Summer, your blog has disappeared from my computer...it says done but there is nothing there. I don't know what to do-I want it back. Did I do something wrong?????? Summer come back!!!

I must point out that I am very addicted to the blogs I read. I may not always comment, but I am always reading and checking. I also don't appreciate those long absences some of you take, but I forgive as soon as you post again. I have never had anyone just disappear though. I should report this to someone!!

I have added a new paint color to my painting T-shirt. Purple. I painted my daughter's room purple while my friend Elaina and I chatted the night away. Friday night I was home alone thanks to a lock-in, grandparents and a gig for Erik. Elaina and I enjoyed girl night while painting. I introduced her to rock opera via Meatloaf-The Bat Out of Hell album(tape in my case). I try to only listen to Christian music these days but Meatloaf, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Janis Joplin, and Fleetwood Mac (of course that means Stevie Nicks too!!) are really ingrained into my head and I like to drag them out from time to time. Kid free was a good time. Anyway we giggled through old music Elaina had not heard (she is only in her twenties...I used to be) and some of it she had heard but made no sense-Paradise by the Dashboard Light- and I was able to enlighten her with my useless knowledge of Meatloaf. Anyway, I have the walls painted and now must get the trim work done and we decided to paint the ceiling as well. Not looking forward to that, but I will get to it ASAP!! Then I will add blue to my paint shirt for that is what Erika has picked out. All of their rooms are decluttered so they are doing a nice job of keeping them clean-new paint is a reward and incentive to keep it up.

I am the preschool teacher this month at church and have really been enjoying it. There was a time when I was the teacher every month and that was not fun. Once or twice a year is a blast!! Today we talked about and had The Lord's Supper. They were so cute and excited that we did it for Sunday School and Bible hour. Sometimes I wonder if that is the reason for baptism of children in C of C's. They want to be included so much in that observance. Anyway, my daughter Lilly is about as in love with the Lord's Supper as you can be. Everytime we have grape juice (not often), she pretends it is Communion. Too funny. She also begs me to dunk her in the pool and declares herself baptized. I hope she is always so excited about these things!! She will be moving up to the next level this summer or fall and I will have taught all of my kids through preschool at church. It will be sad and I suppose I could do as some and move on up with them, but I think I will stay a while longer, and after 7 years I am kind of getting good at it-as long as we rotate!! SANDY-Tell John to seriously get into the rotation, they are a really fun group! I really enjoy this age group and moms with kids this age need to be ministered to more than at any other time.

Our mini care group has ended. I really wish we spent just a bit longer together, we were gone some and some others were too and it was an awesome group. Oh well, suppose all good things must come to an end. I wish I knew the button I push that sends me into italics...I would not push it anymore. We got our regular computer back and nothing worked so we took it back again. Fun fun. We are really used to the laptop now. We just don't have our email addresses or my pampered chef files. Both are a big deal to me and I want them back!!!!!! We dropped it off before vacation...not a quick job for sure.

I am off to bed now...11:30 is later than I should be up. Have a fabulous Monday!

My husband and I used to own a motorcycle- a Harley. I loved it, in fact, it is how we met. We loved going riding best in the spring and fall because everything was so beautiful and our weather was so perfect-usually. We did get caught in a storm once but we outran it. Anyway, all of that to say this-we had a T-shirt that had a Harley on it that said, "If you have to ask, you wouldn't understand."

I bring this up because people ask me about blogging with the same look that people used to ask about the motorcycle. Unless you are hooked on blogs, you would not understand no matter how much I explain...I think of Jacinda(www.jacindashanks.blogspot.com) saying that one of her relatives accuses her of having too much time on her hands. It is time consuming but worth it. There is such brutal truth on a blog and I just crave that. It is a chance to learn from other peoples mistakes, post what I have learned and just get rid of the thoughts running around in my head.

Blogging is so great for my psyche. Reading other people's blog is a support as well. For some reason it is hard to put up pretenses on a blog. I am sure some people do, but what would be the point? IT takes alot of time to post and sometimes it gets lost and you have to start over again. Too much trouble for pretense. Lack of pretense is so common in blogging, but pretense is rampant in the real world-especially at church-(What are we thinking!!).

My friend Eve invited me to her house to look at curriculum (ARGHH!!! The single most important decision for how your school year goes-NO PRESSURE!). She had one I have been wanting to purchase for about two years but couldn't do it without seeing it(too much $$). Shurley English...I love it. I love English and grammar. It starts really slow and builds up. I can't wait to get it now. Anyway, Eve has been a wonderful encourager to me in her transparency. She is like me in that she takes people at face value and can be taken at face value. I love that. I had a wonderful visit with Eve and I just keep thanking God for putting me in a support group where people love each other for no other reason than because we are accepting the great challenge of homeschooling and want to help each other through it all.


I should also point out that most of the members of my church have that same transparency. I am very blessed to exist in a world without pretense-at least in the places that truly matter. Oh yeah and I have three sisters, all older, and there is really no pretense with sisters. If you try they will knock you right down to earth with a reminder of things past-remember that green bathing suit you had that made you look like a watermelon-get over yourself. Quit laughing, Linda.

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Our knocked over tree is in full bloom now and looks spectacular!! The angle it fell makes it look like a large bush from the road. We have thought about propping it back up since it has such tenacity, but have decided it is too large.

My cat is still pregnant. It can't be much longer now. I love kittens. I hope there are only two, but she looks large enough for there to be about 10. We may keep one, I can't decide.

We are searching for the perfect couch for our family. We have decided it must be leather. We need something we can clean easily. Couches are really gross if you think on it too much. Leather will just make me feel better about it. I found a beautiful used couch and love seat and they wanted $2500 for them. I just said OH! and walked away. Champaigne taste, beer pocketbook.

I guess that is all I have for today. I feel like I can finish my two more loads of laundry now. Mt Washmore is staying tame...my friend Heather is having Washer/Dryer issues right now...I feel for you dear, bring it over if you get too far behind!! We can make it into a playdate for the kids!

Have a great Thursday!

My scouts turned in large amounts of money to me yesterday. While I was gone there were booth sales (I missed them : ) ) and large amounts of cash had to be counted. Over $3000. I hate counting money. It makes me flash back to a time when a friend and I did a consignment sale for our community- a whole bunch of moms selling clothes, toys, etc all at the same place and we got 30% (really 15% each) for doing the sale. At the end there was sooooo much money to count, it made me a nervous wreck. Plus we really did not mqke that much considering how much time it took to plan, organize and then work the sale. I could never be a banker, it is so easy to make a mistake.

I am still praying about whether to send Lilly to school or homeschool her. It will just be a one year thing if I send her. I am very hesitant about whether or not I can teach her to read. Since I pulled my other two out of school in 2nd and 3rd grade, they were already very skilled readers. My friend Lisa says this is my child to start from scratch on. I prefer non-scratch but I want to do what God wants me to do. Even as I write that I know God would not call me to homeschool and then want me to send one to school. My life is so much improved since we have become a homeschooling family. The homeschooling moms in my support group are like none others I have ever known. There is none of the comparison crap-my little johnny scored higher on that than anyone in the class, how did yours do? They are interested in only sharing thoughts and ideas that work and supporting one another with our struggles. VERY refreshing.
My meeting is tonight, I can hardly wait. One meeting in my life that I look forward to. We are also having a scrapbook night for the ladies in our church that I am going to try to make at least an hour before my meeting. They are similarly located so it should work.

My cat is so pregnant. I have compassion for her and I rub her stomach often. She waddles everywhere she goes. I also don't let the kids hold her anymore. She is very thankful for that I know!!

Today we will attempt to sell all of our extra cookies> we will go to the hospital and to erik"s route and get them gone>

my keyboard won"t let me capitalize or use periods to end my sentences<>have a great tuesday!

by the way< the time is so wrong on my blogs but i love that it looks like i was up blogging at six fiftyeight!! is everyone"s time off? this keyboard thing is driving me crazy_i am off of here!

I am posting a few random facts and thoughts because I don't have much time to post!!

*We had a bad storm here Thursday night. It took out the most beautiful plum tree in the whole world-in our yard right next to our house. Two blessings-it did not fall on our house or our gas lines which it very easily could have AND it is not dead yet so it continues to bloom allowing us to see it in full bloom one more time while we wait for the ground to dry out.

*Our cat is as pregnant as can be, she will surely pop any day now. She is as round as the blueberry girl in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We are so excited to soon have kittens and hopeful to be able to find them all homes!!

*Disneyworld recovery time would be so much quicker if I had some free time!!

*Vacations during girl scout cookie season are not recommended.

*We got our dog neutered while we were gone and he does not appear to hold a grudge against us.

Now that I have been in bathrooms...too many to count!...from KY to FL, I must rant a little about our fair city. What is wrong with Paducahans(how do you spell that??)?? While trav eling to and from FL, we did not encounter a gross bathroom. Not one time. From time to time there may ahve been a non-flushing toilet or a few towels on the floor, but for the most part they were all clean. Yesterday we went to Walmart in Paducah and of course had to visit the restroom. There was pee on every seat, towels and toilet paper all over the floor. I am just disgusted by our town and its lack of respect for these very important facilities. How does a women pee and get pee all over the seat??? Even if your a non-sitter, you still are poised over the opening and the pee goes into the water. These women have to be hiking their leg like my dog to spray the whole seat. I hope whoever these culprits are, that they pee all over themselves as well as the seat. I hope they miss so badly they are forced to buy a change of clothes and suffer humiliation as they walk through the store soaking wet. We are women for goodness sake. We should be able to use our portable wipes to wipe down the seat, have a seat, take care of business and leave the bathroom better than we found it...the girl scout way!! How do you feel about this??

On a whole other note, I am sad to report that night owl Janice is missing in action. She has been replaced with down by 10, up by seven Janice

Okay, just to wrap up what I did on my vacation, We left Orlando on Saturday at 10AM-we had to be out of the house by then. We then took off for Fort Pierce where Erik's Uncle lives. We got to their house about 4Pm. We took our time(stopped at the first beach we came too and played in the waves)(also managed to talk Erik into stopping at some yard sales!!) and stopped for steak and ribs along the way. Sunday Erik and his Uncle went to Jupiter FLA to see the St Louis Cardinals at spring training. They loved it. Fab and I took all the kiddos to the beach and were shell collecting beach bums for the day. The kids had a ball and we did too. When we got back to their house, Fab made me Thai food which was fabulous. She is from Thailand and is my age. Erik's Uncle Ted is in his 60s. Interesting. This is his second set of children. His other children(2 boys and a girl) are just a little older than Erik. Erik went to Disney world with Ted's kids and now our kids went to Disney with Ted's kids. Very interesting. Anyway, I love Fab. She is so happy all the time, very hospitable and she loves having us around. We see them at Christmas and when we go down to visit-it has been a couple of years since our last visit. Their children are 4 and 2. Mae is 4, she and Lilly are the same age, but Mae loves Erika more than Lilly or Kayla. She follows her around faithfully. Fab has become a naturalized citizen now so she knows more about our country than 50% of the people who are born here. I think all Americans should have to pass those tests as well. I wanted to talk to Fab about Christ as I think she may be buddhist (or something) but the opportunity never presented itself. If she converted, she could convert a whole country!! They spend about 3 months in the summer in Thailand. I am not sure if Uncle Ted has any religious beliefs or not. This is Erik's Dad's brother, so I know he grew up in church, but not sure if he ever got involved in it.

I can't say I am back to normal, but I am getting there. SLOWLY! On vacation it seemed as though time was stuck on fast forward. Now we are in slo-mo. This has been the longest day of my life and it is still only 3PM!

Erik went back to work today to try to save some vacation days for summer gigs and boating days. I am trying not to take it personal!!

Kids are back to school today with no complaints. They were ready to be back to normal. I am trying to keep the house clean, we left it clean so I just need to maintain. I have a small mount washmore I am working on. I must go do that...or take a nap...so tough to choose on a stormy dreary day...zzz

We are home now. Looking forward to a good night's rest in my own bed

I may never walk normally again. My legs and feet really ache in a big way. We did MGM on Tuesday, Magic Kingdom on Wednesday and Epcot Thursday. We never waited in line more than 30 minutes for anything. It was sort of hot at Epcot, but mostly the weather has been perfect. Today we went to Downtown Disney. We promised the girls if we did not have to look in any shops in the parks, we could go to Downtown Disney and they could get their souvenirs. So we had to go even though our feet throb. We may never walk anywhere again. Want to go for a stroll-NO!!!

MGM is my favorite park(and Erik's-we love art deco)!! We got to ride almost everything but did not get all the shows in. The Tower of Terror was fabulosa! Rock n Roller Coaster was rockin'. Erik and I got to ride that alone while the kiddos stayed with our cousin Dena who was down visiting her mom and dad. She rode the tower of terror(Lilly's favorite ride) with us and helped us spot some hidden Mickey's. We watched a new stunt show that had Erik as excited as a little girl!!

We rode absolutely everything that was at Magic Kingdom. We had an awesome day!! A magical visit. We rode Space Mtn. twice!! LOVED IT! This was all three girls favorite park. We saw very few characters though! We were too busy running from ride to ride because there were short lines!! We rode he barnstormer in Toontown 3 times-I love that little coaster.

Epcot was hard. We rode Soarin' twice, the first time there was no line but we were on the bottom of the screen and I wanted to be up top so we went right back into line and had to wait about 30 minutes. I m glad we did though, it was 10 Xs better!! The rest of Epcot was hard, Erik and I were really pushing ourselves because we were exhausted. Test Track was great and we loved our German beer and brats! Actually we thought our beer was gross but we drank it anyway cause it cost $7!! We got our picture made with snow white, the one character we saw at Epcot. I can't recap anymore of it. I am going to go have a nap now. Epcot was tough!! Thinking about it makes me sleepy!!

More later!!

Tonight we are going to Shells for seafood. Yum. This afternoon we rest and convalesce.