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!