausage for the chicken, which was what the original recipe called for, but we thought chicken was a healthier alternative. These are SUPER yummy, and super easy. Try them. You'll like them! ;-)

I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend! Stay safe, and have fun!

 

It's September Already???

I'm officially freaked out by how fast this year is going. The Back-to-school stuff has been cleared away, and now they're filling the seasonal aisles with HALLOWEEN STUFF in the stores. Candy, costumes, creepy knick-knacks (is it me or is stuff getting more macabre and scary every year?). Oh well. Such is the way of retail. By the end of September they'll have the Christmas stuff out, to be sure. All the craft stores already do.

I'm not putting a Fall wreath on my front door JUST yet. I'm savoring the last days of Summer, and rejoicing that it will be in the 80's during the day soon, instead of the upper 90's. :-)

I'm a little disappointed, I have a total dinosaur of a laser printer (an HP Color Laserjet 2600 I love) and now that I've downloaded Lion on my Mac, I can't print duplex printing. As in both sides of the paper. For someone who prints up manuscripts now and then, and wants to save paper, this is a problem. Especially if you have a 300+ manuscript to print up. It would be WAY better to print it on 150 pages, right? I tried and tried to get around this glitch but ended up hooking my HP mini to the printer and printing the story that way. It worked like a charm. Unfortunately I haven't found any updates or software drivers I can install. But I love my printer. Even if it is 100 years old. I've never had a problem with it. Well, until NOW. :-(

Tomorrow is Friday! Monday is Labor Day! No more white shoes and handbags after that! I still can't believe how fast time is flying...