wiped out...

Okay, I'm so wiped out right now, it isn't even funny. We came home from camping a day early because it was just too hot to even do anything. There's nothing like having eight whiny kids to celebrate Labor Day with. So, we came home early to get laundry done and catch up on homework before we have to be back at school on Tuesday. It will feel so good to sleep in my own bed tonight. I've had my brains beat out by a two year old for the past two nights and I just don't think that I could have stood that another night.

My son turns 17 today. I can't believe it - just seems like yesterday that I was carrying him down the hall in the middle of the night to heat up a bottle. His gift of choice this year is the Samsung Instinct that Sprint has so I'm going to try to get that for him. Right now he has a Rokr with Alltel which is prepay and it doesn't work at my mom's house. I guess Alltel doesn't have any towers here or it may be because we are down in this valley. My Sprint works great here though, so hopefully we will be able to get the Instinct for him and he will get a lot of use out of it.

Labor Day lapse of sanity

I think I've lost my mind. I agreed to go on a three night camping trip with my girlfriend, her husband and their eight kids. My nine year old is going too, but my sixteen, soon to be seventeen year old is staying home. He is too much into having a shower at least once a day and smelling good at all times. This is not exactly roughing it, though. We have a tent and an old camper, but there is no electricity and you have to shower/shampoo with a garden hose. Sounds like fun, huh? It will be. I mean the kids can fish and swim and ride their bikes. We can have camp fires at night and roast marshmallows and make s'mores. I'm getting stoked already!

those hypnotizing Golden Arches

The first day of school came off without a hitch...unless you count my son getting on the fare bus instead of the school bus and getting back off at McDonalds to get a number 2. I couldn't believe it when he called me from a cell phone number and said "Hey Mom, I just wanted to let you know that I'm at McDonalds with my friend."

Okay. So, what am I missing? You have free transportation home, but you decide to pay $1.75 for the fare bus and then instead of coming all the way home you get off less than 1/2 mile down the road to go into Mickey Ds? That's a boy for you - he is led by his stomach. That must have been a fitting end to a very stressful day for him, though. That was his treat - a quarter pounder with cheese.

He was pleased to find that he knew someone in all of his classes. It makes Physics easier to handle when you have friend or two in there. Baby girl did great too. She makes friends really easily and came home telling about everyone in her class. Then she came home today and had to recite everyone's first and last name. It's no wonder that her kindergarten teacher had named her "mouth of the South" after only three days of school. She is definitely one of a kind. Can't tell I'm a little partial, can you?

Tension Tamer

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly Celestial Seasonings tension tamer herbal tea can melt away the days battle scars. I simply love the stuff. My daughter even drinks it. I had been drinking it to help ease into nighttime mode, but recently purchased sleepytime tea for that. The tension tamer has eleuthero (new name for Siberian Ginseng), peppermint, cinnamon, ginger, chamomile, west indian lemongrass, licorice, catnip and tilia flowers. It has a wonderful lemon and peppermint taste. The sleepytime tea is made of chamomile, spearmint, west indian lemongrass, tilia flowers, blackberry leaves, orange blossoms, hawthorn berries and rosebuds. This one is really spearminty. We love them both! It doesn't matter how wound up my nine year old daughter is - she will calm down and drift off to sleep with either of the delicious mixes of herbal tea. They are both excellent stress busters!

the hunt

Now that I've got the kids registered in school and all of that is taken care of I have to begin my job hunt. I applied to be a substitute teacher in my county of residence as well as the one beside of me. I have to say the qualifications are much more stringent in WV than they were in Florida. Heck, in Florida all you had to do was pass a drug test and be fingerprinted. They didn't even know whether you could write a sentence or not. I still have to be drug tested and fingerprinted. I think I have to sit in on a class and go for a day of observation as well. I hope I hurry up and get hired somewhere. I received my last payday from the school board I just left from, but it will not last forever, thats for sure.

I went to Kmart today to pick up a router for my computer. This way I don't have to use my brother's computer all of the time if I have posts or computer jobs to do. I didn't realize how easy it was to install a router and put wireless on my computer. We got a Belkin and it cost $39.99 for the router and $39.99 for the wireless adapter needed for my computer. That wasn't too bad and like I said it went together really fast. I'm glad to be able to use my own computer again.

I found some great deals on clothes for myself today too. Their summer stuff was on clearance and I got a pretty, floral campshirt for $3 and seersucker shorts for $2.50. I was extremely pleased. Then they had all of the womens clothes buy one get one half off and I bought three shirts and two tanks. I also bought two new slips to wear with my dresses. Now that I'm recounting all of the money I've spent I had better start being more frugal with my last paycheck. I think I had better get off of here and make up a budget!

$800 later

The yearly ritual really wasn't bad at all - except for the bite that it took out of the pocket book. School clothes shopping happened at Magic Mart, JCPenneys, Gabriel Bros., Elder-Beerman, American Eagle and Champs. The only thing left to do is purchase paper and pencils and all of that good stuff.

When I was a student I used to get so excited about the first day of school. Both kids are going to new schools and it really makes me nervous for them. I'm sure my daughter will do fine because she makes friends easily. My boy will do great too. This is his last year of high school and he knows some of the kids there because he attended K- 5 with them. I'm sure everything will work out well. I'm just an anxious mommy.

I'm trying to figure out what all I can do to speed my computer up. It's a Dell and only a year and a half old. I think I'm going to upload all of the pictures that are stored on my computer to either flickr or photobucket. I'm not sure which one is easier to use, but it will definitely take some time because I take a major amount of pictures and they are stored on my system.

school clothes shopping

It's that dreaded time again...trying to get a 9 year old and a 16 year old to try on school clothes. Why do I detest this chore more than anything in the world? It is not my idea of a fun day at the mall when I have to chase these kids all over the mall stores or wherever, trying to corral them long enough to make a clothing choice and try it on. My son is old enough to make his own, appropriate, choices, but my daughter is another story. She would dress like Madonna if I would let her. I do mean Madonna on stage, by the way. At least we already have her tennis shoes. We found a cool pair of Reeboks - Dr. McSpeedy. She doesn't really were tennis shoes that much, but she has to have them for gym class.

We are spending the night with my aunt and uncle who live about and hour and 15 minutes away from here. He has Alzheimers and does better on some days than others. When I saw him last month he was having a really good day. He kept asking me "Why don't you stay all night" so we're spending the night with them tonight. This is the man that taught me to drive and I used to spend time at their house every summer. Sometimes I would stay almost all summer. They used to be foster parents, so their home was always teeming with kids and it was the best times of my life.

de javu

It's kind of ironic the way life brings you back to places you've been before but swore you would never be again. Don't misunderstand me, there is certainly nothing wrong with my place in life right now. I feel safer now than I have in a long time, probably since I last left here. There is something comforting about being nestled between the mountains, down in the valley. I can look up and see the hills towering around me on all sides like a fortress and I feel peace.

Life's unexpected circumstances have made things necessary for me to move back to my mom's house with my two children. Although she doesn't like the events that transpired to cause this arrangement, my mother is tickled to death to have her babies back in the nest. Will we survive this? I'm sure we will with a little patience and a lot of prayer.

The kids will have to be enrolled in school next week and I will have to venture out and look for a J-O-B. Yuck! I had a good job that I loved and was really excited about getting started back to school. Tomorrow would actually be the day that I had to report back to work as a ninth grade teacher after having the summer off. Oh, well. I know the Lord had other plans and those plans will include a way for me to support my children. I'm too blessed to be stressed. Thank you, Jesus!