Not much happening

Well, the summer is almost over and I think I'm just about ready for school to start. My room is pretty much ready - I still have some things that I need to do and still have some planning that I need to get worked out. But overall, I should be able to hammer that all out next week. I even picked up my knitting today - I didn't do much, just about 10 rows on the chevron tank that I've been working on all summer. My goal for this weekend will be to help Ahren get her room ready to start middle school. I'm going to try and pack up all her elementary school memorablia and clear out some of the clutter that seems to overtake her room.

EEEKKKKK!

I can hardly believe that the start of school is nearly here!!!! I've got so much to do and so little time to do it in. I know that it will all work out but since Parent Orientation is next Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I need to have a good chunk of things done by then. None the least of which is getting my room ready. The carpets are getting cleaned Friday, then Monday we have to move all the furniture back and make it look pretty. :)

With my mom visiting this week, at least nearly all my laundry is done! Looking on the bright side.

Ahhhh....

Yesterday I ended up with some free time on my hands and ended up stopping at Pretty Nails (a nail salon in town). I was amazingly surprised at what a great experience I had there. I've gotten pedicures and manicures done usually at the mall, with those turbo crank-'em through salons. But this was nothing like that. I ended up getting a manicure and pedicure. The pedicure included the usual with an additional leg scrub and massage with hot stones. The manicure included a hand massage and paraffin dip along with a shoulder rub. All for the bargin price of $40!

I'd have to say that it really rivaled the pedicure that I'd gotten a few years back at Norwich Inn and Spa. I think the decor also made a big difference in the whole atmosphere - it was very 'spa-like' - soft, classic music, tasteful art. I think because I was there closer to closing time, if they weren't with a client, then there were bus cleaning all the materials and filling the bottles and jars. I will definitely be going back sometime when I need more pampering!

Fun looking recipe

So I was cruising the recipezaar web site, looking for something sweet to make with things that I had on hand - and considering I really needed to go to the grocery store, that wasn't much. I came across this recipe for Bisquick Pudding Cookies. Interesting. I'll probably make them tomorrow evening and see how it turns out.

1	package instant vanilla pudding, i have also used butterscotch and chocolate with good results
1	cup Bisquick
1/4	cup vegetable oil
1	large egg
1	cup semisweet chocolate morsels (optional)

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• Low Protein Hand-formed Cookies
  
  
• Holiday/Event Hand-formed Cookies
  
  

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. In a large bowl mix Bisquick and pudding mix.
3. Stir in vegetable oil and egg with a wooden spoon until dough forms a ball.
4. Shape dough into 1/2-inch balls.
5. Place onto ungreased cookie sheets.
6. Flatten with bottom of a drinking glass.
7. Sprinkle with sugar, can use colored sugar for the holidays.
8. Bake for 5-8 minutes.

I can't help but mention what a gorgeous day it was today. It was just about perfect, in several ways. Me and the kids (my 2 plus my nephew) headed over to the school to get some work done. (Have I mentioned that my room is a complete wreck these days? I had a bunch of painting and rearranging that I wanted to do, so between all that and the normal grime that accumulates over the summer - including dead bugs and cobwebs, it's a wreck. So I was a little surprised when there was a tour in the room. Eeek! All was well and we have a bit of a plan to get a cleaning done before the parent orientations.) So after getting some work done in the room, me and all the kids headed over to the beach. We hung out there for a couple of hours and the kids spent some good energy jumping in the water from the floating raft over and over again. Summer is a good thing. :)

Small world

Yesterday I was listening to the Diane Rehm Show on NPR and lo and behold, one of the callers was someone from Hartland, VT - the same town that my sil/bil moved to this summer. It's a very small town, so this is really quite something!

Last night Karly had a really, really rough night - and as a result I had a rough night. She fell asleep until about 1:30 or so and then was whining and crying so badly that I let her out of her crate and I slept on the couch so that I could pet her and let her fall asleep on the floor in front of the couch. Luckily, that seemed to calm her. She was a bit crazed this morning but overall, she is doing much better than yesterday. We might even try to make it to doggie manners class tonight - yesterday I would have sworn that she wouldn't have been up to it.

Doesn't it figure - I just found out that orientation night for school is on the night that we were planning to go the NY for a few days - we will just have to delay the departure of our trip for another day.

Anon - try again, I don't think it came through. ;)

Poor Karly

Yesterday, I took Karly to the vet to get spayed. So today I picked her up from the vet and while we were there and I was finishing up the paperwork, she was in the waiting room with me and seemed very anxious, but there was another dog in the waiting room, so I thought that maybe that was the problem (she is normally very anxious about other dogs). After we got home, she was still anxious and whining and whimpering like crazy. I also realized when we were home that she did not want to go into her crate. Before she went to the vet, she loved her crate and would often hang out in there, but today she needed bunches of encouragement (and treats) to get her to go in there. And she is more jumping up than she was before. The other odd thing is that we have had this purple squeaky toy that the shelter had given to us when we got Karly - we had never even seen her look at this particular toy and today she has been carrying it around from place to place and playing with it. Weird! I'm hoping that she will be back to her normal self soon. Tonight she wasn't settling down at all to go to sleep - constant whining and whimpering - so I gave her a half dose of pain meds (she wasn't supposed to get any more until tomorrow). So far she seems to have settled down as long as she doesn't see me.

This just in...

We just got the much anticipated team assignment for Ahren for middle school. Drumroll please....Ahren will be in McCook's Point Mariners! The Mariners are in Ocean House and it's a multi-age (grades 5&6) team. I'm glad that she got in one of the multi-age groups. The first thing she did after she got the information was to email all her friends. Hopefully, there will some friends in her team or house. :)

Ouch!

So the week before school was out - yes, that was mid-June, I hurt my hand. I was coming upstairs from the basement and tripped up the steps landing with the force of my body with my hand jammed into the door jamb. My ring finger and middle finger were forced toward my palm and it took a few minutes for them to loosen up. They continued to hurt on and off since then. The knuckle between my pointer finger and middle finger can continued to be swollen - not really noticable, but when you compare it to the other hand, it does look swollen. The strange thing is that it will seem fine - except when I make twisting motions with my hand - for example, I can't really twist the cap off of anything very easily since then. And sometimes, I end up bumping my hand and the pain shoots up my hand and arm. But most things I can do easily, typing is no problem, but the twisting and carrying anything with significant weight I can't do - heavy laundry baskets or boxes I can't carry if they need two hands. I really am WAY over do for a check up with my doctor so maybe this will be the thing to get me to make an appointment. Maybe I ask her about something to help me sleep as well. Unless I take some Simply Sleep, I am a super restless sleeper. It doesn't seem to be a huge problem, because if I take something I can sleep easily, but I worry that I'm becoming dependent on it.

playroomafter.MPG

Looky here it is! The LLL ICf Playroom.

It's August already!?!?

How amazing that the summer is flying by, but really, should I be all that surprised? Probably not.

I'm back from the LLL International Conference where I worked in the Playroom with two of my friends, Terry and Theresa. We had a good time, but it sure is a whole different conference experience when my usual 'gang' isn't there. This was a time when I really get pissed at certain peopLLLe for their actions and how it has permanently messed up our usual every two year reunion!

Overall, the Playroom experience was exhausting - there were 1000+ kids registered for the conference and we topped over 1000 kids came into the playroom during the 3 days that we were 'open for business'. It should be noted that all the kids in the playroom had to be there with a mom, dad, g'parent, or other care-giver - so we weren't responsible for babysitting the kids, just supervising the huge room. I have some video of the playroom after we got it set up but without the kids, maybe I will see if I can manage embedding it into the blog. If not, I'll just add a link later.

It was good to see my friends Jennifer (and hang out with her dh, Anth and their kids in the playroom), Paulette, Teresa, Theresa and Terry. It was also nice to see the old API gang: Barbara, Lysa, Reedy and Christy. I saw Lu Hanessian, who remembered me by name - we chatted for a while and I got caught up on all the stuff that she is doing these days. I also saw my friend Jaime who is just sooo sweet. Back when we were both tandem nursing moms struggling with meeting the needs of an older nursing toddler, we became good email buddies. I've said many times that I didn't think I could have made it through that time without her.

Because we had a 2 bedroom suite, there were a couple of nights with parties in our room, and while I did know many of the women, it wasn't my usual gang so I usually hit the hay early - sorry, no juicy stories to tell, no new tatoos this time. Have I said that it wasn't the same at all. :(

One exciting thing that has happened this summer is that we got a dog!!! Her name is Karly and she is a black lab mix (with think with terrier). She is the sweetest dog I've ever seen (okay maybe I'm biased!) Technically, she is Ahren's dog, but I tend to handle more of the general dog care - although Ahren does do pretty well with the walks and taking care of her. We are also going to Good Manners classes (both Ahren and I) and doing clicker training with Karly. She is about 2 years old and came from somewhere down south. We got her from a local shelter and couldn't be happier. Ahren simply adores her. She will randomly say, "I just can't believe that I have a dog" or "Karly is such a perfect fit for our family." It's really sweet.