HE'S A WINNER IN MY BOOK

So, he didn't win Celebrity Apprentice. But he won me over. I love Trace Adkins. I have liked him since he first came into the Country Music scene. I have several of his songs as my cell phone tones. He, in my opinion, was the Celebrity Apprentice. Granted Piers raised more money but Trace was a real gentleman throughout. But most important of all, he played for a charity that is very close to my heart. The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (www.foodallergy.org). Like Trace, we are parents of a child who suffers from severe food allergies. Thanks to Trace, he got that charity "out there". I hope that someday Mark can live an "allergy free" diet. Hopefully, parents will understand the dangers of certain foods in classrooms. I've heard through the years how parents complain because certain candy and food are not allowed in the classroom. I'm not expecting food bans but I want people to understand that this was not our choice. It can be deadly! There is not a day that goes by that I don't worry if he will come in contact with a peanut or tree nut and I will get the dreaded phone call from the school nurse. Education is so important. As for Piers, he played for a wonderful and deserving charity as well so I'm happy for him. It was just the way he played the game. That's all I am going to say but to me Trace was the big winner!

For some reason, I keep thinking today is Thursday. I need to remind myself it's only Wednesday. The good news is that some of my "Thursday To Do's" are done!

"It's only Wednesday, It's only Wednesday!!! "

PSA for the day

This morning I got up and out and got my annual mammogram. This was my third time having it done. I didn't get one last year so I was determined to do it this year. So ladies, don't forgot to get your mammograms. I was in and out in less than 20 minutes (most of the time was spent filling out paperwork in the lobby). No excuses.

Happy Easter!

Woke up this morning to the sound of rain. I just love the sound of the rain on the roof. It's so calming. I looked over at the digitial box on the tv and it said 6:28. WHAT?????? The house was pitch black. Our alarm didn't go off. We all over slept which is so not us. I get up and go wake Greg. He mumbled a few words as I was going to the next room to get Liz. As I open her door she is awake. I just happened to look at her clock and it says 5:28. What? I check the kitchen clock on the stove and microwave--5:29. I check my watch--5:29. I checked all the digital boxes and they were an hour ahead. Oops. So, I climb back into bed and attempt to go back to sleep but I just laid there listening to the rain. I should be mad at Verizon for having the messed up clocks, but it was just so nice to lay there in the dark and quiet listening to the rain. Wonder how many other people got up in a panic like me? Oh well.

I finally made it to the scrapbook store yesterday. I was supposed to go with my friend, Kate, on Tuesday but I woke up to a flat tire. It was my first flat tire ever. Hubby took little man to school for me so I could get ready. I think someone was looking over me because I usually take Mark to school in my pajama's. That could have been embarassing! So, I was able to air up the tire and drive to the tire store down the street. So, Kate and I rescheduled for yesterday. Kate doesn't live close so my other friend Barb picked me and we went to breakfast and shopping. Got a bargain on a new leather purse at Marshall's. But, yesterday I got lots of goodies at Ruban Rouge. It's the ultimate LSS, in my opinion. It's a good thing it's not real close to me otherwise I would be so broke.

Tomorrow I decided to let the kids stay home from school. This is the first year the school district cancelled "all Religious holidays". They even changed our spring break until April so it wouldn't be "associated" with Easter. So lots of teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers are taking the day off. Most of the students are staying home too. Even hubby is off. So, since it will be excused I am letting my kids stay home. I even heard on the news last night that they are cancelling bus service at schools and to "bring your own lunch". It's silly that our district is even going to school.

So today I'm off to Target to finish my last minute Easter baskets for the kids. We don't do a lot of candy since Mark can't eat it. It's not fair to give the older kids candy and not him. So, we do what candy he can eat and I gave them all each a DVD.

The rain has stopped. It was one of the rains that moved in and then moved on. Hopefully it washed a lot of the pollen out. We are miserable here with our allergies.

Have a wonderful Thursday.

TGIF..................

This is what I spent all of yeserday doing. I am not Martha Stewart but I do love getting creative. Mark needed a prince costume for his fairy tale bowl. I thought I had until next Friday to get it done but he came home Wednesday and said he needed it for this Friday. I improvised about 99% of it. I had a pattern but it has been years since I have sewn. So, I only used the pattern for the cape. Trying to find a long sleeve shirt in Florida in March is impossible and making one was out of the question with my sewing skills. So, I settled for a $3.50 shirt oversized shirt from Walmart. The belt was a piece of cardboard spray painted gold and sewn with ribbon. The crown came from the local party supply store. I probably put this costume together for under $20. Find that online! I'm happy with how it turned out. Ignore the bare feet. He will have shoes on! He told me the shirt looked like an elf. So, I told him he can be an "elf prince".

I am so happy it's Friday. This was a very hectic week. Yesterday a mom who was trying to back up her car in the middle of freaking pick up yelled at me. Pick up time is a crazy time to begin with. The car in front of me moved up and I followed. She whipped in and tried to nose her way in so she could back in. I totally didn't realize what she was trying to do so I pulled up. She had a hard time backing it in (she totally could have moved to other spots that had the extra room). So, as she got out of her van and slammed her door she walked right in front of my van and yelled something at me. Sad thing was I was going to roll down my window and apologize. Forget that. So, I will probably get a dirty look and she will stand in her "little group" and point out what a *itch I was. It's amazing to me too. It's always the "new" parents to the school that do this. Why do they feel the need to get out of their car during pick up and get their kids. That's why it's called a PICK UP LINE. The staff puts them in the car. Yes, the line is long but it moves. There is a HUGE parking lot in the back of the school they can park in and walk up to get them. Rules are rules. I feel so bad for the staff though. They try really hard to get the line moving but they are outnumbered by the rude, impatient parents. Okay, I'm done venting.......................

Today I have nothing to do. Well, I always have something to do but my goal is to work on laundry and get some pictures developed off my computer and stored. I am so far behind on that it's not even funny. I might sneak off to get a fish sandwhich later since it's Friday. Only one more Friday after today in Lent. Hard to believe that next Sunday is Easter.

So, that being said, it's time to log off and get my day going. This sure wasn't a "happy" entry so I apologize for the rant. Hopefully today will be a much happier day. Make it a good one.

3.11.08

Has it been almost a weeks since my last entry? Not much to blog about here. Right now we are just stuck in a routine whic is EXTREMELY busy and boring. Same old stuff--school, sports, run, run, run.

I'm just counting down the days until Spring Break. Last year the school district changed around the school schedule which is awful. Usually we start early August and get out in May. Now we started later and get out in June. They took some of our CHRISTMAS (yes I will say that) break and now the kids don't get their Spring Break until April. That's way too long. They are scheduled to go on Good Friday and the kids are begging me to let them take that day off since it will be considered a "Religious" holiday. So, I am considering it ON the condition that we all get up and go to Church. Then they can have the rest of the day off. It's a long story about our school schedule. They should have just left it alone.

Sunday we are going down to Sarasota to a Cincinnati Reds spring training game. I'm actually very excited to go. Even "Princess" Liz is going. I definately will take a picture of that. She doesn't like to do a lot of the "family" things anymore. So, we are all heading down to watch the game. Best part is that we will be able to get some "hometown" food there. I cannot wait to get my Skyline Chili. We went last year and had a blast. I just hope the Reds stay at that facility and not move to Arizona which is a possibility. Then on Easter Sunday, the boys are going back to watch another game.

We sent in our first check to the University of Florida (ouch). Her housing application is all done and been accepted. They had to list three choices for their dorms. It will be interesting to see which one they get. The kids are just anxious to be able to use their own bathroom in the morning. Liz is a bathroom hog! We get on her and on her about how other people need the bathroom but it goes in one ear and out the other. Next year she will have to share ONE bathroom with three other gals. Can't wait for that. I can't imagine what our life would be like if we still lived in our house in Ohio. It was our first house and had only ONE bathroom. Our second house had 1 full and 3 half baths. Then we went down to a three bathroom house and now we just have two. We should stop moving around before we end up with one bathroom again.

Well, today is a stay at home and do laundry day. That job just never seems to end. I really need a new washer since the one I have is really starting to go. It stops mid-cycle. It's a Maytag Neptune and I dont' like it. I've had it repaired several times. After the warranty expired, I decided not to purchase another one and just replace the machine. I'm going back to the old fashioned top loading machine without a computer. I don't care for the front loader either. I just want to load and go and this machine is definately not that. The dryer is okay so I will keep that for now.

Have a wonderful Tuesday. I was tagged by Benita so I will post that later when I get everyone out the door and off to school.

3.5.08

Is it Wednesday already? Where is the week going? I'm not complaining though. That means we are halfway to the weekend.

Today I am forcing myself to stay home. If I have to chain the doors, I need to stay home and clean my house. The laundry is out of control! So, I told myself that if I stay home today, I can run to JoAnn's tomorrow. Mark is having a "Fairytale Bowl" at school next week and he has to dress up like a prince. I have no clue what to do with him. I found a crown at the party supply store yesterday but that's it. I checked out the patterns at Wally World and they wanted $15. I thought maybe I could get creative with a bathrobe but they're not in high demand here in Florida. So, I thought maybe if I walked around JoAnn's I could get some creative juices flowing. So, tomorrow I am going to get up and out early and hit JoAnn's. The closest JoAnn's to me is a crappy, dirty store so I have to make the drive to a bigger, better (and cleaner) store.

Also on my "to do" list is to start going through all of Elizabeth's pictures and start pulling ones for her video. I think I have narrowed down all the songs. Some of the songs I have in mind are :

"In My Arms" by Plumb

"Under the Sea" from Little Mermaid (her favorite as a little girl)

"My Wish" by Rascall Flatts

"Ready, Set, Go" by Billy Ray & Miley Cyrus

The Graduation Song by Vitamin C

I'm not sure of the exact title of the Billy Ray song. I can't believe that in two months she will be graduating high school. We sent in her housing application and made our first check to the college (ouch). I know she is going to do great and I hope she has a great college experience. It's something that Steve and I never got to experience. We did it the hard way. Got married. Over 12 years, Steve went to night school until he finally got his MBA. I don't recommend it. It was a lot of work and a lot of stress.

Well, I better get off here and start tackling my "to do" list. Here's just some of what's on it:

Pay bills

clean kitchen

clean bathrooms

laundry, laundry, laundry

dust & vacuum family room

sweep & mom entry way

Mark's program @3:00

I could go on but if I could just get half of that done today, I will be happy. I'll post my progress later.

3.3.08

They did it again. Elizabeth got home late last night and of course was running really behind this morning so I only got a little of the information. Remember she has been in S. Carolina that last 4 days at a journalism convention. All I got as she was quickly running out the front door was that their newspaper RevolutionNewspaper.com - Home got number one in state again. She also got an award for one of her layouts she did. Woo Hoo. I will post more later when she gets home and can tell all about her trip. Later...............................................

3.1.08

I got to do something really fun today for a change. Usually my Saturday's are spent at the baseball fields.

My dear hubby decided to make an appointment at 8:00 to take Elizabeth's car to the dealership for some work. On a Saturday morning??? What was he thinking? It's the first Saturday that we didn't have a baseball game. So up and out I went.

Then Emily and I made the drive down to Westshore Blvd. to meet my friends daughter and her boyfriend for brunch. They flew in to Tampa to take a cruise. So I picked them up at their hotel and then we went to IHOP. It really made me homesick for my friend Patti. We've been very good friends for the last 18 years. Her girls were practically babies when we met--okay, 10 & 5 isn't babies but now that they are grown women it seems like they were just that when we met. Krissy asked if I minded taking them to the port. No problem. However, I have no idea how to even get there. The boyfriend (whom I totally liked) had a GPS system on his phone. So, no problem. Off we go. Oh man. It was so cool. That ship was huge. Just going down to the terminals got me all excited. I've never been on a cruise. I wanna go!!!! After I got home and we were in the car on the way to pick up the other car, I "hinted" how nice a cruise would be. See, we've NEVER taken a pleasure trip in the almost 21 years of marriage. House hunting doesn't count! It was way to stressful to be relaxing. Even before we had kids, we never had the finances because we were very fortunate to buy our first house within six months of getting married. Not bad for a 20 & 23 year old. I'm not complaining. I just really want to go away with my hubby. So, now I am going to work on getting hubby to go away. Unfortunately all our family is back in Ohio. That will be the tough part.

After leaving the Port of Tampa, Emily and I ventured back to Westshore Mall and did some shopping. It was very nice. I don't get to spend much "alone" time with her. It's always about Liz or Greg's baseball. So, we shopped. She got some much needed clothes and she had a blast being the center of attention. She actually even liked some of the clothes I picked out. I never thought I would see that day again. I never thought I would be buying her clothes at Victoria Secret. Yes, I got her some T-Shirts there. We even got a yummy cookie and soda. It was a fun day. It's interesting to "people watch" at the malls. WOW. Some of the outfits people wear.

Dinner tonight is pizza. Quick, easy and I don't have to do the dishes. After that, I am off to work on some scrapbooking and listen to my new Dierks Bently CD that I purchased yesterday. There is also a bottle of wine chilling in the fridge. I'll be lucky to make it until 10 pm. Well pizza's here as I type this.........................

Have a good evening.