A bunch of nothing

Busy, busy week. But then what week isn't.

Valentine's Day... eh, whatever.

Tuesday, open house at the junior high to meet teachers and learn about electives and school stuff.  Still can't believe that Amy will be in junior high next year. I don't know where the time went. I would love to have one more day holding her as a baby.

Wednesday, drove all the way to the main library to get books for Abby's research paper about Black Bears. Our first time to the "big" library and it was nice, it just took forever to get there.

Thursday, felt like I was never gonna get anything done. Lots of little things to get done. The ones you put off until you have more time. But then you never have more time, but you have all these little things to do and they take ALL day.

Friday, finally a day after work to veg and just watch t.v. Started on the first season of Glee. I haven't watched any of them, but they are great and it is something Amy likes to watch with me too.

Saturday, play time at Jump and Shout with the kids. Rainy Day. Love rainy days. Wish we had more in Arizona. Also, minor disaster in the kitchen. Had 8 pounds of strawberries to make into jam. Burnt my first batch. I have never burnt a batch of jam before. Ever. It was gross. Well, my second batch came out anyway.

Reorganized my kitchen dishes to bring some color to my kitchen.

My kitchen mouse. What? You don't have one?

Thursday night moon.

Amy and Abby with their cousin Jada at Jump & Shout.

Korden with his head stuck in the corner. We are not exactly sure what he was doing, but it made us laugh!

Mmmmmm.. Strawberries.

Not so mmmmmmm, burnt strawberry jam.

Amy taking a nap with Bronco.

Rainy days are so scarce, any chance to play in the rain is a good day.

My kitchen "helper" always waiting for crumbs to fall. Notice red painted toenails!

Jerusalem Artichokes. Got 'em with my Bountiful Basket this week. Time to figure out how to fix 'em.

As Mushy As it Gets

Valentine's...Shmalentine's is what I say. People either love it, or hate it. I can't really say I hate it, but it isn't my favorite. Without getting too cliche, I just think we should show the people we love how much we love them every day, not just February 14th.

With that being said, here is my Valentine contribution.

I was vacuuming on Saturday during my marathon cleaning day. Finally done downstairs, so I turn it off and turn around and what do I see....

Just exactly like that. I swear. I didn't touch it at all. It's a sign. What could it possibly mean?

Do I love my vacuum? Well, actually, I do love my Dyson vacuum. Very, very much as a matter of fact. If anything were ever to happen to my Dyson, I don't know what I might do.

Do I love vacuuming? Secretly, I really do love vacuuming. Probably my favorite chore if I had to name one. I would take it any day over cleaning the bathroom, doing the dishes, laundry, dusting. I would probably vacuum every day if I had the time. I love how it creates perfect lines on the carpet.  And yes, I do keep them perfectly uniform. If one gets messed up, I go over it all again. And I love being able to see in the canister, just how much cleaning I did! Look! It is full of dirt and dog hair. I feel so accomplished!
So many things you do as a mom, you don't get to see the end result, but vacuuming you can actually measure how much you did. Look! See!

So Happy Valentine's Day to my Dyson! Oh, how I love thee!

Wow, What a Weekend!

Let me say it again. Wow, What a Weekend! 


It all started Friday night. I went to my Aunt's grand-daughters 4th birthday party. We don't see each other a lot, in fact very little. Even thought we live about 6 miles apart. Kind of silly actually, but we made the time and spent the night at Peter Piper Pizza, playing games and visiting. My Aunt has a HUGE family. It is awesome and makes me kind of jealous not to have so many loved ones around and able to spend time with.

But, we had to be home by 8 so Amy could get to bed. Saturday morning at 8 a.m. it was time! Honor Band try outs. She was so stressed.  Amy, well actually both of my kids, are perfectionists. So, anything less than perfection can sometimes be hard to accept. She had her 5 minute try out. I asked how she did. Fine she said. But you could tell she wasn't optimistic. They said we would here Monday morning. So, time to wait.

Oh, but I forgot.  Andy was supposed to be home by 10:30 from a quick trip to Florida. I get a call from him at 6:10 in the morning. He should have been on the plane already. He says,"Guess what?" I guessed his flight was canceled. No, he slept in and missed his flight. Got to the gate just as the plane was pulling away. Bummer. So, he had to get another flight to Charlotte and then catch another one to Phoenix.

So, back to the day. After the try out, back home and some MAJOR house cleaning would commence. Like 4 hours worth of heavy duty house cleaning. Next to the airport to pick up Andy. As we are sitting in the cell phone lot, I get an email from Amy's band teacher. The results are in already. SHE MADE IT! Well, I was excited anyway. I texted Amy, and I suppose she was excited too, and a little surprised.

Got to veg out the rest of the day. Watched a movie with Andy. Finished the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo trilogy. Read all the books. Now, I have seen all the movies. Liked the first two movies a lot. The last was a little disappointing. They left out a lot. Of course, it probably would have been a ten hour movie if they had included everything. But, it was good none-the-less.

This morning, it was about sleeping in. Andy had to go to work even though it was his day off. Manager was sick. So, it was up to me to clean up all the leaves that had fallen. A TON of leaves. Went to pick up some garden stuff and flowers and planted this cute little flower garden at my entrance.

Now, I know that it doesn't look like much, but there is a lot going on here. First of all, the gray bricks are from my kids. When they were in karate, they took part in a brick breaking seminar. And these are most of the bricks that they broke. We keep them to remind them that you can do anything you put your mind to. No matter how hard it seems.

The second part of this garden is about the marigolds. My grandpa passed away 2 weeks ago. I remember as a kid going to his house every summer and he ALWAYS had yellow and orange marigolds. I loved them.

This garden is a memory garden dedicated to my grandpa. Love you Papa!

Oh, and I made Lasagna for dinner tonight. An early Valentine's dinner since Andy works late tomorrow night. Be sure to check back tomorrow for my Valentine's post. You might find it entertaining!

Tea for Coffee

I recently gave up my coffee habit. Not really a habit to be honest, I just really like coffee. During the winter and when it is cold anyway.  Summertime you will not see me touch the stuff.  I usually make coffee at home and take it in my own mug to work. But, once or twice a week, I would treat myself to a Grande Caramel Brulee Latte. With whip cream because really otherwise what is the point? Yummm-o!

Starbucks only has these tasty treats over the holidays.  Usually November to the second week in January. Apparently I had a few two many over the holidays, because I have determined that that is probably where these extra 5 pounds have come from.

I have been drinking my coffee from home since the lovely, tastiness is not available until next November. And then, last Saturday, I was drinking my coffee, and it just tasted blah. Same stuff as normal, same cream and sugar. Everything was the same, except I just didn't like it anymore.

I have changed my taste to hot tea. Every morning, chai tea with honey. Every night, chamomile or egyptian licorice. (Yes, egyptian licorice. It is sooooo good.)  So, good-bye coffee, at least until November!

Random Thought Thursday

1. Well, it seems all I have lately are random thoughts. Not much of importance I have to say I guess. 


2. I took Amy to a Step Up Band Night last night.  It is held at the junior high for students in 6th grade so they can see what band is like when they get to 7th grade.  The 6th graders get 30 minutes to practice a song with the junior high kids and then they perform.  Can I just say, Wow!  They were amazing.  I don't know what the band director's secret is, but his students are amazing. The club jazz band played as well and they were AWESOME! Amy came home so excited about joining band which I was so glad about because she has not enjoyed band as much this year.


3. Speaking of junior high, Amy has a field trip back to the J.H. this Friday to take a tour of the school and learn about electives and classes. I simply can't believe that my little girl is on her way. So many bittersweet emotions. I guess what it comes down to is that I can't really believe I can be that old!


4. My garden survived the freeze of 2010. I know, I know. I live in sunny Arizona. It wasn't even that cold. But, 22 degrees is pretty darn cold when you have lettuce and radishes and carrots and cucumbers trying to grow. But, the radishes sprouted just the other day and I suspect the carrots will be right behind!  I have a lot of work to do on my beds this weekend to get them ready for the big planting here in a couple weeks.  


5. I have been working out a couple nights a week, but I don't get my workout in until 7:30. It has been a struggle for me finding the right food combination to eat before I work out, without feeling total BLAH during my workout.  I tried eating whatever by 5 in the afternoon thinking that surely 2 hours would be enough time to digest everything. Nope. Tried salads an hour before. No such luck. Yogurt and fruit. Still not really. But the other night I was feeling lazy and decided a little Cream of Wheat might be good. What do you know? I only ate about 45 minutes before my workout, but I felt fine the whole time. Well, it was still a hard workout, but I didn't feel like I was gonna hurl every time I did a push up!


6. The girls and I are on our own the next couple nights. Andy is heading to Orlando for a very quick, whirlwind work trip. I don't envy his schedule at all. So, I will have one girl sleeping on my floor with the dog and another girl in bed with me. They don't want me to get lonely, ya know!


Have a fantastic rest of your week! 

Random Thought Tuesday

1. Luckily, today was a much less eventful day!  Still busy, but busy is good.  Just as long as I don't have to deal with any crazies!


2. Why is it that nobody in my household knows how to load dishes in the dishwasher except for me?  Actually, they know how to do it when it is a specific chore, but if they just say use a glass for a drink, they set it in the sink instead of spending 5 more seconds and opening and closing the dishwasher. I am going to work very hard in the coming days and weeks to break my family of this habit.  Don't know how I will accomplish it yet, but they better watch out.


3. Living in the desert, we are spoiled with beautiful winter weather.  But tomorrow... 46 degrees for the high.  Brrrrr! I know, I shouldn't really complain.  My sister in law is suffering through windchill temps of -32 in Colorado today.  I say no way to that kind of weather.  I guess I will grin and bear it, but Mother Nature, could you please bring back the beautiful 70 degree weather from last week?


4. I think that finally I have some readers out there.  I got a whole 27 hits yesterday!  Yowza!  So, thank you to all of you that read. If this is your first time stopping by, I hope you will stay awhile and hopefully find something that tickles your fancy.  If you've been here before, thanks for coming back! If you know someone that might like to join our little party, I hope you'll pass it along.  But thanks to all of you.  I didn't really know what this blogging thing would mean when I started it.  Really it has been just an outlet to say things I might not normally say. Share things with the world that are important to me. Put myself "out there" for the heck of it.  There are zillions of other mom blogs out there, so thanks for reading mine.  I may not be as eloquent as most, as creative as some, as clever as others.  But, what I am on this blog is pretty much what I am in life.  What you see is what you get.  No frills, just me!


5. Really want a new camera.  I have had the same DSLR for about 8 years now.  I would love a new one.  I have always had Canons and I love them.  I want to keep my loyalty to Canon, but if anyone out there can convince me otherwise, I would love to hear from you.


6. My little experiment with a photo a day has been quite a challenge for me. (You can catch a glimpse up there in the left hand corner.  The one called One at a Time) I need to be better about it. I will be better. I promise.


7. I wish I had about 2 more hours to my day. But, these hours need to be just for me. Without kids, without having to work, without the internet to distract me. Simply so I can garden, read, vacuum, do some laundry. I love time to myself, even if it involves cleaning.  I just like the quietness and aloneness. I don't even turn on music or the tv. I just am. 


8. Have a great week!