and it's official ...

I feel like I have reached a milestone - I am finally commenting on other sites with my spiffy new blog address!!!  Woo-hoo.  This blog feels different to me than the last one that I had (and the zillions that I have tried) and certainly is a LOT MORE FUN than the work-blogs (their work, not mine) that I have managed to keep up and running.  I am liking the "KISS" theme that I am sporting - let us call is "minimalist", shall we. 

I constantly find myself trying to add to the sidebars and such, but either my better judgment gets the best of me and I remove the links, the blogrolls, the books, etc ... OR the "great internet queen" makes that decision for me and does not allow me to do what I want to do - ie: put up my flickr badge ... by the way, if you want to see the munchkins, you can visit ...this spot and I think you will be able to see them (with my luck regarding this recent project, probably not!)

So, just in case anyone other than my BFF's visit - WELCOME and ENJOY ... let me know how you like the minimalism and if you have a solution for the inibility to cut and paste the flickr badge code onto my site ... let me know!!!  The sun is shining and we are heading out!

hot & humid

today was just one of those days when I thank the good Lord above for allowing air conditioning to be invented!  I have little or no patience when the temperature is above 95 (well, let's be honest - when it is above, below or even around 95 degrees).  I can't believe how the "littlest" things set me off even when I start my mornings with the promise that I am going to "have a good day" and not spend the day angry.  That is not working very well right now - my patience is thin and my temper chooses to flare quite often.  No one really likes to be around someone who is angry all the time ... I consider myself very fortunate that the kids will love me no matter what - at least until they get a lot older!

flickr frustration

I so badly want to add a flickr badge to this blog, but boy, thanks to the massive security measures of the scarey internet, I can't figure out how to incorporate the code into my site.  I am so unbelievably frustrated because I am finally so close, yet so far from being able to do what I want to do!!!  SSSSCCCCCRRRRREEEEEAAAAAMMMMM!

Happy 4th of July

There is nothing like having your parents live in "Mayberry East"!  Honestly, next year I am making a banner for the festivities.  After sitting on a freezing cold beach first thing in the morning for junior lifeguards, we headed over to my parents neighborhood for a few hours of "Old Fashioned 4th of July Fun!"  And, in spite of my sarcasm, it was actually a lot of fun.  The kids participated in various races for an hour or so - 3-legged, sack, potato races.  Prizes were the new presidential dollars and silver dollars.  Then the ultimate bike parade around the neighborhood - beachgirl was taken out by a little terror on a yellow bike who never even stopped.  Finally more games like Plinko, ring tosses, rubber duckies, popcorn and shaved ice.  It was a really fun way to socialize with the community (they are only 3 blocks away) and enjoy the holiday.  We had everyone over here for dinner - once again, way too much food and then the older two and beachdad headed down to the beach for the fireworks show.  The littlest one chickened out .... fine with me because...

I FEEL LIKE CRAPOLA!  and spent the entire night struggling against a fever the the achy-achies!  Every joint, muscle and bone in my body hurts right now and I honestly have no clue what is going on.  I really, really don't want to go to the doctor to deal with this, but I have not heard of any flu that is going around right now.  Hopefully this too will pass as I am supposed to go see beachgirl ride for the first time today and I really don't want to miss it! 

tickets tickets everywhere!

After some awesome kidlet behaviour today - actually completing some pretty tough chores & helping each other out when things got tough, I finally instituted our "HOME PBS SYSTEM" aka, the "TICKETS TICKETS EVERYWHERE" PROGRAM!  The kids have an awesome PBS (positive behaviour system) at school which they love and talk about constantly - so I decided to start our own here at home with one addition: I CAN TAKE AWAY TICKETS AS WELL AS GI VE THEM OUT!!  This is our first shot at the system, but the kids and I started the basic outline and guidelines ... thought I would share:

 

• Tickets awarded (2) when chores are completed  properly with no arguments or stalling
  
• Tickets awarded for "special behaviors"
  
• Tickets awarded (2) for every 100 pages read
  
• Tickets revoked from BOTH BEACHGIRL & BEACHBOY for arguing
  
• Tickets revoked for not doing daily 30 min of reading - min. 7 pages - Sunday through Thursday
  
• Tickets revoked for arguments when doing summer work
  
• Mommy and Daddy can give and take tickets as they choose!

 

IDEAS FOR USE OF TICKETS:

• 10 tickets - decision for activity of next day
• 50 tickets - new lacrosse gloves
• 40 tickets - Jungle Jim's
• 40 tickets - nintendo game
• 40 tickets - new webkins
• 20 tickets - white water mountain

beachboy's passion

for three years, our son has become a "sports guy"!  This is such an absolute shock to his mother because the most sweating I ever did as a kid was from fear at the bottom of the pyramid as a football cheerleader!  Back then, cheer was not a sport, it was more of a social class!  But beachboy has taken to lacrosse like a fish to water - although it has been fascinating, heartbreaking and awe-inspiring to watch how he works at growing in this sport.  Tonight, for example, he and his dad spent an hour after dinner with a dinner bowl, shaker jar of parmesian cheese and a ceramic carafe figuring out how to best "work the angles" when defending the goal with a long pole!  Please don't ask me what that actually means - I just sat at the table with a huge smile and watched my beloved son entranced with new knowledge and try to integrate the new skills with what he already knows - I am so proud of him for just being such an awesome kid!

 

got out the shovel ...

finally at 4pm yesterday afternoon I started the "big dig" and officially at 6pm this afternoon I have paid all I can pay, filed all I can file (well, almost ... but I am so close I can taste it), balanced the checkbooks, sent out the invoices, figured out all that needs to be taken care of when the assessments for the community and the next paycheck comes in, overcome my fears about money & PROMISED MYSELF THAT I WILL NOT GET MYSELF IN THIS POSITION AGAIN!!!  The financial front is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination - I was actually googling "easy budgets" because I think we need a better method of knowing where our moohlah is going and whether it is coming in.  Somehow I have a hard time accepting that by watching the cash (which doesn't really exist) like a hawk will ease our money problems ... but this method is not working!!

maybe, just maybe I will actually sleep tonight without waking up in a cold sweat.  Friday I should be able to take care of the rest of our personal stuff and then I am staying on top of it - I am, I swear I am ... the last few months have been rather hellish for me in terms of my stress level and I have no doubt that is solely because of cash flow.  My method recently of dealing with our cash issues is to ignore it and pretend that I don't have to pay bills or monitor our spending.  Considering that finances are my responsibility ... things are not cool!  But with a boatload of prayers before, during and after and a concentrated effort, at least a dent has been made and a start is better than where I was.

Oh, and beachboy does get to go to camp!