When you have to get up at the butt crack of dawn….

And you have to get dressed and be out the door before the sun is even fully up….

And in that little window you have fed 2 children, dressed 2 children and hussled 2 children into the car….

Then you end up being uber productive for 2 or 3 hours and by 9 am…. you’re ready for a nap!

Last year I homeschooled Anna Grace.  I didn’t talk about it much on the blog but it was a decision I made after looking at all my options and deciding that I wasn’t too fond of my choices or couldn’t afford other choices.  We had good days, we had bad days but one thing remained the same:  Anna Grace got up every morning and asked if she could go and play with other kids.

This year, I chose a school I loved, the school then closed and I scrambled.  And then my husband did something he rarely does: he voiced an opinion, a strong opinion, about what he wanted her to do this year.  And so…  Anna Grace started first grade today.  She’s going to a little private school that is about 10 minutes from our house and she had a blast.  I was a wreck over the past few days and, to be honest, I cried more than she did this morning.  Cry as in “the ugly cry”. But when I picked her up this afternoon her smile was a mile wide and she had had a great day.  I don’t know what we will do in the coming years but for this year… we have a happy first grader on our hands.

First Day of School

Ready to Go

Wishing We’d Hurry Up

Meeting Isaac and Wishing Each Other Luck

And Being a Little Concerned Too

A Hug for Jessie, Too

Anna Grace seemed to have a great day.  I think tomorrow will be easier for me and each day after that will continue to get easier.  I missed her so much today but Dana was home with me.  Tomorrow it will be just me and Jack Henry so… that will be a bit of a test.  The house sure is quiet when she’s not around.

Okay… so here’s the deal.  My daughter does this…thing.  A thing that I’m sure she wouldn’t do if she wasn’t an only child for the first 6 years of her life and desperate for friends.  The thing is this…  My daughter walks through the house having imaginary conversations with friends or imaginary people or whatever.  And yes… I have gone to great lengths to explain that when she starts school on Monday, she might want to just do this little…um…thing…. at home.  At school she should probably talk to people and kids that are…you know…. real.

So today, she’s doing the thing.  There’s usually skipping involved and so she’s skipping and talking and doing the thing.  I’ve learned to tune this little thing out but sometimes something catches my ear.  Today she said “there’s a lady walking up the driveway.”  I looked up and said “what lady” and AG then told me she was just talking and pretending.

Okedokee.

Fast forward about thirty minutes and I’m desperately trying to get the internet to work.  AG is entertaining herself and I’m in my own little hell with modems and blinky lights and such.  Then I hear “there’s a lady walking up the driveway”.  I pop my head up and say “what lady”?  AG then says, again, that there isn’t a lady in the driveway but she’s just pretending.

Okedokee.

A few hours pass, I go and see a patient, the kids go to a sitter and then we all returned home.  I’m tinkering around the house and AG is entertaining herself.  I’m in my own little world until I hear “there’s a lady walking up the driveway”.  I, forgetting the other events of the day, say “what lady” and then, exasperated, AG looks at me and says “Mom, you need to stop listening to my private conversations”.

Somebody kill me.

Today is my knitiversary.  Six years of knitted bliss.  I learned to knit on August 13, 2004 while waiting for impending doom at the hands of Hurricane Charley.   Woo Hoo!!

Maybe you can help me.  I can’t figure this out for the life of me.

Some background… before I got pregnant with Jack Henry, I weighed 152# and wished I’d lose a little weight.  But the Laffy Taffy and the chocolate was just too good to pass up and so… I stayed pretty consistent at 152.  And… I wore a size 12.

Today I weigh 152.5… and a pair of size 12 jeans literally fell of of me today.  So I figure… they were probably a vanity size. They were really a 14.  But size 12 shorts are doing the same thing.

Now I’m confused.  I weigh a 1/2 pound more but wear a smaller size.  Where’s that 1/2 lb hanging out at and where’d the rest of the weight go as well?  My shape is basically the same…. but a tad worse due to being postpartum… and I’m wearing a smaller size in pants.  Makes no sense.

This got me thinking… who is and who isn’t vanity sizing and I discovered that it looks like everyone is.

Today I went and bought a pair of size 10 jeans.  I wore a size 10 in the 80’s…. when I weighed about 110.  Now I weigh 152 and I’m wearing a size 10????   That makes no sense.  So the size 10 of the 1980’s equals what size in this day and age?  Did jean companies just recently do another “across the board” vanity size change?  I got in size 10’s today in brands that I swear I couldn’t have zipped one year ago.  And I’m the same weight and essentially the same shape, but worse.

What’s going on?  I tried to do a google search but what do you search on?  “Hey… I couldn’t squeeze my butt in these jeans 12 months ago but now I can.  What up with that???”  I don’t think that’s going to be very successful.

Came home today to discover that Sara the Rescue Cat had rolled a yarn cake of 100% silk yarn through the house.  This is the yarn that is attached to my Ishbel project, thankyouverymuch!  I will now be spending many, many hours getting lint and pet hair off of it.  GRRRRR.

If Sara the Rescue Cat keeps touching yarn, specifically SILK yarn, she’s going to be Sara the HOMELESS Cat.

Just sayin’!

She may have a temp of 101.6 but she still knows how to boss people around.  Hope Baby Girl feels better soon.

My friend Scott linked a blog to my facebook wall today.  I’ve gone through the whole thing and I just love it.  Go check out Mila’s Daydreams.

Edited to add:  If you click on Behind the Blog you can read a little bit about the writer and see a cool video featuring all of the photos.

I have no photos, I am photoless. 

Life here goes on, kids are growing, weather is hot.  Hotter than a thousand suns.  And life is good.

1.  Dad and his fiance, Gail, came to visit and we had a great time.  A nice, relaxing and great time.

2.  My daughter has actually learned how to swim and is no longer refusing to put her face in the water.  Go AG!!

3.  Jack Henry is growing like a weed, pretty much  sleeping through the night and he’s aaaaaalllll boy.

4.  A school has been chosen for AG for next year.  I homeschooled her this past year (didn’t talk about that much) and wanted her to go to a part time, umbrella school type program this year.  Well… that school closed.  I had to get over it and voila!  The kid is registered for a local private school and starts in 4 weeks.  It will be weird having her gone all day but I think she will really do well and enjoy it.

5.  I finished the Traveling Woman shawl and it is on the blocking board.  That would be shawl #3 for the 10 in 2010.

6.  It’s August.  My odds of finishing 10 in 2010 aren’t looking good.  Just sayin’.

7.  I was having sock withdrawals and now I’m knitting a basic, twisted rib sock.  Did the best short row heel of my knitting life.  Almost made me a little misty eyed. (Dang…thanks to spell check I just realized I’ve been misspelling withdrawal for like 40 years!)

8.  Screwed up the front of the above mentioned sock but did I tell ya about that short row heel I’ve got goin’ on???

9.  Casting on Ishbel.  This takes care of two items on my knitting New Years resolutions:  counts toward the 10 in 2010 that I will never get finished and it is a pattern by Ysolda Teague.  Knitting one of her designs was a goal for this year.

10.  Started Couch 2 5K (C25k).  Did run #1 of week #1.  It. was. torture.  But… I completed the entire session and I’m pretty dang proud of that.  I’m going to try for run#2 tonight.

11.  Bought a new guitar.  It’s a Breedlove and I. am. in. luuurrrrrv!!!!  Happy, happy, joy, joy.  Best part: went to lead worship the other night, plugged it in and IT WORKED!!  That is an event that had become kinda rare with my other guitar.

So…that’s about it.  What’s happening on your end of the skein????

My daughter’s got it….bad.

Anna Grace has decided that she needs to start kissing boys.  She’s been kissing Isaac and Noah.  She apparently has considered kissing Daniel and I even heard Jeremy’s name mentioned once.  I have tried to discourage this.  I did ask her why she kissed Isaac and she said “because I love him so much”.  I suggested she love him from a distance.  ;-)  I’m not gaining any traction!

Today AG was playing with Isaac and suggested they play a game where she chases him and if she catches him then she kisses him all over his face.  Isaac suggested they play with trains instead (smart boy!).  So… on the way home, I actually had to have a conversation with my daughter that included the line “please keep your lips to yourself!”.

I don’t think she was listening!!!

I guess this is the paybacks I get for kissing Hank and Billy Zehring when I was five!