Busy Week

It's wonderful to be sitting here on a lazy Saturday morning in my pj's with a cup of coffee - nothing scheduled for the day and no place that we need to be!!  It's been a rather crazy week.

Last Sunday, after Ella and Si's soccer games, Justin drove up to New York to see Jim (Grandpa J).  He's been in the hospital since September 17th.  The cancer in the bones has flared up and it was affecting the nerves and he wasn't able to walk.  He's been doing radiation and started a new chemo.  Praying that this give him some relief and enables him to get around again soon!
Monday and Tuesday I was flying solo with the kids so we concentrated on the basics like homework, dinner, bath, books, bed. And then I have a bad habit of staying up WAY too late working when Justin is gone, which is fine until the alarm goes off at 5:50am.
Justin got home around 1:30am so he was exhausted the rest of the week.  He and I are both really sucky night drivers.

Wednesday night I went to a concert with Donna and Sarah - Jason Mraz and he was awesome!

(not my photo...stolen from his Facebook fan page) 

 I love going to concerts but I have to be very selective about week night concerts these days...getting too old!

Thursday night I went to see author Kelly Corrigan with Margie.  Donna was supposed to go too but got stuck doing some work stuff.  Kelly is one of my new favorite authors.  She wrote The Middle Place and Lift.  I have quoted her books on here quite a few times.  She has an amazing gift of putting into words the thoughts,  feelings, anxiety and humor of being a mother, wife, daughter, friend and cancer survivor.  Her entire talk left me both laughing and crying at the same time. It was fantastic.  You can watch some of her videos here.

By end of the day on Friday, I was wiped out.  I  had been up until midnight or later every night of the week.  Justin went out with the boys for the evening so the kids and I had a relaxing night at home.  We watched movies and snuggled.  It was perfect.  After they went to bed, I watched Food, Inc. (We now have the Netflix on-demand and it is awesome - since we can never seem to get movies that we borrow back on time).  Excellent but disturbing documentary about the food industry. Since reading The Anti-cancer book, I've continued to research and learn very frightening stuff about the food that we consume, and how appalling the industry treats our farmers. Today starts Local Matters week, encouraging consumers to buy and eat local foods as much as possible.  

One of the highlights of my week was getting a free canvas 8x10 print of one of my photos.  I had taken this picture in Hocking Hills this summer, and winkflash had a deal for a free canvas.  It came this week and I love it!

I made some Thank You cards out of some of my photos and ordered (for free!) also. Can't wait to find another deal so I can get another print made!!

The other highlight of my week is that it is OCTOBER! My favorite month of the year!  Beautiful autumn weather, pumpkin picking, hay rides, apple crisp, the pumpkin fest, some fantastic photo opportunities...and my anniversary.  Yippee for October!!

Snow Day!

Mason flushed ice down the toilet yesterday after school...apparently that is the voodoo that middle schoolers do when they want a snow day - and it worked. We got overnight snow and we're supposed to get much more today and freezing rain.

February is flying by - things have been very crazy here and this week is Justin's b-day and Valentine's day. Both of which I am unprepared for. Here is Ella's February calendar picture:


Last week seemed like a week from HECK. I knew it was going to be busy, and it was. Monday Ella had her school pictures taken plus it was her snack day/line leader day. Tuesday she had kindergarten registration (seems hard to believe that she will be starting school in August!!). Wednesday was ballet night for little Miss, Thursday my dad had surgery (he's doing great) and Mason had an orthodontic consult (expensive braces are in his future), Friday I had to do an all day workshop for work, Saturday Ella and Mason both had birthday parties to go to and we had to get our taxes done (and it was REALLY painful)...Sunday was errands, cleaning and several conversations with the tax guy.
In the midst of all that, on Tuesday night I came home from kindergarten registration to find my desk looking like the leaning tower of Pisa

When I was putting Ella to bed we heard a loud crash...whoosh...bang. I knew it was my desk. Ella and I went down to take a look and the desk was on it's side and everything, including my laptop, was on the floor in a nice huge avalanche of papers and junk. Where is now sits in a big fat pile on the floor. It's really hard to get organized and focused when you work from home and don't have a desk or place to work...I've been at the kitchen table for a week.

I found a desk cabinet thing at World Market that would have been great but they are all sold out and have discontinued it - of course they have because that is the ONE out of 200 that I've looked at and liked and was willing to pay for. Struck out at Pier One, Staples, Office Max, Target, several furniture stores and then finally at Value City Furniture found one online that is cute, smallish and affordable. The desk part actually swings around and closes up over the drawers which is perfect for our front room. They didn't have any in stock at the store but had 200+ at the warehouse so I am just waiting (impatiently) for it to come in so we can pick it up and pick all my *(&^* up off of the floor.
Mason brought home his interim report this week and somehow has an "F" right now in Shop class. How well do you think Justin took that news? Being the handy-guy that he is, NOT WELL. Justin is in the process of building wall shelves for Ella's room and now he has a helper for the project.
I need to go to my happy place for awhile...