June Cleaver in Disguise

Today is trash day in our section of our subdivision. Not only is it trash day, it is also recycling day, so everybody (well, almost everybody) puts out their recycling tubs for the recycle truck to pick up. My youngest son and I cheated the recycle truck just a little. We walked around and picked cans out.

He loves to collect cans. We turn them in for money. I love for him to collect cans because it gets him exercising. We're trying to save up money so we will have enough to go to Six Flags. We already have three tickets (1 from a school reading project and two for collecting Coke Rewards), but we need one more ticket and we also need to be able to eat when we're there because 9 and 13-year-old boys and a 45-year-old man can't go all day without quite a bit of food. I don't seem to require as much as they do (if I did I wouldn't be able to get out of the house, I would be so big), so it doesn't cost as much to feed me.

We get some strange looks from people as we are collecting, but we also had a lady ask us today if we came around every week. I said "We try to." and she said she would put them in a separate sack for us. I thought that was really nice. We also saw a man we know, told him what we were doing and he said "Nothing wrong with that." I think most people appreciate the idea of being thrifty and working a little harder in this economy. I appreciate that it's teaching my child the value of money.

This morning I asked Brett if he wanted to make a cake. Of course, being 9 years old and a junk food junkie, he said "Of course." He wanted to make chocolate cupcakes.

I looked for a recipe in one of my Paula Dean cookbooks and its said "6-Layer Chocolate Cake" and me, being the non-attention payer to detail that I sometimes am, neglected to see that the only part of the cake that was chocolate was the frosting. I don't know. Somehow when you see the words chocolate cake, you automatically think CHOCOLATE CAKE, not vanilla cake with chocolate icing. Fortunately for Paula, it turned out to taste really good or I might have had to sic Brett on her. A 9-year-old boy who LOVES chocolate cake, thinks he's GETTING chocolate cake and doesn't GET chocolate cake can sometimes be a little perturbed. All is well now and apparently the chocolate icing had some kind of sleep aid in it, because he's in there on the sofa right now taking a nap. That rarely happens.

I cleaned out our shed yesterday and threw away an entire large garage sack full of stuff. Now you can actually find what you're looking for when you go in there. What a concept!! The workbench can actually be worked on now without having to shove 10,000 items somewhere else and the tools are where they are supposed to be. I wonder how long it's going to stay that way? I'll let you know.

We went on vacation. We got back last Friday. I am still tired from vacation. I need another vacation, preferably one like in Kenny Chesney's song where he has "nothin' to do, but breathe all day".

We went to El Paso, TX, San Diego, CA, Los Angeles, CA, Las Vegas, NV, The Grand Canyon and then the next couple of days were a blur. I think we ended up somewhere in New Mexico and then Amarillo, TX before we actually got home. Our minivan kept getting smaller and smaller the closer we got to home. We kept adding "stuff" as we went along, plus we had had about all of the togetherness we could handle. Two weeks, four people, one minivan.... you do the math.

I thought the boys would have come home and holed up their rooms to get away from each other, but nooooooooo. I went in the oldest one's room and they were in there wrestling on the bed, then the youngest came in later that night and hung out on the bed with me and hubby. I guess he hadn't had enough togetherness.

On a more positive note, we have some good friends coming to visit. They are only going to be able to stay one night, but we're thankful for that one night. This was the only time they could come see us, what with our son starting band next week (whatever happened to summer vacation?) and their son having to do weight training for baseball (?????). High school puts a new perspective on life.

It's off to Wal-mart today and then coming home to do some dusting. I guess my vacation from vacation will have to wait a couple of more days.

I had some time to kill Wednesday, so I thought I would do a little shopping. Of course, I had tons of other stuff I could have been doing, but none of it was as much fun as shopping.

I went bebopping (I don't think that's really a word, at least not in the dictionary, but I like it because it describes what I was doing so well.) over to Garden Ridge. I was just wandering around, looking at all of the fun stuff they have when, lo and behold, there was a whole section of bag, luggage, purses, etc and there was a sign that said (something like) "ALL PURSES 50% OFF). My heart did a little flip-flop. I love purses and I love signs that say "50% OFF" even more. I bought the cutest purse for $9.99. Honestly, I think I could have bought several because they had a bunch of cute ones, but this one really caught my eye.



Normally I am a basic black/navy/brown kinda gal. I don't know why I liked this one so much. They had several different styles of the same colors/design and they were all cute. My oldest son said it looks very country. I don't think he likes it very much, but what does a 14-year-old boy know about fashion?

I have worked for a small personnel service in Mesquite, TX for about 3 1/2 years. A couple of weeks ago, we got a big contract to hire 75 people to work a 4-day temporary job. Keep in mind, when I say small, that means we have 5 employees. We had 3 days to find 75 people. Well, WE DID IT!! The company that hired us was really pleased with us, so today my boss took us all out to the Dallas Athletic Club for lunch (very swanky), gave us a small bonus and, when we got back from lunch, there were these beautiful roses on our desks. All of us got a different color, but mine was the most unusual. I absolutely love the color blue.



Isnt' is beautiful and isn't my boss sweet?

My youngest son is training to be a barber. He made this homemade Chia Pet at a community Arbor Day festival. It's growing so fast he's had to cut it twice already.

To make it they took old pantyhose (recycling at its finest), stuffed it with some potting soil and put some grass seed on top. They tied it off (sorry, I don't remember how) and we brought it home and put it in a container with water in it. Of course, they let him decorate it with wiggly eyes and marker, but I knew while he was using water-soluble glue, that the eyes were going to just end up floating in the water.

He's had a good time watching it grow and it certainly is cheap entertainment.

SPOT, TALLULAH & COOPER







These are my three sweet dogs. From left to right, Cooper (2 1/2 and a sheltie/manchester terrier mix), Spot (8 1/2 and a shepherd mix) and Tallulah (5 1/2 and a full-blood basset hound).

Spot is a "talker". He stands at the door and makes all kinds of sounds and talks to us while we're petting him.

Cooper is just hyper. He loves to bring us his toys when we are in the backyard because he wants us to throw them and him go retrieve them.

Tallulah is just a love. She would love to be a lap dog, but she's just a little too big. Bassets are big dogs on short legs.

All three were "free" dogs, as in we didn't have to pay to get them, but they sure have cost us a small fortune in vet care and other miscellaneous "fees", such as a library book that Tallulah chewed up.

They are worth it though because I know that I am loved unconditionally by all three.