Filed under: family
The Boy got home from Vegas on Friday night. Of course a phone conversation and texting soon followed. Then, my world as I knew it started to unravel. Doodles asked me what we had going on Saturday. She knew we had the raingutter regata for Cub Scouts Saturday night. She asked if there was anything else going on. I told her no. She stood there looking at me as though I should be able to read her mind because she didn’t really want to ask her question out loud. Finally I gave in to her and asked if there was something in particular she wanted to do on Saturday. She would like to go to a movie. With whom? The Boy had asked her out to a movie. They are 12. A friend of his and another girl were going to go too. I told her we could probably work something out but I wanted to talk to his parents first. I don’t think she liked that answer. How embarrassing for your mom to want to talk to your boyfriend’s parents about a date. Oh well. The next morning they planned and plotted and eventually his mom called. Despite the fact that they have an older daughter, she really didn’t know what to do about this either. They have a pool so she was trying to talk The Boy into just inviting Doodles over to swim. Nope, they wanted to go to a movie. Then, the other boy and girl backed out so it would just be the two of them. I tried to talk his older sister into chaperoning, but she didn’t think taking her 12 yo brother to a movie sounded like much fun. Finally, after much deliberation, we decided that we would meet at the movie theater and his mom and I would either go see some other movie (because I had already seen Journey to the Center of the Earth and she didn’t want to see it) or we would go get some coffee, although I was really leaning more towards a martini myself. We met at the designated time. The Boy brought his cousin along, who we also know from tkd class, and the 3 of them went in to see their movie. His mom and I discovered that Mamma Mia was playing at the same time so we went in to see it. It was a good movie. Afterwards, we walked back to the parking garage and went home. I tried to get info out of Doodles. She said he didn’t kiss her but pleaded the 5th on whether he held her hand or put his arm around her. I keep reminding her that she is lucky that I know and like The Boy and his family. If he were some other boy, I might not have been so open to the idea of her going to a movie with him (and another boy besides). His mom and I then embarrassed them even further by making them pose for a picture together. We told them someday they might be glad to have a picture from their first date.
Filed under: family
After suffering through 2 weeks of Boxman being gone and 2 weeks of dance camp for Doodles, I’m so glad it’s Friday. We picked Boxman up from the airport last night. His flight was delayed a couple of times, but I had set it up through American Airlines to be e-mailed any changes or delays. My new best friend, the iphone, dutifully received the e-mails and I didn’t arrive at the airport 45 minutes early. I love that phone. It’s so nice to have him home again especially when he was gone a full 7 days this time.
Doodles is tired of dance camp and is so happy today is the last day. She loves dance, but she was exhausted before the camp started from karate camp the weekend before. Having 2 weeks of dance/pilates/etc with no time to recover has been tough. I’m tired of having to go pick her up everyday too. The fact that The Boy will be coming back today from a week in Vegas is adding to her happiness.
Buster is just happy to have a friend over all day.
It’s a great day.
Filed under: Shopping
I noticed the other week at Alberston’s that they had reusable grocery bags for sale for $1 each. I went ahead and bought 3 of them even though that generally wouldn’t be enough because I wanted to see how well I liked them. They are really pretty nice bags. So, I dutifully take them with me to the store the next time I go. I hate those plastic bags and am glad to do my part to save the world. I handed them to the cashier before she started ringing me up. She took them, set them aside, and proceeded to put my groceries in plastic bags. Huh? I thought perhaps she just forgot and was doing it out of habit, so I gently remind her that I have the reusable bags. She continues to put them in plastic. I started to get irritated at this point and was a little more forward with my request to please put my groceries in the reusable bags. She still can’t figure it out. I finally told her to just put the items on the little turntable thing and I bagged them myself. Amazing that this woman couldn’t figure it out. I was sure to go to customer service and suggest that they train their checkers and baggers to actually use the reusable bags when a customer brings them in.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I have refrained from writing post after post after post about how much I love my iphone. But, I must tell you about my favorite free application for the iphone. It’s called Shazam. This thing is so cool. If music comes on the radio and you want to know the name of the song and/or who sings it, you just run the application, press the “tag it” button and it will tell you! I’ve tried it on a variety of songs and the only time it has failed us so far is when Buster was playing with it while watching Miley Cyrus on Good Morning America. I don’t know if it’s because they were new songs but it didn’t get either of her songs that he tried. And then, after it tells you the name and who sings it, there are links to touch and buy it from itunes as well as links for You Tube videos of it. Could I live without this application? Of course, but it’s so much fun to play with that I’m glad I have it. I can just imagine the long road trips when we are listening to the radio playing the “guess who sings this” game – we can actually tag each song to see who gets it right.
Filed under: Uncategorized
That’s what my friend, who happens to be a runner, told me this morning. I laughed. I just finished week 6 of Couch to 5k today. I think that hardly makes me a runner, especially when I still hate it so much. However, she was impressed that I ran for 25 minutes straight which, according to my Nike+ ipod thing, amounted to 2.3 miles. Wow, I ran over two miles. Sure it was a really slow pace because my running resembles that of a turtle’s, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I ran for 25 minutes straight. It was hard. I hated every minute of it after about the first 5. But I did it. I kept running even though there were workmen at the school where I run the track. I ignored their looks and the thought that they were probably all laughing at the chubby girl running. I just kept telling myself that there was probably not a single one of them who could do what I was out there doing.
Filed under: family
So Doodles goes to karate camp last weekend and comes home with a boyfriend. I heard the news soon after I arrived to pick her up, but not from her. A couple of the instructors relayed the story to me. I didn’t tell her I knew, but she was foolish if she thought that nobody would tell me about it. I kept asking her about camp on the way home. She cheerfully told me all of the things they did leaving out one key event. Later that day, I asked her some more about camp and she kept leaving out the fact that she got a boyfriend. Finally, not able to take it anymore, I told her that I heard she has a boyfriend. She admitted to it, but left out all details. As I heard it, The Boy knocked on the girls’ dorm door and asked to see Doodles. The other girls had to push her out the door, and then the two of them sat outside and talked. He asked her if she wanted to go out and her response was “Sure.”
Yes, she is not quite 13 but this is one of those cute, innocent little relationships. The Boy goes to our church and takes tae kwon do with us. He is a sweet boy. Doodles and The Boy are so cute together. But now I have realized that we are moving into an entirely different phase for the next 10-20 years. The dating years. I have had to listen to her beg for her own cell phone even more than before so they can talk and text each other whenever they want. He has a phone on AT&T so I told her she can call him anytime on my new iphone because it’s free. But they want to text too. Well, the cell phone that I have for my low paying job at the karate school has unlimited texting so she can text on it all she wants. The Boy is still getting confused about which number to call on and which to text to, but I have faith that he’ll get it figured out. She can e-mail him anytime too – from her computer or my iphone. It’s so cute how they call and text. Which of course makes me think back to the days when I was young and liked the boys – I still like boys, but you know what I mean. I asked to call a boy one time and my mom actually called me a “brazen little hussy” for wanting to call a boy.
Filed under: Shopping
After not sleeping well Thursday night, fretting about whether I should spend a large amount of money on something for myself, I got up early Friday morning and went to the AT&T store. Boxman has been wanting to buy me an iphone since before Christmas. I couldn’t stand the thought of spending so much money on a toy for me. When they announced the new iphones were going to be half as much, he decided that I was definitely going to get one. Then he had to be out of town on July 11 and couldn’t go buy one for me. I had to overcome the guilt, get out the credit card, and pay for it myself. I just have such a hard time doing that. When I got my laptop, I actually had to send Boxman to the store without me to buy it because I wouldn’t have been able to spend the money. So, after not sleeping well Thursday night, I got up at about 6:45am almost hoping that I would be too far back in line and wouldn’t get one. Since Boxman and Doodles weren’t home, I had to get Buster up and take him with me. We arrived at the store around 7:30 to find between 20 and 25 people ahead of us in line. I started to get more excited about it waiting in line. What really irritated me was that none of the AT&T employees would tell us how many iphones they had. Everytime they were asked, we were told they didn’t know. Liars. I will say that they were kind enough to bring out bottled water for anybody who wanted one. At 8am, the first group was let into the store – one person per register. It was all very organized and calm – but they still insisted on locking the door after each person entered or left. A bit after this, a man came out asking each person in line if they wanted an 8g or 16g phone. He disappeared for awhile and then came back out to inform us that they only had enough 8g phones to go a couple people ahead of me. Boxman kept telling me to get the 16g, so I wasn’t bothered by the fact that they were running out of the 8g. I was humored that they had so many more 16g than 8g – what a way to up-sell. At about 8:35, it was my turn to go in. The man asked me what color I wanted and grabbed the iphone for me first. Since I was already an AT&T costumer and my contract had expired back in February, there was no problem with doing the upgrade and it barely took 5 minutes before we were out of the store. He did warn me that the calling plan might not be right and he would check on it later and leave me a voicemail. Well, it was definitely messed up but I didn’t know how badly until the next morning. It took forever to get the phone activated because itunes couldn’t handle all of the new iphones being activated at once. I was not able to activate my phone until late in the afternoon. Once it was activated, the voicemail was not functioning and I could only get on the internet using wi-fi. In the meantime, Buster took control of the phone and started downloading every free game he could find which was a surprisingly large number. We headed back to the store on Saturday morning and found that somehow I had ended up with the unlimited minutes plan and no data instead of the 450 minutes with unlimited data and visual voicemail. The woman at the store was very kind and helpful and called tech support to get it all taken care of. She also added about 4000 roll over minutes to my account since my old ones had disappeared. I’ll never use that many anyway. I left the store happy with my fully functioning iphone. Buster and I have had a ton of fun playing with it. Now if only I could figure out how to get my own ringtones on it. I followed some directions I found on line for making my own and it looks okay in itunes, but when I sync it up, they don’t show up on the phone. If anyone has any tips for that, I’d appreciate it. In the meantime, I’ll keep enjoying all that it will do. And I’m feeling a little less guilty, at least until that first bill comes.
Filed under: family
There are lots of reasons why I like Boxman working from home. Sometimes I have to make sure he realizes this, especially if there is a trip looming in his near future. Today was reason number 36 on the list.
I noticed a lizard on our hearth room ceiling. Yes, a lizard on the ceiling. After letting out a relatively minor squeal over it, I went and told Boxman. He suggested I get a stool to use. I got a stool, and a shoe box, and even the flyswatter. I climbed up ready to just scoop the little thing into the box. It had other plans. After two attempts, it fell down. It landed on me. Let’s just say that Doodles and I both let out a much louder squeal. This got Boxman to come out of the office. The little thing ran under the couch so we moved it. I made another try with the box and flyswatter but the lizard was not cooperating. Obviously it had no clue that if he would just crawl into that box, he would be released into a much less hostile environment for him. This was when Boxman took control of the situation. The lizard had moved and was now under the ottoman. In moving it to get to the lizard, Boxman apparently set it on the lizard’s tail. He picked it up and asked what it was. Have you ever seen a freshly amputated tail from a lizard? It was in the shoebox moving all by itself! It was no longer attached to the body and it was still moving. Yuck. And I had to stand there and hold the box with this tail in it. Then Boxman swept in for the capture and picked up the little thing and deposited it into the box with the missing tail. Fearful that it was going to get out of the box before I got it outside, I sprinted for the door. Whew. I made it. I released the tailless lizard as well as his still moving tail into the grass with a final good riddance farewell. He didn’t seem to be moving, so I poked at him a bit with the flyswatter that was still in my hand. I’m doubtful that he survived the ordeal. If only he had cooperated with me to start with…. Had he tried to make our house his home, I have faith that the cats would eventually get off their lazy behinds and made him into their latest toy.
So that is why I’m glad that Boxman was working from home today. Who know what would have become of us all had he not been here to capture that little thing.
Filed under: family
So what ever happened to the lazy days of summer? I long for days of guilt-free hanging out, doing absolutely nothing. It’s not happening here for several reasons. First, do you know how hard it is to sit around doing nothing while Boxman is in the office working away to support his family financially? I’m filled with guilt if I’m not cleaning the house, planning school, or something else somewhat productive. So, here are the things that have been keeping me busy and away from updating my blog.
1. I’ve had to do the financial statement for the dance company that Doodles is in. I’m the treasurer for the company, so it was my responsibility. It’s one of those non-paying jobs.
2. I’ve started the Couch to 5K running program. I realize that this in itself doesn’t really take that much time – basically half an hour, 3 times a week. However, I have had to spend time talking myself into doing it everyday, researching running shoes, and trying to convince myself that I can learn to love running. I’m on week 3 for day 5. Yes, there are only 3 days in each week of the program but I had a nasty cold the past several days and week 3 was really hard when I wasn’t sick so I decided to do it again. Did I mention that I hate running? What has been really cool about doing this program is seeing the difference in my stamina at tae kwon do. The senior master keeps commenting on how much better my forms have been. I told him what I’ve been doing and he told me we are going to sign up and do a 5k race together. And I’m only on week 3! Seeing and feeling that difference will really help keep me motivated even though I hate running.
3. My new, low-paying job at our tae kwon do school is taking up some time too. I have gotten phone calls at all hours. I think the one at 4am was a wrong number, but the one at 6am was not. I turn the phone off at bedtime now and it doesn’t get turned on until I think of it the next day. I’ve gotten better at handling the phone calls. I had my first 2 hour training session on the computer system we use. Apparently the master has not really learned much at all about how to use it and the man I’m replacing didn’t set things up completely or correctly. This means that I have to go through all of the contracts entered, after I get everything else set up right, and make sure that the billing is all being done properly. It will probably take a lot of time. The system is a little more complicated than we need for our school right now, but he is working on growing the school. In the meantime, he has told me that I am already doing a far better job than the last guy. The fact that I have a business degree and was a computer programmer in my previous life might help. I did learn that I absolutely must remember to charge new students the $25 registration fee or I won’t get paid as that is basically my money. I have had to go back and ask a couple people for it because I forgot. Ooops.
4. I have to sneak time to plan a vacation without the kids’ knowledge. We want to surprise them. I actually have it booked, but apparently there is a lot to know and plan ahead of time for the magical place we are going. I bought a rather thick book that tells you everything, but I can only read it after the kids are in bed or when they aren’t home. I sneak on to various websites to research it too. I’m so excited.
5. I’m trying to get our next school year planned. Gone are the days of starting back up after the 4th of July. I need more break than that just to get everything bought, organized and planned. I already have some of Doodles’s stuff figured out because of Classical Conversations but I still need to fill in with some other things. Buster will be going with the flow for the most part as far as just continuing with what we’ve always used, except for a couple of new things we are going to try. I’ll try to post in the next week what our plans are so far.
6. I’ve been trying to follow Flylady again. I used her method for a while several years ago and it really did help. I don’t necessarily do everything she says and I refuse to wear shoes that tie around the house. I will wear flip flops though. I can’t say I’m very successful this go around with Flylady, but I’m not giving up yet.
So, there are my excuses for not being here much lately. I will try to do better.
