Update

Hi All, I haven't posted in a very long time... partially because I didn't know much I could post without offending those that I really really don't want to offend, while at the same time being authentic to myself. So I just stopped posting. Time to update though.

The summer was hard, but that isn't really news. We are still living with my in-laws, which is a huge help yet still very hard. Our marriage had some bumps. I worked the community lunches at our school (it's a federal program that provides free lunches to people under 18 years old for free) with my friend Nari. It helped to be able to have some kind of income until school started and it was a good preparation for when school actually started. We didn't venture any farther than thiry minutes away because we simply couldn't afford it.

The highlight of my summer? Well, that would have to have been the massage that I was able to get in June. I had given my dad a gift certificate for Christmas that he was not going to be able to take advantage of so he returned it to me so that I could use it. It was fabulous :)

School started on August 15th for Turbo (Preschool) and on August 18th for Missy and Goober. Because I'm an assistant at the school now I don't have to pay tuition for Turbo and he gets to stay all day until the other kids get out of school... which is a godsend because otherwise he would not be getting preschool due to cost and having him there until after school also makes me working more doable if Jer is able to find a job.

Oh, I can't remember if I updated on that or not. Jer found a job for a short time with a construction company that required that he live in Colorado until Sept. We tried it. It didn't work so well. So he came home and is now looking for a job again.

Anyways, back to me working. Right now I work for the charter school who provides our school with lunches. In the morning I get the number for lunches then prepare them and deliver and serve them to our school. After lunch I switch to assisting at the kids school until school gets out and then I switch back into lunch lady mode to input lunch balances, input figures into the computer, make reports (both daily and monthly), distribute fruits or vegetables to the classes for the Fruit and Vegetable Grant that our school got, and count the milk in the kindergarten room so that I can restock in the next morning for the Kindergarten Milk Snack Program. Then some days I switch modes again to PFA (remember that? It's like the PTO) President to do meetings for that etc.

Needless to say I spend a lot of time at the school and doing school type stuff.

The last couple of weeks were hard. Really hard. There wasn't enough time in the day to do everything that needed to be done for lunches (making lunch cards etc), the computer program at the school wasn't working right (the orders were not coming in on time or were not able to be input), the school changed the lunch schedule on me without letting me know (well, actually that was more the teachers than the school...), and then I had a teacher argue with me about how a student didn't get her lunch ordered and how that was somehow now my problem... oh, and did I mention that this was in front of at least 15 students while I was serving lunch? Then there was my assisting job that simply wasn't happening for a while... and the poor teacher that was putting up with it and my feeling like a failure in that department. Yeah. It was a swell week.

On top of that I came home to a house that was not mine, that my sister in law decided to stay at for the week as well, and that I have no personal private space in (though, don't get me wrong, I'm very VERY grateful to have a space to live at all... it's just really hard) and that I seem to be constantly offending someone in some way in...

Well, you get the point.

I miss feeling at home basically.

Now things are starting to chill out a little with school. I'm starting to get into a routine at least somewhat. I need to take a test for Math and English skills with the college sometime this month because I will be starting classes in January and need to register in October for those and hopefully Jer will get this job that he has applied for and passed a couple of screenings on.

So, that is the update. It's not very cheerful... but it is what it is. And I really am not trying to complain, but it's hard to say "life is hard" without sounding whiny. I'm just trying my best to buckle down and somehow do everything that I need to do to get through this. I can say that I'm very grateful that I have a loving and kind husband who doesn't moan about being a stay at home dad and running all sorts of errands etc for me, that put up with my long hours for those couple of weeks (hopefully these next few weeks will be a little less), and that is a really good dad. I know this is hard on him too, and I'm certain that at times I make things worse even when I don't mean to.

Our kids are clothed and have food and beds to sleep in and they have good teachers, I have a job that I can at least potentially leave when the kids get out for he day and that I can do partially from home if needed (at least the paperwork). I'm grateful for my in-laws and their generousity in putting up with us and for my parents and their generosity in trying to help us with letting the kids do fun things like dance class for Missy, going camping, and taking them sometimes so that we can get some time to wind down. I'm thankful for understanding friends who realize that I don't feel comfortable inviting them over socially unless I ask my in-laws first and who also understand that I also am reluctant to invite my children's friends from school over ... because, again, it isn't our house.

I'm grateful that our renters have paid their rent (so far) even if they are a little flaky and do pay late. I hope that we don't have to evict them for not paying certain utilities... but if we do... well, maybe Jer will get that job, eh? And maybe we could move back into our own house... maybe, but I'm not counting on it... Wishful thinking, eh? Well, you have to hope for something... right?

PS. My camera is having issues as well, so sorry... no pictures. Fuzzy fuzzness is not fun to look at lol

Only 4 more days....

Until the kidlets go to school! I love them to death and honestly I'm used to having them around by now (you know, summer and all that jazz), but their friends went back to school a couple of weeks ago which leaves my kids somewhat bored with each other....

Which leads to bickering and other expressions of boredom.

So, needless to say, I'm ready for school to start. It starts Monday and while I'll be sad to have so much less time with Goober, it will be nice to have a little respite from the fighting.

I'm looking forward with some one on one time with Turbo and a little bit of freedom to do things. After all, it is MUCH easier to load up one kid than it is to convince all three to go run errands with me! And this year I don't have to worry about homework (outside of reading for 15 minutes a day) because of the style of school they are going to go to.

At first Goober was upset that he wouldn't be getting a new backpack... then when I told him that he didn't need one because he wouldn't have any homework he yelled "YES!!!! NO HOMEWORK!!!"

Ya, I think that won him over... hopefully the actual school will win him over as well!

I'm also looking forward to the school schedule, while I've been getting the kids up at the school time this last week, it is taxing because they are tired and then I don't have a designated place to take them to so I get to deal with the "tireds". Hopefully they will adjust enough by next week to not be total pains to their teachers.

Anyhow... that is what has been up with me lately. I would have posted sooner about something in the news, or thoughts, or SOMETHING! But my brain is fried from getting up early to exercise and get the kids up, the news has been slow and pretty boring to me lately, and frankly I can't think of anything else to post!

PS we had our family pictures retaken on Tuesday... I'm excited to see how they turn out :)

Sorry I've been slacking.

I've been remarkably tired lately... and when I'm not and think "I should do a blog post" I then immediately think "about what?!" lol

So here is what has been up with me. This Tuesday I get to go in for my Bronchoscopy, something that has made my exercise streak die quickly :( Sucky, right when I get used to it too! (Now to muster the will power to start it all back up again!) Then later that day I get to take Missy to the eye doctor...

I'm kind of wondering what to think about that one... I mean, when we went to the pediatrician for the annual exam they tried to get her to tell them the letters on the wall. Now, if any of you knew Missy, you would know she can be a bit flaky. Be that because that is in her personality, or because she is five, I don't really know... nor care for that matter. She's cute and I love her! But it does make it difficult to tell if she is intentionally answering wrong, or if she just doesn't care enough to answer right... OR that she really can't see very well.

So I made sure to make her an appointment with a pediatric eye doctor here in town so that (hopefully) we can rule out the "flakys" as the reason she didn't do well at the pediatricians eye test.

Thursday I get to go to an orientation for Missy's Kindergarten class... which should be interesting, but I'm not really sure if I should take her with me or not... and then that same night I'm doing a neighborhood BBQ in front of my house.

I put out fliers yesterday but apparently the post man decided he needed to take some of them when he came around for the mail. YES... I know.... I shouldn't be putting fliers in mailboxes... But what would you do if you had 300 fliers to deliver and didn't want to spend all day doing it? I'm sorry Mr. Mailman, but you of all people should know how much more time that takes... and the fact that I'm not getting paid to deliver these things kind of makes me think... Meh! Mailboxes look good!

Besides, I don't think I will be doing another neighborhood watch activity for a while... if the neighborhood wants to put together something before next spring someone else can do it, especially if the turnout to this event is low. One meeting a year is starting to look really good about now...

Goober has a new friend he has found... Mr A is a neighborhood kid that grates on Jer's nerves like nothing else lol  He also is almost 10 years old, which concerns me in some ways. I wonder if he wants to play with Goober because Goober has video games or because he really likes Goober. So today I told Goober he gets to play video games for 2 hours... and those hours are not when friends are here.

Goober didn't like that much, but I really don't know how else to test the reasons for why this kid is around. His little sister is Missy's age though... and the girls get along well and nothing seems amiss there.

We will see what happens when the neighbor kids all go back to school on the last day of this month. I'm a little worried about my own kids boredom though, they aren't starting school until Sept 20th... I may see what I can do doing a review of the things they know so that they aren't so rusty when school starts. I have to admit that as far as reading with Goober and practicing letters with Missy I've been a horrid mother this summer... so I should probably be trying to do some make up work! :)

I haven't been watching the news much due to too little good news. Most of the news related things I think about tend to be things like "Oh great, Iran with Nuclear power... sounds bad... wow, isn't bad what is normal in the news?" So I scan the headlines and call it good lately. No deep thoughts there.... and I haven't been reading my regular blogs much either due to the major blogs recently being inundated with butt heads. What is up with that?!

Oh! Speaking of blogs, Jer and I went down to UT last week to meet up with some of my favorite bloggy people. We left the kids with Jer's mom and took a detour through Bear Lake to pick up one of the ladies :) It's so nice when you meet people you get along well with! It's funny how much you can have in common with people you have only talked to online!

Anywho, That is that I guess...

Oh, and here's a picture... just for kicks and giggles... 

 You would be amazed at how much fun kids can have with a hose and a slide :)

And Then...

Today was pretty awesome. Well, 'cept the end... ummm kinda.

This morning my kids went to their first swim lesson and then we went boating with my parents and my nephiece (which is to say, my niece and nephew, Miss Thang and Qwerty). They are seriously two of my favorite kids in the whole world!!

My kids had a blast swimming and riding on the boat and tubing. Yes, my nephiece took turns with my kids helping them on the tube :) They were Awe-some!

We ate lunch on the boat and generally had fun until the wind started to kick up...

After a long day of water fun we headed home and nepheice headed out to jump on the trampoline with a sprinkler under it for a while until my kidlets decided to have fun with the garden hose.

At which point, Miss Thang broke her back.

No kidding, cracked a vertebrae. I count our lucky stars... cause honestly, it could have been much, MUCH worse.

Air Show

So, this morning I slept in (Thanks Jer!) and soon after I got myself out of bed - for fear that I would stay there all day - the phone rang.

Jer's mom was on the other end wondering if we wanted to go to the air show! Why, yes, of course we would like to go! The reason we hadn't planned on it was due to financial restraints... we can't have everything we want after all and unfortunately food for dinner is highly recommended on the priority list!

So we got ready and headed out, parking near the universities satellite campus and taking the shuttle into the airport. The kids were kinda of grumpy about waiting in line for the shuttle, which concerned me about the rest of the day.... If they were already grumpy, what might that indicate?

Especially when we were headed to a place with lots of walking and waiting? But they were actually pretty good considering that the lines for food were over an hour long and the sun was blazing!

They had their moments of grumpiness, namely when I told them they couldn't go into the bounce houses because the dude insisted on cash... sorry dude, but when I only had an hour from the time I found out were were going to the time I got here, that means no cash for YOU!

Thankfully I was able to distract the kids with cool helicopters and military vehicles that they could actually climb up and sit in!

Then of course there were the stunts and other performances!

The husband and wife, stunt pilot and wing walker :) Missy insisted after that they she was going to be a pilot and "drive planes"! I have to say, if she does do that I would be very proud, but worried like I should be as her mother :)

Then there was the Mustang and MAN was the plane maneuverable! The guy would tumble and turn and it looked like it reacted on the drop of a dime. So cool, if I became a pilot... that would be a plane I would want to fly!

 After all of that was the main attraction... the Marines Blue Angels! MMMMmmmmm Yum. Ya, I don't even have the words to describe how talented those pilots are. So glad that those guys are willing to serve their country... and thankful for their families as well!

How do I express how glad I am that we have men and women that are willing and able to do all that they do to help me and my family to feel safer? God bless them.

Hoping it will start to feel like summer...

before I have to start doing school shopping.

Last weekend I went to Boise for a Bloggersnacker with some of the FMH women... it was an all weekend long thing where you bring yourself and stuff to spend the night and of course some munchies. It was really fun and I really wished I could stay all weekend long, but alas I had to be home by Saturday night due to the Neighborhood Watch BBQ that I was in charge of. So I ended up leaving the delightfully hilarious FMH ladies with whom I wish I had gotten a chance to know better, really early in the morning (well, really early if you have stayed up till 2 the night before...) in order to get back to IF in time for the BBQ without konking out on the long (and might I say BORING) drive home alone from Boise.

The BBQ turned out okay I guess. At the moment I'm rather frustrated with my neighborhood. They say they will support you in something and then don't follow through. I'm having a bit of difficulty finding anyone willing to make it so that if I NEED to skip an event I can... and needless to say, donations toward the signage are going rather slow. Honestly there are a lot of houses in our neighborhood, and all it would take is 20 of them donating $5 to get the signs up... Ya, it's going slow, and I must say I'm rather underwhelmed. If I don't start seeing more support from my neighbors I think that I may just come to the conclusion that most of them aren't interested in having a neighborhood watch (some are interested in it mind you! just not many) and I will bag it. It's not worth the time and effort working on things that people aren't interested in or willing to support. Let alone the fact that I'm having everything translated into Spanish and not ONE Spanish speaker has shown up to either of the events. Why am I doing this if no one is benefiting? I regretted not staying at the Bloggersnacker in Boise.

Monday I went to the Chiropractor and got my back adjusted, then Wednesday I called and canceled further appointments until I can afford them. Started to seriously consider going back to school... and was going to start looking into it yesterday but got distracted somehow. Which happens often do to the kids asking to go do something like this:

 or this:

:) They are sweet and I love them to death....

Today is the last day of Goober's Summer School. He was behind in reading so they asked if he would do summer school, which actually I would prefer simply because me keeping a schedule for him and I reading to each other is a bit of a mess... and often doesn't happen. I know.... bad mom. Anywho, with summer school he was less likely to get any farther behind than he already was so I jumped for it.

Well, today is the last day, and I had a Dermatologist appointment to get to this morning. I didn't realize that Goober was likely to get out early today until he told me last night. So I let him skip out on school, because honestly, I was worried he would come home when I was gone to my appointment and totally freak out. My friend Erin watched them while I went to my appointment.

I love having friends that I trust with my kids and that I don't feel like I'm imposing on when I do. Plus, she has dogs... which Turbo HATES, but which are good for him because he really needs to learn to be okay with them. Erin is sweet and manages to keep him untraumatized. They are sweet dogs too, so he has absolutely no reason to be afraid....now I just wish he would internalize that!

The doctor froze off two spots on my skin so now I have ouchness, but I'd rather that than cancer... Thankyouverymuch. Fair skin can suck.

So anyways, June was nuts and I felt like I hardly had a moment to think let alone relax! Hopefully July will be better and I will find that the kids don't pick on each other to the point that my sanity goes out the window. I really need to look into when the Library does "reading time" and when the pools next session of lessons are even though I'm not terribly sure we can afford it this year. It's a safety thing though, so I really really WANT to afford it for them.

Tomorrow our family is going to my parents house for our annual fireworks! My parents get fireworks for the group, we have a BBQ then light them off, when they are done we move to the back yard and watch their little towns fireworks because the view is really good :) It's wonderful to be able to do that, if my kids get too droopy I can always go lay them down inside! As always the weekend of the 4th is always a bit insane, this year our city is moving the celebration from the 4th to the 3rd because the 4th is on a Sunday (don't ask me... I don't really get why celebrating our Independence is not Sabbath worthy... ) so because of that my parents little town moved theirs to the 2nd because they don't want to have to compete with the bigger city (now, I DO get that).

I don't know if we will be going to the parade or not... mainly because if the kids are up late the night before they may be a major handful the next morning, but we will see. I would really like to go.

Anyhow, that is that.... as they say. Oh! and I taught myself how to do a 4 strand braid. Yay me! lol

School!

Okay, so I know school is almost out for the summer, which I'm excited for as well and a little worried about lol have to find out when swim lessons are this summer!

This summer Goober will be in summer school for a month for Title 1 reading help. I know with the change in everyones schedule that I probably won't be so good at making sure he reads and I don't want him to loose all the progress he has made this year! My mom is awe-some and is willing to take him while we are out of town for a week this summer (really, could I ask for a better mom?! I don't think so!)

All this year Missy has totally resisted learning much (unfortunately) but it IS preschool, so at least that is some comfort... she refuses to learn how to spell her name (or work on it at all with me) and her teacher says she needs to work on using scissors. I'm hoping that bribery with gummy bears and some help from her older brother might help. Considering this, I'm also hoping that a different teaching method might help.

Recently it was advertised that there is going to be a new Montessori style charter school starting in our area. I applied for both of the older kids and got them both in! One of my friends husbands did the design on the building (it won't have grass on the top though) and I drove by the other day and the tractors are going, getting that baby up and ready to go come this fall. I'm excited, but I little worried because it will be it's first year running and of course everyone will be scrambling to get things into smooth running order... I hope everything falls into place quickly. I looked at the committees they still need help on and don't see that I'm qualified for where they need help. I think I will offer to be a willing body, even if it is just to run out and get coffee and donuts lol.

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to the changes!

One last bash!

So yesterday was a busy day to say the least! I woke up at 7:15 and went walking around our neighborhood for exercise before it got too sweltery hot... I know the high was supposed to be about 100 Degrees. YUCK!

After I got home I quickly showered and went with a friend to the local farmers market. Where I found kohlrabi (which Jer says sounds like "Kill Rabbi" which is NOT GOOD!) and a funk kind of squash which I can't remember the name of. I quickly purchased both because I had never tried them and with the new diet I might as well find as many things as possible that I like to eat that are allowed!

After wandering around the farmers market for a while and admiring many things I was not allowed to eat... aka apple turnovers and other high sugar foods... I raced home to get there before my parents arrived at eleven.

I got there just in time to change into my swimsuit and grab a few supplies before Gma and Gpa showed up with the boat. We packed into our van and headed up to the local lake for some boating. As it turned out, the boat wouldn't work! The battery had died (probably do to the fix-it guys leaving the blower on) and would NOT take a jump. So we all loaded back into our vehicles and headed to Gma and Gpa's house to swap batteries out. While we were there we ate lunch and then headed up to Palisades Reservoir. We all smashed into the truck for the ride which turned out great.

Once we got out into the lake it was a blast! Unfortunately EVERYONE forgot their cameras! I'm so glad we got to go before school officially starts tomorrow! I rode on the tube, which I haven't done in years, Jer took Goober on the tube too, and then Jer went out for a refresher crash course in tubing behind my dad's boat :) man were those some SPECTACULAR stunts there!!!! needless to say, he is feeling it today!

Goober got to play with his gimpy remote control boat (which only likes to turn one direction) and everyone was happy. EB even fell asleep and took a short nap on the boat floor as we raced about the lake. And since the boat had recently been worked on and was running pretty smoothly both Jer and I got a turn to try and drive the thing. Jer did great, I on the other hand was a little too cautious I think. I was nervous about the whole thing, especially the no brakes bit! I can see why it would be fun to have a boat though!

As we came in for the day and I was looking my worst (you know, swimsuit, sunburned, and wind whipped) I of course ran into an old friend. LOL the only thing I could tell myself to make myself feel better was "next time he sees me he will say to himself 'MAN, she has lost of load of weight!'."

As we got back to the parents house the kids were reluctant to leave for home.... even though we had spent all day with them! So mom offered dinner and we gladly took her up on the offer :)

What a great day! I couldn't have asked for better for the last weekend before school starts! I really couldn't.

One Thing The Wind Is Good For!