Table for 16 - Never mind

When I found out we were prego with Jessica and when she was due to make her arrival I really begged, pleaded, and prayed that she not make it on the 4th of July.  I was seriously hoping she would wait the full 40 weeks but alas, like my other two children, she came early - two weeks early; making her big debut on the 6th of July.  At first I was okay with her not coming on the 4th but as the years have passed we have found it harder and harder to get friends together for a birthday party that weekend because, well lets face it, everyone makes plans to not be home then.

For her third birthday we didn't do much as we were still getting settled into the new house.  Her fourth birthday party was a mermaid theme here at the house, but because of her birthday date we had to push her party out til the end of the month.  This year we chose to do it earlier, hoping to have it shortly after school let out that she would have more opportunity to have friends show up.

What a disaster that was.  Of the 20 invites that went out (two of which went to family) only three of Jessica's school mates thought enough of her to show up for her birthday party.  She worked so hard on the gift bags - hand drawings on each and every one.  She spent so much time putting the items in each of them and making sure they all had a ribbon.  She was so excited.

There were four people Jessica really wanted to celebrate with - Sophia, Kathryn, Vivian, and Kaitlin.  Vivian and Kaitlin showed and for that I am grateful - these two little girls were her BFF's in pre-school so that really made her day.  I has spoken to Sophia's mom and dad the week before, reminding them of the party and was assured they would be there - no show.  I texted Kathryn's mom the invite but never heard a peep back.  These two little girls were supposed to be her friends but neither bothered to show or explain why they wouldn't be there.  At least Christopher's mom was nice enough to tell us they wouldn't be in town.  What a disappointment to only have three kids show.  Honestly, I think I"m more upset at the fact that next to no one showed than she is.

In the end I have to come to grips with the fact that my sweet Jessica will never have a grand birthday party to share with her classmates simply because she was born at the wrong time of year.

But, the parties she has will be great.  This year she got to be an honorary Black Belt and she got to cut her cake with a real Samurai sword.  She may not have had many friends to share that experience with but the ones who were there got to see something pretty cool.  And they all seemed to love the day.

So, many thanks to Vivian, Kaitlin, and Nathan for sharing my sweet babies special day with her.

And to my sweet baby girl.  It may not be your birthday today but it was just as important.  I wish I could have made it more than it was but I sincerely hope you had a good time with your friends and that you will remember how much you enjoyed yourself today.  We love you so very much and are so very proud of all you have done in such a short five year span.  You make me one proud mamma.

Finding a way

When things turn to do-do around here we always find a way to get through it.  This latest turn of events - John's pending job termination - has me thinking of ways to get my foot in the door for a job but as hard as I have tried, finding a decent paying job that will cover the cost of daycare for the girls is a hell of a lot harder to find than one would think.  So I'm re-thinking that venture and looking for an evening position where hubs can watch the girls at night and I can take care of them in the day.  That way we can avoid as much child care costs as possible.

In the meantime I need to find ways to pull our financial resources together.  For starters - raising the temp on the thermostats.  Sorry hubs, but considering the impending doom we are faced with we need to cut corners as much as possible if we are going to make it through this and that means, unfortunately, being a little less comfortable than usual.

That also means unloading as much of our "stuff" as possible.  So this morning I posted a few items on a local FB yard sale sight hoping to unload one or two things.  And it worked.  I met with one mom who bought a set of 2 DVD's for $7 and another mom will be taking a booster seat for $10 this afternoon.  I posted 2 other DVD's and got one hit but no confirmed sale, and another booster with a possible sale this evening or tomorrow.  Guess I wasn't expecting such an active response so I figured I might as well try unloading more. The elliptical is now on there as well as both copier/printers which have been in the garage collecting dust for way too long.

I'm thinking maybe tomorrow after Jessica's b-day party I may come home and grab down all those boxes of kids clothes and see if I can get those on there.  The more I can get rid of the more money we will have to pay bills and keep us afloat for as long as possible.  I am seriously hoping to make enough to make hubs feel better about the job situation.  He is feeling really, really down right now and even said he regrets leaving General Dynamics for TMA.  I understand what he is saying but honestly I'm not sure GD would have kept him on considering they recently laid off hundreds of people in VA alone.

Ok, so things are dark and seem destined to make our life hard, but I'll be damned if I'm going to stop trying to get us through this shit.  Even if it means I have to take a job flipping hamburgers.  Something is better than nothing but I am hoping for a job to come through that is more than something better.  And I'm seriously praying to every deity out there that John manages to land a job that is way better than the crap he had to deal with at TMA.

As a matter of fact, I'm hoping he lands such a good job that when he looks back on the events of this week he realizes how pathetic TMA was and how stupid they acted.  I see a dark and dismal end in sight for TMA and I can't say they don't deserve it.  I honestly thought they were going to treat us better than this given John's worth ethic and skills.  Yeah, it sounds petty, but I am secretly hoping TMA implodes less than 6 months after they let John go.  They deserve it.  In the meantime I need to concentrate on us as a family - being strong for John and letting him know we will make it.  Times have been tough for us and we have finally found our way to being a family so I'm not going to let this crap destroy everything we have built together.

Time to thin out the herd so-to-speak.  Time to get rid of the clutter and crap and turn it into a fortune.

UPDATE:

Well the sale on the other 2 DVD's went through today, topping my sales out at $24 for the day.  Not bad when you consider it was less than 30 minutes of real work to take the pics, post the pics, negotiate the sale, and close the deal.  And I've confirmed a $10 sale for tomorrow.

I am hesitant to do too much tomorrow as we have Jessica's Birthday party at 2:30 and I have not even begun to make her cake.  Yeah, genius me.  I know.  I absolutely hate the idea that every time something happens Jessica is the one who seems to suffer the most.  Samantha's party was great - lots of friends, lots of gifts, cake was made in plenty of time; but poor Jessa seems to get the short end of the stick every time and I really hate it.  Actually I'm quite sick of it.  Sick and tired of not being able to give both girls equal opportunities to enjoy the same events.

Jessa's pageant is coming up and we haven't even begun to practice her introduction.  By this time last year Samantha was practicing every day - her walk, her intro, her dress rehearsals.  Jessa - nothing.  And not because I haven't wanted to but because every time I think things are settled enough to get stuff done so I can spend more time with the girls something awful happens and I find myself taking three steps backwards.  I really wish things were not as crazy as they are now but I'm doing the best I can with what I have.

So instead of shafting poor Jessa yet again I'm off to bake her a cake.  She has requested a Barbie ballarina princess cake so I have to come up with one that can be cut using a samurai sword.  Yes.  A real sword.  Don't worry.  There'll be pics.

And then it happened....

The sky fell.

Just when you think things are beginning to turn around and life will finally be good again everything starts to crumble.

Last night I spent two hours being lied to by the new Program Director at Jason Yi's TaeKwonDo College in Gainesville.  Yes, I meant to call out that particular branch by name because while I knew of issues between employees, as a parent of two students there I would have been completely unaware of these issues if it had not been for a friend telling me of them.  Even though every company has employee issues I just never expected this one to become such a drama show.

Last week my self-defense instructor was out on vacation so there was no SD class.  Odd to say the least because as a company with multiple branches locally you would think they would have a back-up instructor to take her place in case of an absence.  This company, however does not.  So when I showed up last week to do the afternoon class I was reminded of her absence by Master Young.  No biggie right?  Its one class, and I signed up for an entire year of classes so missing one wouldn't be that big of a deal.  Not so.  Last night the girls and I went to class and at 5:30 I wanted to ensure Ms Tracy would be there.  Between 5:30 and 7 pm the new PD lied to me a total of 6 times.  Seriously.  No joke.  Six lies.  She repeatedly told me Tracy would be there when all along she knew that not only was Tracy not coming that night, but Tracy would not be coming any other night as well.  Let me back up a little to last Wednesday.

When the girls and I showed up for class at 1pm we were reminded that Tracy was on vacation by Master Young.  Little did we know at that very moment he was clearing out his office because upper management had chosen to move him to their Woodbridge location.  WHAT?  Why?  A little birdie tells me the issues between employees caused upper management to move Master Young so they could "keep an eye on him". That sucks because Master Young is one awesome guy who always went out of his way to greet myself and the girls when we showed up for class.  And if the girls were having issues he was always nearby to unruffle their feathers and get them re-focused.  Disappointed to say the least.  But we would live as employee changes tend to happen.  But the new PD they put in his place absolutely sucks with public relations.  She has been there an entire week and not once has she spoken to us or even made eye contact.  She goes out of her way to ignore us.  I've really begun to feel like a lepper.  So last night when I asked her about the SD class status I was not expecting to be lied to.  Again and again and again.

I knew at 5:30, when I asked her if Tracy was going to be there at 6pm, that Tracy was not going to be giving SD classes any more because the little birdie had told me this at 4:30.  So imagine how pissed off I was when I realized that this woman had lied to my face knowing all along the truth.  Now when you lie to me and I know you are lying, but you don't know I know, I'm going to test you to see just how far you are willing to take the lie.  And this chick took it far.  Way too far.  5:30 she lied saying Tracy would be there at pm.  6pm she lied saying she would be there but class didn't start until 6:15.  Ok, class does start at 6:15 so I'll give her that one, but 6:15 came and went.  6:20 I asked again and she tries double talking her way around the situation.  6:45 - pretty obvious there will be no class but she now wants to call Tracy to see where she is and why she didn't show.  7pm I had to go back again and ask for a status update.  Was told Tracy wasn't answering.  That was probably the only the true statement she made to me all night.  Then she proceeds to hand me a questionaire to fill out telling me she will take it to upper management.  Yeah, like I believe you now after you have lied to me for the past 1.5 hours.  NOT !!!  But I take the form and go start filling it out.  At 7:15 she comes to me (for the first time ever) and says "I have to leave for my dinner now."  SERIOUSLY???  You have a customer in your face for nearly 2 hours with an unresolved problem and the most important thing you can do is leave for dinner?  Well I hope you enjoyed it because bitch, its on.

I don't take kindly to being lied to.  I can accept you ignoring me but when you disrespect me and insult my intelligence with such arrogance you can bet someone's gonna hear about it.  I talked to Tracy today and was told the new PD knew the SD classes were not happening anymore as of Monday so why didn't someone call me and say something on Monday?  Or Tuesday?  Or Wednesday?  Nope.  I had to find out from a friend what the situation was and then I had to get in touch with Tracy to get the truth.  Now....I'm pissed.

I paid a small fortune for my girls to attend a TKD academy where they were being taught honor, respect, and good morals, and for the past few months they were learning exactly that.  But the staff changes this past week have proven the morals are not good ones, there is no honor, and the one person who should be most respectful of every individual there couldn't give a rats ass about any of us.  Well fine.  Its your business and you have a right to make any staff changes you desire without the consent of the parents of the students you teach.  That said I have the right, as a consumer, to demand a full refund for all unused classes by myself and my children as I will not expose them to a morally corrupt individual who has no idea how to teach the respect she demands.  So when I finally do get a call back (if I don't have to go down to Woodbridge and demand a face to face) they you can bet your sweet ass I'll be walking out with a full refund of my money and a long list of people who I will ensure know what kind of organization you are running.

Hope your new PD enjoys her job because without us parents to bring our children to your business, I can only imagine there will be pink slips for everyone very shortly.

Now that I've got that off my chest I wish I could say I felt better but that is quite impossible knowing hubs just got his own pink slip.  THIS SHIT SUCKS !!!  What the hell?  Finally, I can relax.  Finally I'm beginning to feel like things will get better and we are finally out from underneath the mountain of financial debt only to be slammed into a wall of reality.  THIS is exactly why I used to never let my guard down and why I was always so possessive of my belongings - because you never know when someone will stick a knife in your gears and ruin everything good you've got going.

So instead of that fun filled fantastic summer I had planned it looks like I'll be searching for an evening job to keep us afloat.  With no savings and a 401K that was nearly wiped out we have nothing to fall back on except more credit debt - the very thing we just managed to get out from under.

Damn, sometimes I really think selling everything and moving to Aussie is a much better choice than what we are dealing with now.  Thanks to Obama and his minions this country has turned to crap and we are now among the ranks of the millions of others who are suffering the countless acts of his stupidity and arrogance.  Perhaps I should just denounce my citizenship and become an illegal.  At least then we would qualify for all the government assistance they give away to people who don't even belong here in the first place.

Ok, enough venting.  I need a plan of action.  My resume has been out for a while but apparently I'm not qualified for much more than selling insurance and I hate selling and I despise insurance.  So flipping hamburgers at night - better than nothing I guess.

Better than 50% chance.

That's what both NOAA and The Weather Channel give us for rain today.  Possibly even thunderstorms.  Wonderful - the girls freak out when thunder breaks - screaming like banshees running for the hills.  Yep.  Looking forward to that later.

In the mean time I needed to figure out a plan for today since Thursdays are our shopping / library days and I am trying to include something on our 101 Fun List as well.  What I came up with was a list of things that can be done at home with minimal supplies.  But if given a choice the girls will surely disagree on which of the things to do, so mommy came up with a pretty decent solution.  Instead of showing them the list and hoping they pick the same thing I've put each item on a slip of paper and folded it.  This morning both girls will pick one slip (sight unseen) and that is what we will do today.  Two fun projects in one day !!!

Since becoming re-organized I've even managed to re-do my coupon clippings.  A new, and much larger coupon book allows me to organize my coupons in a much more convenient way so I no longer have to thumb through 30 coupons to find one.  Sometimes I wonder if clipping coupons is worth the time but given the amount of money saved verses the amount of time spent - I'd had to say its an investment well worth every second.  I only wish I could get back to shopping like I used to when we lived in GA.  With four major grocery chains within a 10 mile radius to our home it was super easy to hit all the sales at each store and pack on the savings with a corresponding coupon.  Since living in VA I've had to re-adjust my shopping and at one point I stopped couponing all together.  But things are expensive so the scissors had to be dug out and the local newspaper ordered.  Now that I have somewhat of a system going again I need to try introducing more stores.  It may be a longer distance to drive between stores but if I can get the coupons to match sales prices then it could prove to be worth it.  The biggest downside - dragging the girls with me every Thursday to hit all the sales.  They seriously hate shopping (odd for females don't ya think?).

Coupons are clipped.  Shopping list made.  Samantha picked "Leaf Rubbing" for her project and we are awaiting Jessa's pick (always better not to wake a sleeping bear), but as soon as she rustles herself from her slumber we'll get moving.  Until then I can eliminate at one load of laundry - possibly two.

UPDATE:  Jessa picked Bake Cookies for her project today.  Sounds like we're going to have an awesome day.  On our way to the big BJ's in Fairfax - just to see what we're missing at our smaller location.

Fields of Lavender

Today was a pretty good day.

Managed to find the kitchen counters again.  That's always a bonus.  Especially when you are trying to make breakfast and can't find room to break eggs.

Even managed to get the girls started on some home-schooling stuff.  They literally went nuts for their home-school folders.  I really do like them a lot.  A pocket for pencils and such with two sections behind - one for their journals and the second for the worksheets.  The girls have been driving me crazy for weeks to use their journals but I've managed to keep their hands off until today.  But when they saw there were worksheets to be done - well break out the good china cause we're celebrating.  Yeah, the girls love worksheets that much.  I'm sure they were even more motivated when I told them after doing some HS we would be going to cut lavender.

So this afternoon we packed some water and a snack, and headed out to Seven Oaks Lavender Farm.

With a coupon in hand, the girls got to design their own sachets and fill them with lavender.  

They each took to the fields with a short tour and explaination of the kinds of lavender from one of the nice ladies who was assisting everyone in making crafts and wreaths using cut lavender.  We had a short, but informative home-school lesson to include introduction to the two French and two English varieties and their prespective purposes.  Then the girls set out with scissors in hand and cut some lavender to take home.  I figure we walked away with about 30 strands, two sachets, three Lemon-Lavender cupcakes (OMG - to die for good), and some new knowledge.  

The girls and I sat on the back of the Xterra and wrote in their journals about some of the things they learned, and they each drew a picture of lavender.  Very cute.

The last thing we did was spend a few minutes playing with and petting the cute bunnies they had on hand.  Absolutely adorable and so soft.  Both girls fell in love with the all white bunny.

Finally, throughtout the entire afternoon I managed to snap a few pictures here and there of some of the wildlife - bees to be exact.  And butterflies.  And flowers.

Made it home in time to run out for dinner at Subway and then back home to change for Tae Kwon Do classes.  And although my self-defense classes seem to have gone by the wayside (explanation to come later) it was a very enjoyable day leading up to the rapid decline of two girls consciousness.  In other words, they both passed out within minutes of getting home and into jammy's.

So with that we can now mark one more thing off our 101 Fun list:

DONE
#47 - Pick lavender

Good night girls.  Sweet dreams.  Tomorrow brings about another adventure - just not sure what exactly yet.

101 Things To Do This Summer - Part III

The ride home from Christopher Run was pretty un-eventful - thankfully.  And by the time we reached home the sun had come out again.  Hubs and I proceeded to empty the contents of the truck bed into the garage while the girls proceeded to run circles around who-knows-what inside the house.  I swear we no more than just got the last item off the truck when we hear blood curdling screams from inside.

Now any normal mom would leap from the truck bed and clear the 20' distance to the door in under a second flat hearing such a sound, but when you've heard that same scream time and time again for the better part of five years, even a normal mom tends to roll her eyes and think to herself  "Now what?"  Yeah - I'm that mom, so when hubs walks inside to take care of the issue I'm somewhat thankful I don't have to contend with yet another screaming match between two girls.  That said, being the normal mom I am, when John opens the door and say "I need you. Now."  the last thing I'm thinking about is a "quickie".  So I make my way inside to be informed that one child is up-chucking in the powder room after she left a pile in the living room for us, and the other has jammed her already-loose tooth back into her gums and is still bleeding.  Sweet.  Just want I wanted to deal with today (Sunday).

Trying to asses the damage was not happening as Samantha's tooth was hurting quite a lot and from the looks of it she managed to jam it pretty hard.  Evidently when the girls were chasing each other inside Samantha somehow managed to bury her face into the back of Jessa's head.  I'm not even sure I want to know how.  But instead of enjoying a relaxing Sunday getting caught up on house chores I was now proceeding downtown with one daughter in tow to see if a tooth had to be extracted.  And it did.  And she screamed.  And she cried.  And five minutes later it was all over and you would never have known she was hurt.  Oh to be a kid again with that kind of pain tolerance.

Back at home we put the Tooth Fairy's treasure under her pillow and gave her some meds for the cough and sniffles.  Oh yeah, while we were at the ER we went ahead and had her cough checked out only to discover she has a double middle ear infection.  Well now.  This camping weekend that was so great was ending on a rather sour note.

Of course it would be discovered just how sour the next morning when I found it nearly impossible to get out of bed.  My back felt like horses were dancing on it and my hip hurt so bad I swear if there was a knife handy I probably would have yanked it out myself.  Damn, old age sucks the life out of a body.

Monday was pretty lazy - we spent the majority of the day laid around trying not to move too much.  Anyone watching us would have joked about how pathetic it was two young people acting like two old farts.  If they only knew.

Tuesday was better, but not by much.  At least I was able to move around more anyway.  By Wednesday, I was beginning to feel like the old me again.  Not the "old" me, but the old me.  You know.  The me that could move around without winching in pain.

Thank heaven for pain killers.  And Themrapedic mattresses.

101 Things To Do This Summer - Part II

Hello again.  Time for Part II of our fun list, but first lets re-visit that 101 Fun list and see what we can mark off:

DONE 
4.   go camping
19. catch fireflies

Ok, two down and plenty more to go.  So where was I?  Oh yeah.....camping day two.

So, as expected John wakes early.  By early I mean he's bored to tears by four a.m. because he can no longer find quite things to keep him busy.  So of course I'm up early.  The girls however, get to sleep late.  Hubs and I putter around for a while getting things organized and then breakfast - yum.  Sausages, eggs, and hashbrowns - there's just something about camp cooking that makes everything taste so much better.

The girls finished breakfast without so much as a whimper.  Normally its torture to get them to eat everything, but not today.  Before you knew it there were two empty plates.

We had meant to get the boat and tie it to the docks at Christopher Run but that never happened on Friday so we were hoping to do it on Saturday so we could cruise the lake, take the girls rafting on the inflatable, and do a little fishing.  But alas, it never happened.  Seemed no one was up for the task of preparing the boat so we didn't get to do those things.  What we did do was rest and relax.  John took a nap and the girls and I explored the campground a bit.  We even managed to find a small playground with a merry-go-round on it.  AWESOME !!!

There were some older kids playing on it and the girls joined in.  After a while I became the "go" girl with pushing the merry-go-round again and again.  It was a really good workout for me and a great time for the kids.  Back and forth between the swings, the slide, and the merry-go-round they went before deciding a much needed drink was in order.

So back to the site we went to enjoy some down time and a bonfire.  Yep, the Lee man was at it again with his fire skills.  Nothing too huge considering we were in a campground, but for a campground - it was definitely a bonfire.

Dinner, then more catching of fireflies (this time with daddy), followed by a long time camping past-time - smores.  Who goes camping without smores?  Not us.  And they were a hit with the girls.  Soft and gooey marshmellows, warm melted chocolate, and crispy graham crackers.  Yu-um-my !  The night finished up with some quite time of drawing and coloring before off to bed.  The cot situation wasn't any more pleasant considering I woke with a terrible ache in my hip and my back was really beginning to tighten up on me.  If I was hurting this bad I was really beginning to wonder how John was feeling.  But he seemed to fare better than I as his cot was at least stretched tight (guess he had better tension and support).

Sometime during the night it began to sprinkle and John woke me (unintentionally) with the sound of moving stuff.  I bolted up to go help and I'm thinking my hip and back was not very happy with me at that point.  Oh well.  Things had to be moved to avoid getting soaked.  I did get pretty much everything either under the canopy or inside the tent and hubs was happy I saved the lawn chairs from a good soaking - he needed something to sit in and the picnic table wasn't going to cut it.  Sunday morning I woke to the sound of a heavier rain.  Yep, a real rainstorm.  Fantastic.  Wasn't prepared for that.

But we were pleasantly surprised the tent did not leak much at all considering there was no fly covering it.  Just a few spots where the threads got soaked and began to drip but aside from that everything was dry.  Breakfast was served before we began tearing down the site.  Since checkout wasn't until noon we decided to take our time about it and all was going well until we nearly had a fire - and not the one in the firepit John managed to keep going despite a down pouring.  Nope; stupid me asked Samantha to lay the cover to the camping stove on the picnic table and she did.

Now any normal kid would have laid it in an open space or if there wasn't one would have laid it on the bench seat.  But not our Samantha.  I do love her but sometimes I find it hard to not get upset at the things she does.  Just the night before she took a tumble because she wouldn't stop running around in the dark and tripped over Oscar's chain - gashed her palm and both knees.  And Sunday; she did what I told her to do without thinking and we could have easily have lost it all.  The unfortunate downside of APD (one of many that is) is that Samantha doesn't "pay attention" to her surroundings, so when she laid the stove cover on the table she did so without noting there was a lighted mosquito candle burning.  Luckily John discovered the bag and managed to save it although it now sports a nice dime sized hole with a melted section the size of a softball.  Of course this sets John off into a hissy and the leisure packing took on a whole new sense of urgency.  Cleaned, packed, and gone in under an hour.  Thankfully the incident was forgotten after a while and we managed to enjoy the rest of the day - despite the rain.

Apparently I am going to have to post a Part III to finish this up as I am trying not to make these posts too long, but first - more things to mark off our 101 Fun list.

DONE
31 Ride a merry-go-round
61 Build a bonfire
71 Roast smores

And lets go ahead and mark off # 72 Join the summer reading program.  Did that last week before we went camping.

More to come later but for right now I need to keep unpacking and cleaning.

101 Things To Do This Summer - Part I

Yep.  That's what the girls and I are working on this year.  And this weekend we managed to check off a few of them already.

First; here's the list so far:

1. go fishing 
2. go fishing at night
3. go swimming
4. go camping 
5. pick veggies at a you-pick farm
6. pick fruit at a you-pick farm
7. go to a fair / carnival 
8. go watch the Washington Nationals play (Scheduled for August 11th)
9. ride go-carts
10. build and plant a garden box
11. go bowling
12. spend the entire day in DC
13. tour a historic site 
14. go to the Aquarium
15. ride the Metro train
16. go to Dinosaur Land
17. go on a picnic
18. see a covered bridge
19. catch fireflies
20. dance in the rain
21. visit the Natural Bridge
22. play with Butterfleies at the Natural Bridge
23. visit a candy factory
24. go to the beach
25. see a horse race live
26. climb a lighthouse
27. go skating
28. go ice skating
29. visit a botanical garden
30. ride a zip-line
31. play on a playground
32. ride a merry-go-round
33. ride a carousal
34. see the Columbia Space Shuttle
35. ride a horse
36. go hiking
37. visit Luray Caverns
38. go to a movie theater
39. play at a swim park - Signal Hill
40. go to the national zoo
41. go to a petting zoo
42. camp out in our own backyard / living room 
43. go to a live music concert
44. see a waterfall
45. pick blueberries
46. milk a cow
47. pick lavender
48. play miniature golf
49. to the Air and Space Museum
50. go to a bounce house
51. visit a nature center / state park
52. paint pottery
53. bake cookies
54. take a paddle boat ride
55. ride bikes
56. see a parade
57. watch fireworks
58. visit a monument
59. star gazing 
60. view stars from a telescope
61. build a bonfire
62. see a movie at a drive-in theater
63. make a tent city with sheets
64. run a race
65. ride a roller coaster
66. visit an amusement park
67. walk a large mall
68. visit the Great Bubba (great-grandmother)
69. do a pinterest project
70. cover the entire driveway with chalk art
71. roast smores
72. join the summer reading program
73. have a tea party
74. do leaf rubbing
75. visit a farmers market
76. volunteer
77. eat in Old Town
78. do a scavenger hunt
79. run an obstacle course
80. bead some jewelry
81. wash a car / bicycle
82. have a sleepover
83. have a water balloon fight
84. do a science experiment
85. put together a puzzle
86. visit Josh, Evie, and Elle
87. visit nana and papa
88. build a sand castle
89. make / design a tee shirt
90. spa day - hair and nails
91. browse a flea market
92. review pre-k / 1st grade lessons
93. preview K/2nd grade lessons
94. put up a trophy shelf in the girls rooms
95. do a pageant
96. do a book report every week
97. make snow cones
98. craft class at Michael's Art store
99. join the Girl Scouts
100. play soccer 
101. fill a time capsule

Whew !!! That's a lot to do and I'm not sure we'll do it all but we sure are going to give it our best shot.  

This past weekend we managed to mark a few things off our fun list.  First - Camping.  We loaded up the gear and the family, even Oscar (our beautiful Husky / Beagle mix dog) and jotted down to Christopher Run Campground for two nights/three days of camping adventures.  Got there Friday afternoon and managed to secure an early check-in.  Sweet.  Since it was our first camping trip as a family we weren't sure what to expect from our preparedness or from the camp site but both were pretty great.  Our particular site was close enough to the water to enjoy it but not so close we had to worry about the girls running down there without us.  And, as is always important with little ones, the bathrooms were well within walking distance but far enough away we didn't have the latrine smell to contend with.  We lucked out and got what was probably only one of few deep sites as we had plenty of room for our camp fire to be far away from the tent and we didn't feel crowded in the least.  Even set up the canopy over the cooking/eating area, which came in handy on Sunday (will explain later).  

Once the tent and site was set up the girls and I took Oscar for a walk.  Nothing too long but enough to know where we were on the site and where other facilities were located.  Dinner was the expected hamburgers but we have fried potatoes to go with and they were yummy.  Of course hubs didn't last much longer than that so off to bed he went while the girls and I continued to enjoy the sights and sounds of camping.  We even got an unexpected surprise when we were visited by fireflies.  Of course this meant we just had to try catching them, which I did.  I say "I" because for some reason I was afraid the girls would squash them so I did all the catching for them.  We put the fireflies in an empty bottle and watched the lightshow.  After a while the girls were getting tired and we decided it was time to let our little friends go free.  Then it was off to bed for all.

 The campsite with fire pit way, way in the back.  

Night one was horrible on my legs - the cot wouldn't stretch out properly so my fabric wasn't as tight as it should have been, causing the cot to be about six inches shorter than it should have been.  Several times during the night I woke up to a tingling feeling in my toes only to discover my entire let was asleep.  And my hip didn't fair much better but it wasn't killing me.  I just figured making some minor adjustments would take care of that.  

Ok, gotta go get the camping gear put away and the laundry started.  Be back later with Part II.  

What to do.....what to do.

Yesterday I tried getting Samantha to fill out a paper she brought home from school - "This summer I'd like to......."  The kids are supposed to fill in the blanks (about 20 lines worth) and when they have done it over the summer put a check in the box next to the item.  Not that its mandatory but it is a nice way to get the kids thinking about what they want to do over the course of the next three months.  But getting Samantha to list more than four things was like pulling teeth.  So I had to re-think ways to get her thinking and here is what I came up with.

Instead of filling out yet another form I am going to list a bunch of things to do this summer.  101 things in all.    All I have to do is simply insert it onto my calendar and whala - Summer planned.  This weekend its off to go camping.

Already I'm seeing a better flow of activities with my own schedule.  Yesterday was an up and down the stairs kinda day - that's hard on the knee's especially if you already have issues with your joints.  So after some fine tuning with it last night I got to try it out this morning and oh my!!!  What a difference.  I know it may sound silly to most but when you get as un-organized as I was you need the details to work and today they worked.  A lot better.  What took me almost two hours to get one load of laundry washed, dried, folded, and put away (including wait time for the machines to do their magic) took me less than one hour this morning.  AWESOME.

Now that that's working better I am able to free up some additional time to get some office paperwork done - something I have been neglecting way too long.  Its sad when you have to move a stack of papers just to get to your laptop key pad.  I'd love nothing else than to spend the day gutting this room but alas it will have to wait for another day.

Plans for today include taking the girls over to MamaLue's to retrieve the weapons stash we left there last weekend and to borrow their tent for this weekend.  I'm hoping Papa got a chance to clean my 9mm for me as it was showing signs of damage, and since hubs is the responsible party for weapons cleaning I'd have to say he has been slacking on cleaning mine.  I guess I'll find out today if my baby is healthy again.  Oh, note to self - don't forget the bows and arrows, and target.  I was hoping to set the target up in the backyard this week to do some practice but that didn't happen.  Maybe next week.  Then I guess it really does need to get a tune up.

Other than that, its packing day.  Oh, and shopping day also - gotta make sure we have the necessary supplies for the weekends menu.  Ummmmm.....I'm smelling smore's.  :)

Whew......What a day.

The morning was a little hectic but things finally got on track; even managed to get the laundry done after double checking the opening times for the library and discovering I was off by an hour.  Better yet, I stole back 2 hours when my Self-defense classes got cancelled this week.

The ever growing mountain of papers in my office met their demise this morning at the blades of my new shredder.   All that shedding and not a tear drop around.

The trip to the library was a little more than a success.  Samantha and I got new library cards but Miss Jessa will have to wait until she has celebrated her 5th birthday to qualify for one.  Then we scoured the shelves for books and the girls got signed up for the Summer Reading Program.  As a result they both netted some pretty decent rewards - COUPONS = a free kids meal at Cici's Pizza; BOGO ice cream cones at Pickle Bob's; free kids meal from Golden Corral; a  prize from SwimKids plus a coupon for $10 off a session of their Summer Swim Camp; and a free Grandstand admission voucher to watch the Potomac Nationals play the Carolina Mudcats on August 11th.  And every week they can go back for more / different coupons.  How awesome is that?

A quick bite at home then it was off to TKD for my afternoon self-defense class.  Did I mention I was taking a course in self-defense?  No?  Well, I am.  And its awesome.  Tracy is the instructor and she is teaching us all kinds of useful things.  Things that I can pass along to the girls should it ever be necessary to teach them how to break someone's finger if they are trying to choke you.  Not a pleasant thought but lets face it, today's society is full of sicko's and I'd personally rather have my girls ready for the worst but hope for the best.  Again I digress but you knew I would.  :)  Anyhow, that's when I found out classes were canceled for the week.  So the girls and I headed home to pitch a couple of tents and air out sleeping bags.

When you're on the run a lot dinner always seems to suffer.  Oh well.  I'll get better with time management as time goes by.  Of course that was not the case when leaving for TKD this evening as we didn't even leave the house until after 4pm.  Silly me, for some reason thought Jessa's class was at 4:30 when it was actually at 4pm.  Oops.  All is well though.  Only a minute or two late and she did great.  Samantha did her class at 5:15 then it was home for dinner (normally we would have stayed for my 6pm SD class).  I hate eating late but feeding the girls before TKD only creates stomach aches and bad attitudes.  I may hate eating late but I really despise bad attitudes more.

All in all, a very successful and productive day.  Only a few adjustments to make to my daily schedule and it should run like a finely oiled machine.  Just the way I like it.  So what's on the list for tomorrow you ask?  Shopping, of course.  Grocery shopping that is.

Tomorrow will be spent doing some last minute organizing and collecting for this weekend's camping event, but to ensure we have food I'l need to hit the local grocery store and stock up on juices, water, and other essentials.

As of this moment the girls are playing nicely in Samantha's room so I'll take that over arguing any day.  But, I had better point them in the direction of their pillows soon or they won't wake at a reasonable hour tomorrow.  Shopping with two tired and grouchy females is as bad as bunking in an open room with 64 PMSing adult females making our way through military basic training - everyone has an attitude and no one cares why.

But gosh darn it - they are cute.

First Official Non-School Day - CONT.

....ah.  Much better.  So, where was I?  Oh yeah.  First day of summer.

Today is a trial run for my daily schedule.  I am weird and I like it.  Deal.  So I need schedule of things to do and when to do them every day.  So what?  Its not for everyone but it works for me and quite honestly, I was lost the last four years without it.  So the past week I have considered it, created it, and edited it.  Today I get to test drive it.

Already I know I will need to adjust some times and events but that is to be expected.  For instance, with this new blog I woke up and decided to start today (yeah, like I didn't have enough going on already) I will need to set aside an hour in the evening to make sure I have posted the events for the day - that'll probably be after the girls are passed out and the house is quite.  Aside from that so far things look good with my schedule.  I got up at 4:11am (yeah, we don't sleep-in around here), got hubs packed for work, sent him off for the day, and am currently doing some computer work.  I love being organized.  I hate chaos.  Which is probably one of many reasons why a daily schedule works best for me.

But I digress - today's schedule.  That's what I was going to talk about.

Not a whole lot is planned for today.  Our biggest event is taking the girls to the local library to get new library cards for all three of us.  Every week I have marked out 1 hour on Thursdays to go to the library and get new books for the week.  I'm thinking I may need to set aside 2 hours but we'll see how that goes.  My plan is to get and keep the girls reading this summer with a 30 minute block of time set aside in the evening.  On Thursdays we will get new books to read, read them all week long, and on Wednesdays the girls will do an oral/written book report on at least one of the books they read.  It would be awesome to have them read two books a week but since Jessica is only 4 and Samantha is barely 7 it may be a tall order to fill (depending on the kind of books they choose).

Book reports will be done on Wednesdays (didn't I already say that?  Oh well) at their TaeKwonDo class (ha, I didn't say that already).  For every book report given they can earn their way to a prize.  They can then turn in those prized for better prizes.  Its like a pyramid of prizes they can earn all the way to their very own samurai sword.

Now slow down.  Don't pop a vein thinking "OH !!! How could any mother possibly consider giving a child a sword?"  Well, I have considered it - and carefully I mind you.  That said, HELL NO MY GIRLS AREN"T GETTING A SWORD !! At least not now anyway.  The way the TKD (TaeKwonDo) Academy is set up the girls will be nearly adults before they ever got close to earning a sword.  So relax.  There won't be any sword fighting going on here for a while.  However, Samantha did, and Jessica will be cutting her birthday cake with a real samurai sword (held on very tightly by the local Master), so be prepared to see pics of those later on.

Again I digress (get used to it).  My goal here is to help Samantha improve her reading skills while encouraging Jessica to read.  Both girls love and adore books which is evident by the "library" they have so having enough books is not the problem.  See, our beloved Samantha has a Learning Disability.  APD, or Auditory Processing Disorder (more to come on that in another post).  So getting Samantha to read on her expected reading level is a must if she is going to maintain a passing average in school.  And Jessica is just learning how to read so it will be good practice for her.  And I used to love to read so I really need to get back into it as I was a lot less stressed when I did read.

I want this summer to be fun and full of opportunities for the girls to learn as much as they can.  If I do it right then Samantha will have an easier transition into 2nd grade and Jessica will be one of a handful of kindergarteners who already know how to read before her first official day of school.

Well, the day is creeping up fast so I need to get this test drive in gear.  Next up - wake the girls and start some laundry.  Then off to the library followed up with cleaning the basement, and then a full afternoon of TKD for all three of us.

I'll post the days events this evening so look forward to seeing what books the girls chose, how my schedule worked out, what we got accomplished today, and what new things we all learned.

First Official Non-School Day

And there you have it ladies and gentlemen.  The last day of school has been and gone.  ITS SUMMER TIME.  Whoo-hoo.

That said.......

This year is going to be WAY different.  I used to be strong and independent.  Had no fear in going anywhere and doing whatever I wanted (within reason that is), but as time passed I got older.  Marriage settled me down a lot.  But then came along two beauthiful girls who filled my world daily and before I knew it I was afraid to go to the grocery store by myself.  How pathetic was I?  And who the hell did I become?

Growing up I always wanted a family to love and I finally got it but the past four years have been super rough on this family and most of that is my fault.  So this year; this summer I have vowed things will be different.  Sometime, not to long ago, I reached down and pulled up my big girl panties and found the strong, independent woman I once was.  This summer I am planning on ditching the scardy cat and becoming the adventurous mom my girls can look up to.

So, to begin with, Friday, yes, this Friday, we are taking the girls on their first ever camping trip.  I am super excited and just as stressed, but so happy.  There is camping gear everywhere and things are a mess in the house right now but in two days I will be soaking up some sun and fun with the love of my life and our two offspring.

Don't worry, intros to our family members will come soon, just not today.  Nope.  Today is Day 1 of Summer 2013.  And I have plans.  First, now that I have put myself a daily schedule back together I need to get on track with that.  Beginning with coffee.  So......be right back.