Live from Tormville!

Happy Thursday!

I almost titled this Happy Wednesday, and then I banged my head upon my desk and lamented another week whisking by too quickly. 

But hey, look at the pretty blooming tree that has my whole house coughing and sneezing. 

It's that season

The first flight of the season was Monday night - a month later than our first flight last year - and I was unable to make it as I was in Novi with Allan. I was able to go last night though. 

It as 50/50 if we'd be able to fly - the winds took awhile to die down - teasing us by going up for a bit instead. Denny decided to kick back and watch how Jerry fared with the winds before we began putting up his balloon. 

It's good to be back at it. 

Happy Wednesday! 

 

Who needs names anyway

There are several people in this house who are quite horrendous at remembering names. I've just learned to deal with it because I've given up on trying to teach or change. I'm convinced it's genetic and it can't be helped. 

Wendy is but one in this house that has this ailment, BUT - she's got a crazy knack for noticing details and tends to rely on describing the person instead. Trouble is, I don't have that knack and can never figure out who's she describing - but it has me looking at people more closely. 

For instance...

One Sunday. Mom - someone said to make sure I tell you hello. 
Oh? Who?
I don't remember her name, but she had a square face, and her hair was kind of short and very straight and parted on the side and she had on pretty blue high heels with kind of a zig zag strap. 
I still don't know who that one was.

Today we were talking about some of the boys in her gym class that I might know either from church or from her elementary.  

Well, what's his name?
I don't remember, but he's kind of bigger, he has dark hair, his nose is pointy and he runs like this: (she proceeds to demonstrate, and it was not flattering - at all)  

So, I guess the point is, if you see my daughter and want her to relay a message to me - either write it down for her or be very confident that you'll like how she interprets your features and that I'll be able to figure out who she means.  

Some are obvious, but I won't share those. It's risky. 

be good. 

worthy of a jowl shake

Man, our May is busy. Is it busy for you? 

I spent my morning yesterday consolidating all the dates, appointments and sport schedules onto one calendar and then I took a nap. There is a LOT going on. My aunt's words about the treading water years come back to me yet once again. 

Added to the mix is that our oldest is graduating, and we're still not 100% sure what he's doing next. We didn't have the time to dedicate to research last fall, so I feel like we're playing catch up now and we're overwhelmed by options. I find myself wishing that the answer would float down and slap us across the face.  

Last night we had an interview at the Art Institute in Novi. It's an interview that we've rescheduled three times due to a traveling husband, sick bugs and at home schedules. I'm glad we did since our appointment was at 5:30 and we didn't get home last night until 9. Hard to do that when the husband isn't home to man the homework, dinner, sport of the night hours. 

Anyway. We toured the school, discussed the programs (he'd go for Graphic Design with a goal of working in advertising and packaging and would take such classes as Color Theory, Typography, Design Fundamentals, etc - all classes that light a spark in his eye) (and he's mentioned several times that he has an end goal of being able to teach art in a school setting - something that we've already learned is possible this way).  and then we discussed cost and how it can be done and my eyes may have glazed over.

I was done with the meeting one and a half hours into the three hours. My brain had checked out, I was hungry, I was thinking about the other options we should check out. I was thinking about the laundry I had left on the line at home. 

It took everything in me not to go all Grandpa Eskola jowl shake on our interviewer. What I did do is pull my calendar out of my purse and told her to try and figure out when we're going to come back for a second appointment. She raised one eyebrow. 

Anyway. Still not 100% sure what he'll do, but I do know that he'll be applying at KFC, Pizza Hut, Forever 21 and Nordstroms since that'll get him 10% off his tuition should he decide to go there. Don't ask me what the connection is - I have no idea.  *jowl shake*  But 10% is 10%. 

Back at home I spent my evening researching wether Greg's GI Bill is transferable (something they suggested, but something I'm finding is not - which is a bummer as he was never able to use it for himself), emailing contacts in the business for insight into recommended degrees or schools, and then lulled myself to sleep with a hot cup of tea. 

Today's a new day. 

 

Weekend Wrap

Another full and busy weekend

• volleyball Friday night
• went to a baby shower Saturday morning
• Wendy woke up with laryngitis Saturday morning
• she's resourceful
• kids and dad went to Cabela's while I went to the shower
• (dad bought a 28 cup camping coffee pot) 
• new trim on my garden - designed, built and installed by the husband
• new trim on the boy's heads - managed to get them to the barber before closing
• addressed Allan's graduation announcements
• George tested the new acoustics in our living room
• Wendy had a cousin spend the night
• Wendy had a friend over after church
• Farmer's Market
• Brian got dressed for Sunday School, but I kept him home to avoid getting the stink eye over his excessive coughing. It was out of hand. I blame the stupid cottonwood trees. It's that time of year. 
• First grilling of the season. We always spiral cut our hot dogs. 
• Sunday afternoon naps. 
• It was all good. 

 

sun and smiles

I almost didn't bring my camera last night (still need to order a smaller one) but I ended up running back in the house to get it before pulling out of the driveway.  We had a beautiful sunny hour to kill between volleyball games and the girls were totally up for doing some posing. Some of the team had run to town for dinner and/or ice cream so I couldn't take a full team shot, but they went from this to eight giggling girls in a pyramid. 

My memory tells me that the scores were similar to last week - won 4, lost 2. 

eta: pyramid photo for my mother....

three members of the team were missing. I kept saying - shouldn't we wait?  But they wanted photos anyway. I still want one of the whole team.  ;) 

 

 

Happy Friday!

• I've taken a lot of pictures of Allan's artwork this last two weeks - he's been busy working on his portfolio for his art class. I enjoy his pen vs. pencil series. 
• My three days off work is going well. On day one I ripped up the carpet, on day two I spent the majority of the day crawling around the crawl space. As fast as I was putting things out on the curb for the citywide spring cleanup, people were picking it up. I went to bed content that I had fired up a few pickers. I know the thrill of a good find. 
• Today I will dig a little deeper
• Tonight is Wendy's volleyball again
• After that I hope to go scour a few spring cleaning piles myself. 

time for more coffee

Have a great weekend! 

yesterday the living room, today....the crawl space

Yesterday I started before the boys even left for school and had the carpet all yanked up by the time Greg got home from the airport at 10:30. He was home in time to yank up some tack strips while I pulled out endless padding staples. 

Tonight we'll haul the small 20 year old couch to the curb and over the weekend - if my husband doesn't launch off on another work trip - we'll get some hardwood flooring prices/ideas. 

Today I'll give the knees a workout and purge some crawl space. 

*deep breath* It's May.

layout made using Technique Tuesday's May Studio AE - Heartfelt

Journaling left blank, because I made it for my daughter to journal/put in her book. 

And now it's May. I've been a bit apprehensive about May. So much going on, so much to do. 

So much, in fact, that I'm beginning the month by taking three days off work solely to clean house and work on some big projects. My husband decided that he'll come home from the airport today rather than go to the office, so he should be home in time to see the living room completely gutted and me rolling up the old icky carpet to throw onto the curb. 

I'm determined that he not break my stride. And *bonus!* now he can help me move the china cabinet.

Other than three day of cleaning and projects, I have a goal this month to try my best to not fall too behind. With field trips, working, graduation, etc.... I'm going to have to try real hard. The list is long. 

I can do it. 

For now I'm enjoying the fresh new start that a new page on the calendar brings. 

 

Weekend Bits

• Friday - My husband went to Buffalo, New York for work for the weekend
• Friday morning - hit my first garage sales of the season, picked up a few things.
• Friday afternoon - signed two kids up for summer soccer camp and one kid up for guitar lessons.
• Friday night - Wendy had volleyball games. Closer to home than last week - won 4, lost 2. 
• Allan was on lockdown all weekend to help him heal. He read through four of the Artemis Fowl books, and babysat as needed. Like Friday night. 
• Saturday - Brian began spring soccer. They couldn't play last week due to flooded field conditions, and they won't play next week due to garbage day at the Township hall. He likes it, and he only had one pain during the hour and a half they played. I began him on Vitamin D last week, and now we are down to pain just every other day or every third day rather than every day. Still taking notes. 
• Saturday afternoon got a few chores done and took the boys to the library
• Saturday evening I told the kids I'm just going to skip real quick to a wedding. Love that the church is closer now and we don't have to add an hour round trip in the car to every wedding. I very much enjoyed a good sit down visit with my long time friend Karla, as it was her brother-in-law getting married. Been about ten years since our last good sit down - long overdue. We've been friends since third grade. 
• And then came Saturday evening. I'm glad I didn't stick around too long at the wedding or I would have been locked out of our subdivision to a scene of firetrucks, ambulances, SWAT teams and policemen. THEN what would I have told the kids?  I feel confident that I would have kept my calm and walked in the back way, but still.  We were part of this turned out to be hoax, but for the two hours that it was going on - there were fully armed SWAT guys on the porch just two doors down while I was giving my boys Saturday night tubs and working hard to keep all four kids unaware. I succeeded, But it was CRAZY. 
• Between that, and the coffee I had made before that, and the sick kids and the single parenting and the grey rainy gross Sunday - we might have slept in on Sunday. 
• And we were lazy lazy lazy lazy
• Greg got home about 8:00 last night. 
• He's home for a bit this morning - headed in for his annual physical soon. He's good about those. 

As for this week? Whew. 

• Today we've got baseball and busy bees. Canceled Allan's Novi appointment for the second week in a row. 
• I work today and tomorrow
• I insisted on taking Wednesday through Friday off to spring clean our home
• I'm going to rip up carpet and clean out the basement to get it all on the curb for this years spring pick up. 
• spring junk picking. 
• Greg travels again. 
• Allan's pictures should come in, so I'm hoping to get his graduation announcements made and mailed. 
• should do it.

Happy Monday

be good