T is for Toby!

Got both kids back to school today, and the hubby need to use my jeep, so I am most definitely stuck at home for the day. But that's ok. Need to get some disinfecting done around the house and hopefully working on a few projects (back to work on some).
So much to do today leaving little time to post.
But I had to share this blog post with you. It's not new, but I just read it in some of my catching up. Check out the adorable shirts her two oldest children have on for their first day of school. What a FABULOUS idea!!! Wish I had little ones again to do that with or had thought of it when mine were little. I could go on and on about how great it is, so check it out for yourself!
And have a great day!

Fairness in Drainage and Ginger

First off, so loving the leading into Fall. As with every September, Crock pot cooking is becoming a big thing again. So I am enjoying the easy of finding new recipes. Now to just start putting them into use.

Saturday night Larry and I went out to dinner with my parents. We had a nice light meal at Souper Salad. Perfect for the rainy weekend. The best thing about eating there is dessert for me is Ginger bread. Love that stuff! But I haven't had any in such a long time. And that made me realize I need a good recipe to make it myself. Anyone know of a good one?

My oldest has developed allergies. I noticed a few weeks ago she was taking Tylenol often for headaches. I figured it may be sinus headaches, so I told her to start taking Zyrtec daily like her sister does. Tylenol or Advil daily is NOT GOOD! As figured, it takes a bit of time to get into your system. So she complained for a bit that it wasn't working. Over Labor Day weekend she forgot to take it and felt pretty bad Tuesday and had to miss school. She seemed to figure it must be working after that.

This last weekend she had to go without it again and started feeling pretty awful last night. She said that the medicine really must be working. She got up and got ready for school this morning, but was really dragging and ended up missing her bus. I think she was hoping I would just send her back to bed.

Few problems with that.

1- ATT guy was coming to replace the receiver in her room since apparently the one put in last week was no good. And I knew (which he did) that he would want to try a few things before he put the new one in.

2 - It's just not good to miss school!

3 - My other daughter suffers from SEVERE allergies. Hers usually start getting super bad late October/early November They last for a month or two then die down till Spring . She often has rough nights due to all the drainage, and coughing. But she knows she still has to go to school and pushes through. If we kept her home every time they were bad, she'd be home more than at school each year. I do keep her home when they are super severe.

I realize allergies are a new thing to Haylee, but it just doesn't seem fair to let her stay home when she feels cruddy when the rest of us push through. Especially when her sister pushes through with way worse.

I felt a bit mean talking to her about it, but told her she really has to work to figure out when it's just allergies she can push through since all the rest of us do and when she is truly sick and needs to stay home. I hate when my kids feel bad. I want to just baby them, but that's not how the world works. It doesn't stop each time we feel bad, and neither can we.

(Just a few pictures thrown in that I had taken over the past few days)

Losing more than just cats

Still no sign of Milee. I decided to not put it off and told Holly of her disappearance. I told her how I have experienced this before and have had the cat return. So she is handling it well. On my way to run errands today I passed a black kitten in the road who had met an early demise. I was quite sad and thought about Milee. I fear this is ultimately what may have happened to her even though she has a fairly large fear of large moving objects. Larry believes that someone probably has lured her in and tried to make her their own. I am continuing to debate the idea of a companion for Matty. Normal rule of thumb is if I were to do this it would surely cause the return of Milee. Wonderful, but then will put me over the limit of household pets legally and sanely. For now I will just continue to wait.
Today I got super inspired. I am just over a month from my 30th b-day. I have big plans for it. But I made a new one today. I recently purchased some cute t-shirts that ended up being a little on the small side. This was not done on purpose, but I did hope after discovering it that it would lead to returning to my weight loss goals. I decided today though that I would really love to be wearing them when my birthday arrives. I have been able to do a work out two out of the three school mornings this week. The one I missed was Tuesday, the first day back, and it was due to circumstances I could not control. So the main thing I now need to focus on is sticking to working out each week day and back to eating better again. So I hauled off to pick up some healthy snacks. My goal for tomorrow is to plan out healthier lunches and breakfasts. If I stick with focusing on changing my meals that I majorly eat alone and stick to my normal dinners, I think the results will come quickly. My main problem with my snack shopping spree is storing them. I am trying to keep them handy but put away from the rest of the family so I will have what I want. But I needed a snack earlier and was not able to get to it without being noticed that I pulled something out of a secret place. I will have to find a new location. I hate being sneaky and keeping things from the kids and hubby, but with the non stop eating that goes on with two growing kids and one very hard working husband, you have to hide it.

Milee

Last night was a bit of a rough night. I woke up in the middle of the night due to a dream. In the dream I was aggravated with the hubby and one of the kids. She had acted up and Larry ignored my handling of it and took her to the movies. Something totally crazy especially since the house we were living in was the one I grew up in and I was hiding in the garage across the street to cool off. I woke up in the middle of the attempted cool off and hung on to the upset mood all the way through morning. HORMONES!

Also our cat Milee is missing. We went camping over Labor Day weekend. Apparently while we were gone she disappeared. There wasn't enough food missing for two cats to have been eating all weekend. When we have been gone for a bit, she becomes very clingy. She doesn't normally want to be petted much but she is dying to be held when we return from a day or more away. This time she didn't show up for her normal shoulder riding and cheek scratching I give her.

Our cats are indoor/outdoor cats that come and go as they please. This is how it always was when I was growing up and had cats. So I am always prepared that something may happen. The last time we lost a cat though, Holly was only 4 and didn't really notice him missing. Milee would rather meow back and forth with you than sit in your lap, so no one is quite as attached to her as our other cat we currently have, but it's not going to be easy if she doesn't show back up soon and I have to break down and tell my youngest she's missing. My older one already knows. She has caught me outside calling for her and looking around.

Like I said, she isn't one to be a lap cat. She's very independent. But she is a super pretty one and was an anniversary gift from Larry for our 4th anniversary. I was in the wreck that lead to finding my tumor the day before our anniversary and couldn't do anything to celebrate, so Larry got me her. He knew I had always wanted a calico.

That is the other reason my night was so rough. Worry and every time something jumped into the bed I would wake up thinking it was her just to find out it was Matty our other cat.

Now for the super hard part. Continuing to wait without worrying too much since I have had cats disappear and then return, and to decide when will be the right time to inform Holly.

Then what to do? Does replacing her make it easier? Does Matty still need company? We had gotten our cat Flash (that we had to send to my Aunt's) as a companion for Matty. We still had Milee to keep him company when we had to let him go so I didn't replace him. Matty hasn't shown any signs of being lonely so far, but he does enjoy wrestling with the other cats we have had. He has never minded other animals so I don't worry about a territory thing as much as him getting lonely.

Ugh, this is why it is often easier NOT to have pets.

SEPTEMBER

Is here!! Woohoo! And starting the end of last week, the temperatures have started cooling down. It has really been nice to be outside lately. Not quite nice enough for me to turn off the AC and open the house up, but I think that will be coming sooner than normal.
Sorry haven't gotten into the posting regularly again yet. The first week of school was a bit hectic. Haylee ended up deciding that the athletics department was a bit rougher than she cared for. Thankfully it was no problem getting her switched over to P.E. She is much happier. She has also proven me right and quickly made friends. She is already making plans for hanging out at a friends house after school soon to do homework and have fun. I'm very pleased. From different comments Haylee's made about the girl, she sounds like another one with a good head.
Holly is enjoying being in intermediate, but she enjoys anything new so it's no surprise. She's my easy to please child. Strong willed, but easy to please!
My other problem is my computer has a major virus detected so I can't use it now. So again on Larry's. I really need a new one anyway. So may finally seriously look into getting a new one (that one is 7 years old now), and redoing mine and making it into one for the girls to use without me worrying about what they do on mine so much.
Ok, off for today. Got to get some cleaning done and then errands run. Hope to finish up most of my major chores this week, then spending most of the days next week at my mom's while my dad is on vacation with my brother. We have some projects to work on. Then the next week get to work on organizing and painting my laundry/computer room. Hopefully I'll have time for sewing/knitting and reading somewhere in all of that.

Back to the Norm

Holly 5th grader

Haylee 7th grader

First, sorry for the Fall background. I do realize we are still experiencing almost 100 degree weather, but I LOVE the colors in this one. I found it a month or two ago and had to make myself resist putting it on sooner. I decided when school started it would be ok. Fall is my favorite time, and I love almost anything to do with it, so sorry about the most likely frequent background changes.

Yesterday the girls started back to school. Seems both had reasonably smooth days. Holly is loving not being in elementary and seeing her old friends. Haylee is adjusting to being in Junior High and in a new school district. She came from middle school, so isn't having too hard of a time getting into the grove of class changing and such. She joined athletics and had to be at the school super early this morning for volleyball tryouts. I am anxiously waiting for her to get home and let me know how it all went. Only thing she really worries about is making friends. She is shy, but I know she will have them quick. She's like her daddy where people just want to talk to her even if they don't know her.

Yesterday I TRIED to spend the day enjoying my freedom again. I ran to Hobby Lobby to find some fabric to better match a project I am getting ready to work on. I then treated myself to lunch out. But it wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be. I then got a few groceries. While in the store I had to run to the restroom to discover I had a UTI. Unfortunately Larry's work doesn't have insurance and with all the back to school needs, my bank account is VERY tight till pay day in a couple days. And no doctor's office will bill you so I had to go the ER to get checked out. Missed getting to take the girls for an after first day of school treat, spent 3 hours in ER, and will be getting a too large bill soon for them to tell me exactly what I knew. But got my meds and am starting to feel better.

Starting to get things cleaned up in and out of the house after a busy summer, but with this lovely infection it has me a bit on the run down side, so cleaning is slow.

Coming Soon

Actual posts!!! School starts back TOMORROW leaving me with more time to do things and less having to entertain and run kids around. This summer did seem to go fast though. But even with no vacation trips this year it stayed busy.
I also hope to really kick up my studying for my certification to help hopefully get a job within the next month or so. This is the one time I'm looking forward to flu season since it puts a spike in jobs.
I also hope to be able to get more sewing done, work on my knifty knitter projects and finally learn to knit with knitting needles . And most importantly to get to organizing and painting done! With this organizing I am looking forward to getting rid of a lot of things!
Ok so that's a lot I hope to do, but with some changes that will be much easier to make with the kids gone, such as the T.V. off more, it should happen. I just will have to organize my blog reading since I spend too much time on that. But there are SO MANY interesting blogs to read!
Oh and I forgot to mention wanting to get the books read I didn't get to this summer.
That's a lot to do, better go and enjoy the last day of summer vaca so I am not wishing for it when working on all of that!