Why yes, I am crazy

Summer is quickly slipping away from me. I sat at the pool with a friend yesterday discussing our lives and schedules and plans when I got hit the realization that my free time is almost over.

How did this happen?

This weekend we're going to GA.

In 2 weeks, K will be gone to camp and Mr. at Home will be away on business.

In 3 weeks, the girls and I will be in TX and Mr. at Home will be away on business.

In 4 weeks, my sister and her family may be visiting.

In 5 weeks, we start school.

The only week we have left for playtime is next week. But because I am a nutcase, I decided that there is one project that I need to get done before school hits. One BIG project.

This school year is our first with two real, official, actual grade levels in the house. L will be doing kindergarten on video. It will involve lots of singing and noise and won't take very long. K will be doing 4th grade, which will involve lots of reading and worksheets and she is easily distracted and aggravated by noise. As of right now, L will do her school in the craft room at the back of the house. K will start her work at the dining room table where I can help and explain, then she'll take the rest of her stuff to her room. This means she will need her own room with her own desk. I had plans to provide those at some point this fall, but it seems to make sense to have it in place before we start school.

Which means it has to happen next week.

This week we went to Home Depot and flipped through design books. L liked every girly decor scheme in the book but went into raptures over a pink and purple glamorous movie star room. K, however, went through two books and let out annoying sighs periodically. She got frustrated and picked up a book of playhouses.

And fell in love.

I had to nix the idea of building a fort in her room. Or a clubhouse. Or a playhouse. Then how about a tent? A teepee? The child finally agreed on something we can do - a backyard theme complete with birdhouses and a tree painted on the wall. We picked up wooden birdhouses at the craft store and decorated them with paint and scrapbook paper. They look awesome. We cleaned the room out today and K picked out a pretty sky blue for the walls. Tomorrow I need to finish the taping and get the walls painted. Then we'll see about a tree.

Oh I may gripe and complain that I have too much to do, but I live for all this decorating stuff. Its so much fun to design and figure out how to make it all work without spending a ton of money. K's room should come together pretty quickly, then L and I will do hers the following week when we're here alone.

Then I'll swear that I'm not doing anything else for at least a year. Or maybe just until 2010. Unless I see something I really want to do. Then maybe I'll just paint a wall. Or a room. Or maybe do a faux finish.

Because I just can't help myself.

It would have been funny if it happened to anyone else

Remember how I said that it rained the last night we camped? Well, that meant that I had to bring everything home wet. And it had to be taken care of.

We got home Wednesday afternoon and I decided that I was way too tired to mess with it then. I slept in Thursday, but then it had to be done. It was hot, sunny, and there was a light breeze. Perfect weather for the job.

I parked the van in the street near the driveway and started pulling all that wet, dirty camping equipment out. I set up the chairs in the driveway and hosed them down. I set the big tent up in the backyard and K's little tent (that was never used to sleep in) in the front yard. Everything that wasn't nailed down in the car was put in piles in the front yard. I started washing sleeping bags and ended up spreading one out on the grass to finish drying. The girls and I put away most of the stuff in piles and I pulled out all the back car seats, then I took the van to the car wash to clean and vacuum out all the post-vacation nastiness.

When I returned, I wiped down all the surfaces in the van and scrubbed the floor mats, hosing them down and spreading them on the sidewalk to dry. Mr. at Home left to take care of his own car stuff and I was dripping sweat and running out of steam.

Then the most horrible thing happened.

A familiar sound came out of nowhere. I looked up and I spied a lawnmower.

The lawn guys had come one day early. And they were headed my way.

I raced to push everything off the grass and onto the driveway, then I ran through the house yelling at the girls to help me get the tent down. As we were pulling up stakes and folding up poles, the weedeater guy came through.

Crud.

We got that tent down in record time. Frantically pushing, pulling, hauling, and panting, I got everything except the wet floor mats moved and put away before the lawnmower made it to our yard. Thankfully everything else was dry and is now all stored neatly out of the way on the garage shelves.

Yesterday, hubby mentioned that some friends of ours were camping at another friend's house. For about 1.67 seconds I considered joining them. Them I thought about what I had gone through to get the camping equipment put away.

We stayed home.

And now for pictures from the mountains

Vacation #2 for the summer was a short camping trip in the mountains for me and the girls with my parents. Two nights in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was just not enough, but it was lots of fun while it lasted.

We got there on Monday and set up camp while the girls played in the creek that ran right next to our site.


We then discovered that the air pump for the mattresses was missing, so we loaded up the van and set out on a tiny winding back road for the nearest Wal-Mart. Silly GPS picks the closest, but not always the smartest, route. Pigeon Forge seems to have grown tremendously since we were there last and it's got some really cool buildings. We stopped at the Moonshine Cafe for dinner and had some awesome food for such a tiny cafe.


When we returned, we discovered that the camp hosts had confiscated our coolers and a couple of bags. Seems they meant you had to have everything put away during the daytime, too, even in a busy campground and even if there's nothing in them that could emit an odor to attract a bear. Thankfully, due to some paperwork snag, the ranger could only issue a warning instead of the $75 fine. Those people are serious!

That evening I picked up a list of activities and some Junior Ranger books for the girls. That was both a mistake and a blessing since there were a ton of really awesome activities available. We mapped out several for early Tuesday and went to bed.

The girls and I were up early, ate breakfast, but ended up leaving far too late for the hayride we wanted to do, so we just did a nearby nature trail so they could work on their junior ranger activities.

We went back and picked up the grandparents for a presentation at a 1-room schoolhouse. It was really neat and I actually understand a little more about some of the things in the Little House books. Like in the third book when Laura and Mary have to buy a slate and slate pencil. I assumed it was chalk, but it was actually a small pointed metal stylus. They would use that to carve their work on the slate (it sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard; can you imagine a whole roomful of that?!?), then at night someone had to rub the marking out with a stone so it could be used again the next day.

We left the schoolhouse, went back and made sandwiches for lunch, then headed over to Cades Cove where both the girls got to work in a blacksmith shop. The traffic over was slow, so we ended up getting into the very last class. Once we knew we were late, we got to take our time and enjoy some of the scenery around the loop.


The balcksmithing was fun. Even lightweight L bent steel and did amazingly well with the hammer. They made a triangle with a striker that was curved so it could hang from the triangle.


We went straight from there into Gatlinburg for some awesome Mexican food and a tiny bit of shopping, then back to camp for a quiet evening of smores. I admired the stars just before I went to bed late only to woken up soon after by lightning and thunder. We all lay awake listening to a rather impressive rainstorm and trying to ignore the fact that our tent leaks. Rather impressively.

Nice.

In the morning the sun was shining and everything was soaked, so I had to do my second least favorite thing about camping. Packing up a wet campsite. My most least favorite thing about camping is packing up a wet campsite in the rain.

We got everything cleaned and dried as best we could and I just laid down a dry tarp and folded everything into the back of the van. We said a sad goodbye to the grandparents as we drove east and they headed west. We stopped for one last beautiful view of the mountains and then at the visitors' center for the girls to turn in their junior ranger books and get their junior ranger badges.


Yep, another instance of education disguised as fun!

I forgot that I was going to post a few pictures

I exported a few pictures of our beach trip for your enjoyment. Then I forgot to include them in my last post.

Here's a picture of Mr. at Home playing in the sand with our youngest. Notice his hat. I made it.


Our friends loaned us a couple of boogie boards. We've never bought any on our previous trips to the beach and never knew that we were missing out on the most fun thing ever to do at the beach. K was instantly smitten with them.


L took a little longer to warm up to the idea, but it was the one thing that tempted her away from the sand and into the water. Granted it was only about 3 inches of water, but it was enough to thrill her.


Remember that hat I mentioned that I made for Mr. at Home? His was actually hat #5 of my sunhat making ventures before the trip. Here are the first 4.


I found a pattern, picked the pink paisley fabric, and set out to make a hat for myself. It turned out a smidge too small, but it looked fabulous, so I decided to go ahead and make one for everyone. I reserved the first hat for my mom and we went back to the fabric store where the girls and I picked out our own fabric. My second attempt at making a hat for me ended up too big, so I added a bow to the back to take up some of the slack. Mr. at Home was impressed with the hats and asked for one for himself. Except flat on top. And oval shaped. And out of canvas. So I altered the pattern and made him a bucket hat, which turned out awesome enough that he wore it all week.

I love craft projects that actually work!

Vacation on the brain

I dutifully packed my laptop and all the necessary cords when we left for the beach. When we had the pop-up set-up and organized, I plugged in the laptop. Once I even tried to get on the wi-fi, but it didn't work immediately and I put it away again. Only after we got home and Dad made me upload the pictures from his camera did I get around to uploading mine. I was just too busy not being busy to worry about it.

It's been a great vacation time. Lots of chances to be busy mixed with lots of chances to be lazy. The beach was fun and the pop-up was a lifesaver since it was HOT! Actually, the first day was miserably hot. The second, we spent the morning on the beach and the afternoon roaming around town so it wasn't nearly as bad. The last 2 days were really very pleasant with cooler temps and more breeze and we had learned not to visit the beach in the heat of the afternoon :-) It was fun to do all the summer activities the campground offers - VBS, water slide, parties, etc. Even still, I think I'll reserve the beach trips for our traditional early fall time frame when it's much cooler and MUCH less crowded.

Once we got back to our house, we've slowed down even more and have done really nothing more than hang out and cook. Since my parents are here, we've been making all our favorite foods and trying out new recipes like these meatballs and this corn. I have to say that fresh creamed corn has changed my life. A-maz-ing. My dishwasher has been working overtime with the cooking extravaganza, but it's been worth it.

My mom and the girls and I headed out to the mall yesterday and had to detour around some road construction which took us past the new fire station. The grand opening was yesterday so we stopped and got there just in time for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. The girls got to help cut the ribbon and ended up right next to the fire chief and got their 1.5 seconds of TV time. They were excited when we watched the news last night and they got to see themselves.

Today is one more lazy day. My parents have gone for a drive through the mountains and we're just hanging out here. Tomorrow morning, my parents start their long journey home, but the girls and I aren't letting them get away that easily. We're following them to the stateline and camping with them a couple of nights in the Smokies. It's been years since we've been there; K wasn't even 2 the last time. It's such a neat place to visit.

When we get back, life starts again and there are many things waiting on my time and attention. The biggest is getting ready for school. L's curriculum arrived on our doorstep last week so I have that to look through. K's curriculum I have to map out myself. I have books to read, questions to write, projects to design, pacing to set. Some of it is done for me, but not reading and history and I want to get a really good chunk done before we actually start school. Surprisingly, I'm really excited about doing it. Now that she's in 4th grade and I've got a few years experience with this elementary thing, I'm more comfortable. With the first few grades, I was worried that I'd totally screw up and she'd never learn to read or add. K's past that stage and has proven that she's pretty smart, so we can get to more fun stuff. Like real books in reading and pirates in history. Did you know Blackbeard operated out of NC? I didn't. I'm going to learn a lot in history this year.

But only after vacation is over.

Busy day ahead

We're ging on vacation!! It's funny to hear how anxious we all are to just. get. going already. The girls have been done with school for weeks, Mom has been retired for 2 weeks, Dad is finishing out his last obligations and he's finally done, and Mr. at Home has been having a busy, stressful few months at work. We're all ready to GO somewhere!

Of course, as with any trip, there's a lot of work that has to be done beforehand. I've been busy with it, but it's not finished. My parents will be here sometime today and I do have to have a few more things done by then. Like...

Finish cleaning the house. It's halfway done and thankfully it's the worst half that's already done (the bathrooms included!). I've just got to finish.

Laundry. Again, it's a little over halfway done. We're packing for vacation and everyone needs plenty of clean clothes.

Ironing. Some of those clothes I did wash are *wrinkly* and there are a few things that need a quick touch. It won't take long, but it just needs to go on the list.

Errands. One box to mail. One list to make. One or two stores to visit. There are a few things we need before we leave, but I've already told my mom that we'll just buy most of the food down at the beach since there's a Wal-Mart nearby and not worry about hauling it.

Pull out all the camping stuff and get everything we need organized in the garage so it can be packed into the trailer and cars.

Humm, the list looks pretty short and manageable when I write it out. Of course, it always takes me twice as long to get stuff done as I think it will, so I'm off to get working. Don't worry, I think there's wi-fi at our campsite and hopefully I can post some pictures from our trip.

Getting things done

It's a week for getting things done. Starting today, in which I...

1. Ordered next year's curriculum for L. Where I learned I could...

2. Called the curriculum company and asked them to return our retainer money for last year so we got a refund of almost $70.

3. Stopped by the fabric store on the way home where I found fabric and a pattern for a sun hat. When you have a large head like me, it's really hard to go to the store and buy a hat that fits.

4. When we got home, I pulled into the driveway and decided that we needed to straighten the garage back up so we could actually park IN the garage. We tossed all the old shoes, drove a couple of nails to hang stuff, and got everything else organized so we could put the van in. As I got into the van, I decided it was the perfect time to...

5. Finally got over to the neighborhood sales office to ask all the questions that have been coming up, like when are they starting the homes across the street? (soon) When is the construction fence behind our house coming down? (they'll ask) Do we need to call someone to schedule our last walk-through? (they'll call for us) What do I need to do to get the dead bushes out front replaced? (call the HOA). So I...

6. Called the HOA about all the dead bushes in front of our house. Since we live in a townhome, the HOA handles all the landscaping. They'll drive-by tomorrow and see what they can do.

Not bad for a day's work.