Helloooo old friend!

I know it seems like I've forgotten this little corner of my world.   Truth is I'm always composing blog posts in my head as I live my life.  I just never actually get to writing them down anymore, and that makes me sad.   (I try sometimes...I have 47 drafts saved on my dashboard!)

Today is a new phase in my life.  For the first time in almost 11 years... I do not have any kids to babysit and no one to drive to work or school.   It is only MY schedule that controls the day.   It was hard to tell the kids I wasn't babysitting anymore.   It is hard for me to be ok with that idea too....I'm sitting here crying typing this.   I feel like I've let my kids down and I'm going to miss the grandkids like crazy.  BUT  I have to do what's best for everyone, including my kids still at home.  My littlest ones have had their lives controlled by older kids schedules and needs for far too long.    I get to be GRANDMA instead of the babysitter!   My house can be a place to come to have fun instead of the place they HAVE to go to (and get dragged out of bed to be there).   I want to have pool parties and sleepovers and WANT to take the grandkids places, not just drag them around.    The fact is....I am getting older.   I'm often heard saying, there's a reason 50 year olds don't have babies!!!    I'm not as strong or fast as I used to be.  I have some physical ailments that affect that even more.   Chasing 3yos around is HARD!  lol

Have no fear though, I still have a ton on my plate!    We just finished up our 3rd year of homeschooling.  Yes, after all those years of talking about doing it, I'm finally doing it.   Eileen and Olivia had made the decision for me.   They were adamant that they didn't want to go to school anymore.    I decided since I was homeschooling them, I may as well keep Danielle and Sean home too.   I LOVE IT!   Eileen will be taking the TASC test soon, Olivia is a senior, Danielle will be starting 6th grade and Sean 5th.  Yep!   My baby will be 10 by the end of this month!  Like I said....I'm getting old.    I'm working fundraisers for church.  Right now it's a concession stand during concerts at the new Amphitheater.   In the fall and spring we still do a concession stand at the Dome (Syracuse University's Sports Stadium).  

In November I  started a new business selling LuLaRoe.     I would've loved having this company around 20 yrs ago when it was almost impossible to find skirts and dresses in the stores.   While I do have some pants in my wardrobe I am still mainly a skirt wearing girl.   I love that I can find beautiful and comfortable clothes in my size...especially now that I'm at my highest weight ever.   What I love even more is helping other women to feel as wonderful as I do in the clothes.  The fact that I get to make new friends along the way is a big bonus!

What does my house look like now?   There are 4 kids home still...Eileen, Olivia, Danielle and Sean.   Tom and I just celebrated our 33rd anniversary last week.   In 3 yrs Tom will be retiring!   It can't come soon enough.    All the grown kids still live in the area except Liz who lives in Virginia.  (Her husband is in the Navy),    Grandkid count is at 8.   Drew has 1, Pat has 3, Michelle has 1, Val has 1 and Liz has 2.

The picture below was taken last month when Liz was visiting.  Unfortunately we didn't manage to get a picture of everyone together or the grandkids.  
Left to right...Drew, Eileen, Pat, Luke, Sean, Liz, Carrie, Danielle, Jake, Val, Michelle, Olivia


 

I haven't changed, I can still manage to turn a blog post into a novel.   I'm hoping this is the first of many posts to come.   I've missed you!   Comment below and let me know how things are going with you guys!

And the countdown begins

0 days until Tom's 55th birthday (age he can retire)
2 more days until Liz and AJ come home
3 more days until Jake leaves to work with friends in Connecticut
5 more days until Eileen's 15th birthday
10 more days until Liz and AJ's vow renewal celebration
oh and 13 days until Sean's 6th birthday
I can't even start to think past these 2 wks when we have Meghan's birthday, family week at church, Jake's birthday, Danielle's birthday, back to school shopping, Carrie's birthday and a baby shower to plan.   Not to mention all the every day stuff!  One day at a time.  Follow the timeline and hopefully things will go as planned.  If not, fly with it and make do.

Yesterday was dress/shoe shopping day for me and the younger girls.   I found myself a dress, I think.   We had 20 mins before the mall closed when I went into the dress store to find mine.   I haven't worn a dress in AGES!   I always wear a skirt and shirt which looks fine normally.  Looking at Pat's wedding pictures though made me almost cry.  Everyone was wearing all these "fancy" dresses and here I was in a nice skirt and shirt...felt like I looked like a peasant.   So this time I decided to go with the dress...more summery then evening.

My niece Jess also went along because she needed a dress to stand up with Liz.   Liz's colors are purple and blue, she wanted Jess to wear purple (Danielle and Sean are wearing lavender).  Do you know how hard it is to find PURPLE!?!?!  In the fashion industry the color no longer exists.   We looked in every store in Destiny USA mall for hours on end and found maybe 8 dresses.  I'm not talking about 8 dresses in size X.  I'm talking 7 dresses in ANY size.   One was the wrong color, 2 were too short, one looked like it was worn already, 2 were too promy (tons of sequins and tulle...same dress different lenghts), and 2 we were trying to decide from.   Fortunately both fit Jess!

Today is the day to take a trip to Lowe's or Home Depot.   I need to buy wood to make yard jenga  and pvc pipe to construct a photo booth.   I'm having a ball figuring out the construction of the booth.   If it comes out like I envision I may just try to rent it out to others if I can.   I can add my chocolate fountain into the rental business too. :o)   I'll try to remember to take pictures along the way.

Yes, my husband turns 55 today.   He insists that we don't do anything for him...not even cake.  Yeah right.  His reasoning is that it's too hot to bake.  Luckily for us the humidity has died down quite a bit overnight.   I bought vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and whipped cream.  The girls are going to bake brownies so we can have brownie sundaes.  

Well all the above stuff was written on the11th (July).  It is now after midnight on the 16th.   Things are not going according to plans and I'm a little behind but not freaking out behind yet.    AJ's best friend who is also in the Navy found out he could come home before going to his first ship and will be here for the wedding.   So now Carrie has to find a dress to stand up with Liz too.   We looked today and still no purple dresses to be had.  Liz is about to change Carrie's color to navy blue.   Now I've gone to craigslist and ebay.   We'll be running out bright and early this morning to look again.   Thing is I never had these 2 days of shopping in my schedule.   I need a serious trip to the laundromat.   Thankfully the girls got the living room looking good.   Unfortunately a lot of stuff was stuffed in bedrooms in order to do it.

Today is Eileen's 15th birthday!   I'm feeling guilty since I'm caught up in the wedding stuff and haven't planned anything for her nor did I get her a present.  I also forgot she wanted and I had planned on buying her a longboard until Olivia mentioned it tonight.   Eileen wants to go to the beach.   HOW do I do that with my huge todo list staring at me?   Maybe we should go and I can cram everything into Wed and Thurs.  Actually just Wednesday since I'll have Gabe on Thursday.  Friday is shopping and Saturday is food prep.  

I should be in my bed sleeping since I have to be out the door by 7am!!  You'd think it would be easy, seeing as  I've been up since 6am and it's now past 2:30am.   But here I am, washing machine going and dishes sitting in hot water waiting for me while I take a cereal break and get eaten alive by noseeums who have no idea what window screens are!   I'm asking Tom to do some cutting for a project I had planned to do in the morning.


And this never got published,   I just found it 8/17.   Liz wedding went well. the photobooth was a hit and I'll be using it again after a few modifications.  I'll try to post pictures and say more a different day.





 

Ain't no body got time fo dat!

That line has been running through my head a lot lately.  I've had ONE day this month where I didn't have to leave the house for any length of time.  (drove the kids 2 miles to church in the evening which doesn't count).   We've been getting our Baby Gabey fix in at a good rate.   He comes here at least once a week, sometimes three.   He's such a sweetheart and loves to cuddle!

(using Liz's laptop, I'll try to upload pictures later from mine)

Yep, we have laptops in our house again.   I bought 2 hard drives and have been trying to get both mine and Liz's up to snuff.  We're running on Linux/Ubuntu so I've been having to learn things all over again.  It's been fun getting all geeky and finding work arounds.  It'd be even more fun if I had tons of time to waste on doing it.

Only a few more weeks before Liz and AJ will be coming home!   Having Liz 1000 miles away has been hard, especially this week.   She was hit by a car on the way home the other night (she was on a bike).  Luckily the car wasn't going very fast and the road she was thrown into didn't have any heavy traffic (light had just turned green).   She's doing ok but has had a few days of feeling like she was just hit by a car.  She's not sure how she did it but she crushed her wedding ring during the accident.   I'm sure the driver's insurance will cover fixing/replacing it but until then my mom is letting Liz use one of my grandmother's bands.  I think we have most things pinned down for the vow renewal/wedding celebration on the 21st.  Now to do the work and spend the money to get it done. 

Val is engaged!   Matt proposed and gave her a beautiful ring on Saturday.   Tom knew already because Matt asked him permission and showed him the ring.   Snot never said anything to me!   So now we have another wedding to plan and save up for.  We also have a baby shower to do.  I can't even start to think about it until Liz's ceremony is over.   I'm figuring we'll have it mid to late September, so there's time.   Val's best friend Janna and the girls are doing most of the planning so far.   I've gone on a few more shopping sprees for the little guy!  FUN! FUN! FUN!

For the first time in almost 7yrs Tom and I have our room to ourselves!   Carrie moved out  a few weeks ago.  Danielle and Sean jumped at the chance to move into her room.  They have a twin bed set up with Carrie's loft waiting for a railing to be installed (they both move a lot when sleeping, I don't trust them up there without it).  Today's plan is to get the toys out of the living room and into their room.   Then maybe we can actually move around in this place!  

Friday was our 30th wedding anniversary.    We didn't do anything for it.   Tom's been on call all week with a few late night call ins, so he slept it away.   We are going away in September to "celebrate".  We're sharing a 4bdrm beach house in Surfside, South Carolina.  We get one room, my parents get another, my dad's sister and a family friend are sharing one and my mom's sister along with her daughter and son in law are sharing the 4th one.   Obviously it's not a romantic getaway but I'm looking forward to getting away nonetheless.  I'm also trying to convince Tom to take advantage of some free room offers from a local casino this month.

I've been working at the baseball stadium for our church fundraiser.   Last night was one of our busiest times.   Thursday and Friday look to be just as busy as they'll have fireworks and a carnival running at the same time as the ball games.  (double header on the 4th)  It's nice to be able to help since $$ isn't always there to give. 

I've been trying to take better care of myself in all this busyness.   I was going to the rec center pool every weekday when school was in session.   I haven't had it work out (meaning I'm not getting up early enough!) since vacation started.  Last week I managed to go for a walk Wed, Thurs and Fri.  Where I've been walking has very few flat areas with big hills on both ends that are killers.  I realized on Fri I could walk a different way and it's fairly flat.  I like the challenge of the hills so not sure if I'll wimp out and go with the flat walk.  Although if I don't get my fanny out the door to walk...there is no decision to make and I've totally failed!

My yearly fight with the pool has started.  I haven't totally won yet but I'm getting close.   The problem is that the water level keeps dropping.  I'm pretty sure there is a slow leak somewhere.  I've been looking for it since late last summer and haven't found it yet.   It makes running the skimmer hard although I have managed to rig up the vacuum hose so don't have to give up circulating the water totally.  

OK...Danielle has decided she needs to snuggle with her momma and typing makes that not doable.   So I'm off.  Now that I can pound out a post a lot quicker I hope to be more active here.   Have a great 4th if I don't make it back by then. 

I love....

Unused snow days! Last day of school is a week earlier because of them. Last full day is the 14th, then half days on the 17th and 18th. It can't come soon enough



Furry little kittens. Our mama cat has decided that the livingroom is a much better then the shed. We have NO idea how she keeps getting in much less to be able to drag 4 babies in.

Growing baby bumps. Everytime Val walks by I can't help but smile at the little bulge that seems to get bigger every day. She has a sono scheduled today. They're still not sure whether they'll share the gender. I want to shop so I'm hoping she does.

A quirky little guy who keeps me on my toes, and his beautiful big sister.

He refused to pose for pictures this morning...



But I managed to sneak a few.




Danielle was fine with pictures being taken.





First world problems...especially when they make me slow down and look around. Yes, we were going at a snail's pace bit did you realize how beautiful the fields are?



And now the next morning.

The hardest working man in the world. Tom has been taking call almost every weekend so we don't have to go into debt for Liz's wedding.
This week is his scheduled oncall week. He ended up getting called into work at 9 last night and never came home. I just talked to him....he's exhausted and heading home to sleep. Looks like he might be in for more of the same tonight. My poor guy.

Btw...Val and Matt did decide to share their news. Val and I stopped at Walmart on the way home last night and bought lots of things with dinosaurs and cars on them!!!

Ok...I'm already late for the pool. See ya soon!