#Babble

It's been a crazy week but a good one so I thought it was time for a little #Babble.

Last Sunday, Peter left for Boy Scout camp.  He was so happy and excited to be heading off for another week long adventure that I didn't even have a chance to be sad. He'd picked lots of great merit badges to work on and his best friend, Colton, was going this year so he was even more excited than last year.

Dan headed up there on Wednesday night (he split the week with another dad) since he wasn't able to miss a whole week of work. 

Sarah and I had big plans for the week.  She had swim practice, a swim meet, and a swim party.  And in between all of that, we repainted her room. 

Two summers ago, she asked for an update to her room and we obliged. She choose a bright Pepto pink for three of the walls and even brighter purple for an accent wall.  She loved it (even though I had reservations about the brightness of the colors).

But she recently decided that the room was a little too babyish for an 11-year-old.  Dan typically does all the painting around here and told her that due to gardening, yard work, and business trips, it would most likely be fall until he could paint the room. So I told we would paint it while the boys were away.

And paint we did!  Luckily it's a small room but between getting the room cleared out, removing everything from the walls, putting putty on the holes, taping, and then fiiiiiinnnnnaly painting, it took over 2 days.  Thank goodness the room wasn't any larger. 

Yesterday morning we hit the stores to start decorating her room. She had a Hobby Lobby gift card burning a hole in her cute little purse and some birthday money as well. 

So we got a new comforter and some wall decorations but didn't find the "cute throw pillows" she was looking for - so she will be scouring the internet this weekend for those.  And once she has all of her accessories then she will officially decorate her room.  She wants to wait until she has everything before she puts it all together.

I can't wait to see how it turns out.  She chose a very pale pink paint (called Ballet Slipper) because she wants her "accessories to pop".  And she has chosen lots of bright things so I believe it's all definitely going to pop when she gets it all together.

And now, I'm working hard to get the house back in order after a week of crazy.  There's much laundry to do, groceries to purchase, and my boys will be home soon which means much more laundry! 

I can't wait to see them and Sarah is looking forward to showing off her new room to them.

Happy Saturday everyone!

#Babble: 1st Week of Summer Vacay

The first week of summer vacation is coming to a close. 

The kids have gone to nightly swim practices (next week we start morning practices) and while they have been perfecting their strokes, Jennifer and I have been walking.  My plan was to get up early before Dan leaves for work to run but I just haven't been in the mood.  So Jennifer and I have been walking for an hour each evening. It's been enjoyable but so far has had zero impact on my muffin top or on the scale.  Have I mentioned before that being middle aged and trying to lose weight sucks?  I thought so.

My house has become a bit of a disaster zone throughout this past school year.  While it's always neat looking on the outside, I pity the fool that opens a cabinet or a closet because something is likely to fall out and land right on top of said fool's head!

I've made it my goal to try to straighten or clean at least one little area each day this summer.  This week I cleaned out Sarah's closet and dresser (clothes only, a lot of junk still remains), Peter's closet and dresser (clothes only, A LOT of junk still remains), two very messy kitchen cabinets, and the very messy closet/craft stash/school supply hoard in the guest bedroom.  

While that sounds like a lot on paper, when I look around at all the other places I stash/cram/shove things, I've got a lot more work to do.  But, there's still a lot of summer left so I'm going to soldier on.

The garden is finally starting to take shape.  Dan waters it and frets over it nightly thanks to our lack of rain but a huge water bill later and it's doing fine.  We've got some tiny little green tomatoes on the vines and I'm already mentally eating my first BLT.  And we've got some tiny cucumbers on the vines and the dill is going gangbusters so I'm mentally enjoying a side of those with my BLT as well!

Hello my little pretty!

The peppers are always so slow to start but hopefully they will catch up. The corn looks lovely growing in the garden but based on past experience, I'm pretty sure it's going to taste bad.  The peas started out gangbusters but they don't seem to be making much progress so I'm not sure what's going on there but there are lots of blooms, so fingers crossed that they actually do something.  And the basil and cilantro are growing quite nicely.  The chives other hand, never took so we we replanted that and are waiting patiently.

And that pretty much sums up our first week of vacation and this edition of #Babble is now closed!  Enjoy your weekend!

#Babble

Ahhhhh....that's the sound of me breathing a little sigh of relief.

Thursday night was the last General PTO meeing of the year and marks the end of my "presidency".  I always joked with the other board members that instead of President, my title should be "Reluctant President". I was only president because the real President  moved away in November.  Being president of anything is not something I desire.  I'm more of a worker bee than a leader so the fact that my term is over is a huge relief to me.

Overall, I would say it was a good year but for me the absolute worst part was having to run the meetings.  It involved way to much public speaking for my taste and I am thankful that it is over!  I slept better on Thursday night after that meeting that I have in months.

Moving on to less presidential things....Sarah was looking at some old pictures on Dan's cell phone and came to one of me and exclaimed, "Mom!  You are so skinny in this picture!"

It was a picture of me right before I got pregnant with Rebecca and I was looking and feeling pretty thin.  Sarah then proceeded to inform me that if I wanted to get that thin again, ,"All you have to do is eat a healthy diet and exercise more."

insert eye-rolling emoji right about here

And moving on to less diety/annoying things...We had Jennifer and her family over for a cookout on Saturday.  I made all of these things plus my mom's recipe for baked beans which includes a pound of ground beef.

After the cookout, Dan told me that everything was good except there were no beans in the baked beans.  I had not had any beans so I just dismissed him and told him perhaps I got the wrong size cans of beans  so it seemed like there weren't as many in there as normal.  He kept insisting there were no beans in the beans and I kept ignoring him.

Until yesterday when I opened up the pantry and there were the three cans of beans sitting there patiently waiting to be used!  HA! So basically I served sloppy joe meat and called it baked beans.

We went with Jennifer's family to the pool's Memorial Day party yesterday and all had a good laugh about the beanless beans!

On Sunday afternoon we went for a walk through Old Salem and these are actually the only pictures I took of the entire weekend.  Sometimes, I'm just too busy enjoying the moment to worry about taking pictures of it.  So no pictures of the pool party or the cookout but here are a couple from our family walk....

I hope you all have a great week.  And good news - it's already Tuesday!!!!!!  

#Babble

It's been awhile since I just babbled at you so, here goes.

There are only three more weeks in this school year and I am finally able to see a little light at the end of the tunnel.

I had my last executive PTO board meeting of the year last night and the last general meeting is next Thursday.  But even though the year is coming to a close, we are already hard at work making plans for next year. 

Who knew that running the PTO for a small school could be such hard work? Not me, that's for sure!  And it's probably a good thing that I didn't know or I might not have agreed to it.

BUT!  And isn't there always a but?  It has been such a good thing for me this year.  I have felt like I've had more purpose this year.  When your kids start to get older and really only need you to drive them from point A to point B and to keep the fridge stocked, you might start to feel a bit lost. 

I can see why moms with kids this age go back to work. But I don't want a paying job and all the responsibility and hassle that comes with it. I still want to be available to take my kids from point A to point B and to have time to make multiple trips to the grocery store each week.

But if you join the PTO, all of a sudden your life has purpose and meaning.  Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it has been really nice to have something to work on and work for.  And I have worked with some really great ladies who I now consider friends. 

And cake! These ladies introduced me to Nothing Bundt Cakes and now all I want to do is eat cake.  And if you were like me and thought, eh bundt cake, I can take it or leave it, then you've never had one of these.

And speaking of cake...let's talk about my weight loss or rather my lack of weight loss.

13 months after having Rebecca I am still 16 pounds over what I weighed before I had her.  SIXTEEN POUNDS!  But, that's what you get for eating bacon pimento cheese burgers with extra mayo (hold the lettuce and tomato because who wants vegetables getting in the way of meat, fat and grease? not me!) for 9 months. 

I'm still running and I'm still watching what I eat for the most part (although I do allow myself cake if it is present and I do like a couple of nice craft beers on the weekend) but this being 45 and trying to loose weight is definitely different than being 34 and trying to lose weight.

Heck, it's even different than being 40 and trying to lose weight.  I started running when I was 40 and lost a bunch of weight without even really dieting.  But it's not the same now.  Perimenopause and a sluggish metabolism have made it very, very difficult. However, I am not giving up. 

I will continue to run and watch what I eat and we will see what happens.  I am starting to come to the conclusion that I might have to accept my new rounder, flabbier body.  But, y'all, I am not going down without a fight!

Peter and his class have been on a field trip since Wednesday.  I dropped him off at school at 6:15 AM on Wednesday and they won't be back until this evening.  They went to Sound to Sea.  It's a program at the beach and they are learning about sea life, the ecosystem, and the Underground Railroad.  They also did a ropes course and I really can't wait to hear all about it.  I've missed that boy!

Here are a couple of shots one of the chaperones sent:

There's Peter behind the tree!

The boys!

The girls!

Silly sixth graders!

#Babble

So, Peter wore his new "Jays" to school several times before one of his teachers informed him that high top sneakers weren't allowed per the uniform policy.

Um.  What?

#MomFail

I guess I should have thought to double check the uniform policy before making the purchase.  I knew of the no heels, no open toed shoes, no shoes with straps policy.  I also knew that the shoes must be brown, black, or navy.  But I failed to remember the part about no high tops.

Any chance Peter's feet will remain the exact same size until next basketball season?

I don't think so either.  ...sigh...

In other news, Peter and his group are working hard on their science project.  And when I say the group is working hard, I really mean the group of moms who are trying to coordinate 4 boys and their schedules are working hard.  But, I think after an abundance of emails and texts, we've finally got their next work session nailed down.

Seriously, I think they will spend less time working on the project this Friday afternoon than it took us to figure out a time to get them all together. 

But I'm not complaining (too loudly anyway) because the boys he's working with are all really great and their moms are too.

Although, next year, if doing the project solo is an option, I'm going to strongly recommend he take that route.  Cause you know what they say, "If mamma ain't happy..."

I've been working on our taxes.  Ugh.  Just one more project on my to do list.  I'm making good head way and should be done in a couple of days.  I think. I hope.

Sarah has been harassing me to get her a gym membership.  HA!  As if!

I told her that she doesn't need a gym membership because she has a big yard to run in,  a bike to ride on,  a trampoline to jump on, a basketball goal to practice on and a couple of flights of stairs to climb if necessary.

I tried to convince her that the main reason people go to a gym  is to use equipment that simulates the activities she can already do (running, biking, climbing, jumping) for free at home.  She's not buying it.

After I nixed the gym membership, she asked me to buy her a stationary bike or a treadmill.  Again, she didn't like the reasoning that she can run or bike without any bulky or expensive equipment.

The conversation ended with a lot of whining (her, not me for a change) and then her deciding to do a workout DVD. And then, she decided that "Jillian Michael's abs are probably painted on anyway so I'm NOT doing a workout DVD."

And with that, I'm all #babbled out!

#Babble

It's Monday morning.  The kids are in bed thanks to a teacher workday.  Dan's at work.  I've got a load of laundry in the machine, the dishwasher is humming away and I realized - I should write a #babble post because its been ages!

So here goes:

The kids finished their basketball season this weekend.  They both had a great time and learned so much.  I'm really impressed with all they know now.  While watching Peter's game, the ref blew the whistle and I asked my dad what the call was.  Before he could answer, Sarah said, "It was a moving screen violation, Mom."  

But as much fun as I've had watching my kids play this season, I'm glad it's over.  They've been practicing since October and playing games since the first weekend in November and it's just time to be done.

We've got a few weeks before track practice starts and they are looking forward to coming straight home every day after school and quite frankly so am I.  I'm ready to put an "Out of Service" sign on the old taxi cab for a bit.

We are finally going to get some winter weather around these parts starting this afternoon.  They are calling for ice and snow starting this afternoon around 2:00.  Many of the local school systems have already called for early dismissal even though nothing has started yet. And I'm sure that if this does come as predicted, the kids won't have school tomorrow and best case will have a delay on Wednesday.  Our school can be a little more lenient with bad weather because we have no buses.  If there's ice and snow the public schools around here will be out for several days most likely.  And I know the people in New England are shaking their heads, but we just don't have the equipment to deal with snow and ice. 

Our Valentine's Day was very low key.  We had basketball Saturday morning and we went to church Saturday night because we had a basketball game on Sunday morning.  In between, Sarah made some red velvet cream cheese brownies from scratch while I observed/instructed.  I thought they were good but she said she didn't like them.  Well then - we better keep practicing until we find the perfect brownie recipe!

And that my friends, is enough babbling for one day. Enjoy your week.

#Babble

Yikes!  Has is already been more than a week since my last post?  You can tell it's been crazy over here.

PTO planning meetings, basketball practice and games, scouts, church, a sleepover, no school on Monday, ordering Christmas cards, homework,more homework, and just life have taken up my week.

Oh, and in the middle of all that crazy - my printer stopped working so I downloaded a new driver.  While I was doing that, my computer informed me that I had a bunch of Windows updates that were available if I wanted to install them.

So I did.  And everything was fine until Peter got on the computer to start playing his beloved Minecraft.  He then informed me that the screen was flicking on and off.

I looked at everything I had updated and discovered that I had updated the graphics card.  And apparently (at least that's all I could think of and Google helped me confirm), the update effected the game.  He played on it for 5 days before informing me that all the screen flickering was really bothering him. 

Yesterday, I "refreshed" Windows.  What this means is that Windows was put back to factory settings.  All my files were saved but any programs I had loaded on my computer that didn't come with it were deleted.

After the refresh, I had to add the following programs back to the computer: McAffee, Firefox, Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, Java, Roblox, Windows Mail, Excel, and Word. 

And it only took me about two hours. And I say "only" just a weeeeee bit sarcastically because I have about a million other things I could be/should be doing with my time.

But Minecraft is fine now.  Except Peter informed me that the refresh wiped away all of the worlds he has worked so hard to build and had he known that he would have rather dealt with the flashing screen. 

Grrrrrr.....

If you need me today, I'll be parked in front of this computer (and it better not have any issues because I've pretty much maxed out my IT skills) ordering Christmas gifts for the family.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

#Babble

I've got a few things taking up space in my brain this morning so I thought I'd dump them out here.  Lucky you. But that's what #Babble is all about!

I saw quite a few Facebook status updates and tweets yesterday trumpeting the fact that people are done - DONE! - with their Christmas shopping.

What?

I haven't even started yet. 

And Christmas cards?  Apparently quite a few people already have theirs in the mail.  Showoffs.

I haven't even taken one picture of the kids posing in front of the tree in pretty clothes yet, which means of course, that I haven't ordered any cards yet. 

Oh, and remember when my computer crashed a couple of months ago?  Well, my address list was conveniently stored in an Excel spreadsheet so I could easily print out labels. That's gone.

And did I mention that we leave for Massachusetts on December 19th?  That's 17 days from now.  If anybody is going to get any presents or Christmas cards from the Cotell family, they will all have to be ordered and shipped prior to the 19th.  Somebody better get busy!

And speaking of getting busy - someone has been busy eating.

Right before we left for our trip to Washington, D.C., I had lost 12  of the 23 pounds that I wanted to lose.

I knew I was going to go off the diet on our trip because there was birthday cake, milkshake from Ted's and lots of opportunities to eat out.  And I knew I wasn't going to miss any of that.

When we got back from our long weekend, I stepped on the scales and had gained about 4 pounds back.  This was expected, because when I say I went off the diet, I went waaaaaaaaay off!  But I will say, I enjoyed every morsel! 

I had two weeks between the trip and Thanksgiving and I lost 2 of those 4 pounds but I wasn't too concerned because I knew that on Thanksgiving, I was going to eat whatever I wanted.  And I did.  And it was good!  And I don't regret that decision one bit.

And now Christmas is looming.  I am going to follow the Atkins plan until we leave on the 19th and be off the diet  until  January 5th.  I am hoping to eat in moderation (ha!) during our vacation and not gain too much back and then start in earnest again in January.  We'll see how the eating in moderation goes. 

I have a PTO meeting in the morning where we will be making our initial plans for Catholic Schools Week in January and I don't want to show up empty-handed and idea-less so I better quit all this babbling and get to work.  And to shopping.  And to Christmas carding.






 

#Babble*

The kids are out of school all week and this morning I went for parent teacher conferences. It's always nice to get a chance to speak to the teachers and hear what they have to say about Peter and Sarah.  Usually it's no surprise what they have to say.  I am usually always well aware of what they point out as their strengths and as their weaknesses.

This morning I was told that one of my children had a great sense of humor and always kept the class laughing (but in a good way not a disruptive way). That made me smile and was something that I would have never expected.  Oh, to be a fly on the wall in both of their classrooms!

The kids were excited to have this week off because they really needed a break. Even though they both have homework, it's nice that they have a whole week to complete it and can do it at their leisure instead of rushing between homework, basketball practice, and scouts.

Dan is excited to have a long weekend as well. We'll be driving to the mountains to get our tree on Friday.  Last year was the first year we've ever had a real tree.  We are always gone for so long over Christmas that it never seemed to make sense to pay for a real one, enjoy it for 3 1/2 weeks and then come home to a half dead tree.

Last year we decided we were ready for a new tradition and a real tree so off we went to get one. The kids enjoyed the drive, picking out our very own tree, watching it being chopped down, and lunch at Taco Bell afterwards.  I could take or leave Taco Bell, so Dan and I have already picked out the BBQ joint we'll be stopping at on our way home.

Poor Dan has spent our entire marriage saying the fake tree looks nice but it just doesn't smell like Christmas without a real tree.  Last year was the first year in 13 that I didn't have to hear him complain about the fake tree.  It was totally work all the vacuuming I had to do in January!

I will leave you with a few pictures of our week so far:

This is Sarah hard at work on a book report that's due on Monday.  Sarah is a very good writer but she tends to write with a lot of flair.  And by flair, I mean extra words that don't really add anything to the report and that I know the teacher won't appreciate because they are basically superfluous.  She and I were butting heads during the editing process yesterday.

Another reason that the kids were excited for a week off from school is because they don't ever get to hang out with Colton and Cheyanne any more because of basketball practice.  They came over yesterday afternoon to play and Chey brought Sarah this beautiful hat that she knit for her!! Isn't it gorgeous?

Sarah and I like Kale chips and my BFF, Jennifer, turned me on to this kit.  The kale is already chopped an a seasoning packet is included.  So easy!! 

And so yummy.  Sarah and I snacked all afternoon on these two pans!  (That was half the bag of mix.)

* #Babble - This is my new blog feature. There are many times when I want to write about something but it doesn't really have a beginning or an end and is more stream of consciousness . I had been using 7QT for that but I've recently decided I don't want to necessarily wait for Fridays and I don't want to be confined to a list and I just want to babble on my blog when I want to babble.  And since it's my blog, and since everything has a # these days - #Babble it is!  When you see that in the title, you can be warned that the post is just me rambling about whatever is going on or whatever happens to be on my mind!