I have had a busy 2 weeks and it shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. A week and a half ago, my grandmother passed away and I had to make my second trip to Indiana in a month for her viewing and funeral. It was a tough time for the family, especially my dad, uncle and aunt. Thankfully, she left this world peacefully and is now blissfully roaming around the gardens of heaven with my grandfather. I returned home on Tuesday and have been trying to recoup ever since.

School starts (for me) in a week and I have mandatory transfer student activities to take part in next weekend on campus. We have finally received the boys’ school supply lists and bought Alex’s new backpack. He is so excited about that backpack. He picked out an Optimus Prime bag that he proudly wore through WalMart and then out to the van. He’s so excited to go to school. I, on the other hand, cried upon reading all about his kindy placement, etc (which we also got in the mail yesterday along with supply lists). I am going to be a basket case on his first day of school! I will be trying hard not to let him see me cry that day, though. I don’t want him to think that going to school is a bad thing. It’s not, of course. It’s just hard for me to let go of my baby, that’s all.

Needless to say, I have a lot going on this next week with preparing for my classes in a week and preparing for the boys to start school in 2 weeks. Part of me is glad to be starting back to school but part of me is sad that the summer is practically gone. It really seems as though we had very little summer at all this year, with the boys getting out at the end of June. It seems it’s been run, run, run ever since.

I know some others are getting ready to start school this week. Have you finished your school shopping? Are you ready for school to start? If you’re sending your child of to school for the first time, how are you feeling about that?

I went on a quest to apply for more jobs today. Apparently it’s hard to find a job with the hours I want. Oh, well. Anyway, The recurrent theme was “We do it online now.” Borders, Michaels, A.C. Moore, Panera Bread…all do their applications online. The only ones who don’t that I applied to are WalMart and Target. But theirs are still computerized, no more paper.

Really, I think this is a great way to go. what better way to be-friend the environment and stay up-to-date with today’s technology than using the web for job applications?

So, it seems I’ll be spending my evening applying on-line. Probably would have been nice to know all of that before I spent the gas to drive to those places, but oh, well.

If not for twitter (and dh, of course), I wouldn’t have seen dh post the link to qik, where the live GOP press conference is going on. The house GOP totally rocks! After all, all they want is an up or down vote on gas prices. What’s so hard about that? The dems always say they want to help the people, but walk out when an opportunity to do so comes around.

UPDATE: I think you can still see the qik video, but you can also listen to “Media Lizzy” over on blog talk radio and hear her talk about it and interview congressman

As of today, it is T-24 days until my first day of classes. I am both incredibly excited and incredibly nervous. I don’t think I’ve been this nervous before. Or at least not in a long time. And I can’t really say it’s a bad kind of nervous. More of an excited nervous. Does that make sense? Either way, there are butterflies in my stomach something awful! I don’t think I was this nervous on my first day of college 10 years ago!!

All-in-all, though, my classes aren’t incredibly hard. Well, ok, they may be, but I’m only taking 12 hrs since I have to work around Alex’s afternoon kindergarten schedule. They are all political science classes, so they could get a bit heavy. I’m hoping I can mix it up a bit next semester. Once I see my advisor, I can schedule my classes online and I don’t have to wait forever to get an apt. like I used to have to do. Thank you, internet!

The hardest part, so far, is trying to find a job. I’m hoping to find one on campus so that I can save on gas. There are a few listed on the job board. I just need to find out if they are still available. It’s going to be a crazy semester for me, I know. However, the craziness that our family will have to deal with for the next three years will be worth it in the end. Once I have my degree and we’ve got a dual income, we can finally buy the house we’ve been longing for and start saving for college for the boys and retirement for us.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. Oh, and happy birthday, mom!

Ugh. I don’t like Monday’s. They’ve never been a favorite day of mine. Usually it’s a day to go back to work or school, though it doesn’t mean either of those two things for me for another month. I just don’t like getting up on Monday morning. I mean, it isn’t like I have partied hard over the weekend and am regretting it Monday morning or anything. I just don’t like Mondays. “Back to the grind.” Oh, well.

Anyway, today is full of things to do. I’m making the boys’ new chore charts for next week…well, for next month, but they’ll start on Monday. I’ve also got some menu planning to do so that when school starts for me, the rest of the family isn’t left to starve at night, lol. Not that dh can’t cook. He can. It’ll just be easier for him if I have stuff already done and he just needs to warm it up.

In the spirit of getting into the week, here’s my Manic Monday post.

Every person you have ever slept with is invited to a banquet where you are the guest of honor. No one will be in attendance except you, the collection of your former lovers, and the catering service. After the meal, you are asked to give a fifteen-minute speech to the assembly.
What do you talk about? Ok, This one’s easy. I don’t! There is no assembly. Just dh.

What’s your favorite thing to do on a rainy day? Read a book

Are you a window person or an aisle person? Why? Window person. I love seeing the outdoors and I’ve only been on a plane a couple of times so being by the window and looking out at God’s beautiful landscape is always breathtaking to me.

Other than my post in CT last Sat, I haven’t had time to post anything! We’ve been super busy since we got back Sunday afternoon. Sunday evening the boys and I went off to the kick-off party for the Steve Tasker March of Dimes Golf Tournament. Monday was the tournament. It was a long day, but it was fun. Well, it’s been a long two weeks, really. My sisters shower went smashingly and our trip to CT was loaded with fun, even though it was during some of the hottest days of the year! I thought I’d show off some of our pictures from our trip to CT. I’ve embedded them as slideshows and there are 2. You’re welcome to click on them and see the stills in my webshots photo album.

These pics are from CT. The first half of the pictures are from Quassy, one of only 11 trolley parks still remaining in the U.S. We had a lot of fun, especially at the Saturation Station (the water park.beach area).

Connecticut 2008

These pictures were taken on Saturday when Brian and his dad took the boys to a Yankee’s game. They only stayed 3 innings, but in their defense, it was 100 degrees out that day! The boys said their favorite part was riding the subway. Funny, but no surprise since they love trains so much, lol.

Boys Day Out

Here are the pics from the Golf Classic.

March of Dimes Charity Golf Classic

Happy Friday! Enjoy your weekend

Today was boys day out here in CT. Daddy, grandpa Lou and the boys went to take in a Yankees game today. I really feel so sorry for them. It was nearly 100 degrees today with a heat advisory for the city. But, as this is the last year for Yankee stadium, fil really wanted them to experience Yankee stadium before it’s torn down. I hear they had f un. Fil and I took the over-under at 3 innings and that’s exactly how long they lasted. They just arrived home and I’m sure are exhausted. I’ll post more later after I’ve seen them.

Mil and I went to one of her friends’ houses and had tea and scones, which was delightful. Now it’s time for dinner and a brief dip in the pool before heading off to bed and them back home tomorrow.

I have no picture of the “before” for today’s tackle. It was sort of an impromptu thing. A few months ago, we bought a big potted plant with 6 different herbs and a tomato plant. In my kitchen window a basil plant has been sitting and so has Zach’s pea plant that he planted at school. All of these things have needed re-potting in bigger (or separate) pots for quite some time. The poor little kitchen basil plant looked all but dead, or dying, anyway. And Zach’s pea plant had nearly overtaken the basil plant and had grown up my window! There are even 2 little pea pods on it!

So, tonight while at WalMart, we picked up a couple of pots and some potting soil and decided to replant our herb garden appropriately. Here is the end result:

The kitchen window planter has (from l to r) rosemary, sage, oregano and dill

The left planter has the 2 basil plants together (the one from the kitchen window and the one from the big planter). The right planter has the tomato plant (with 3 little tomatoes!) and the parsley, which really took off and nearly took over the whole pot!

This last little pot is Zach’s pea plant from school. I really never expected a school plant to do so well! He’s so happy about it. As you can see, we had to rig some thin dowel rods and loosely tie the pea plant up. Maybe we’ll have a bunch of pods by the weekend?

DH is at the Indy Car race at Watkins Glenn with a friend today. He was thinking about me enough to get me an autograph and a picture of one of my favorite Indy Drivers (or, past drivers), Arie Luyendyk. Isn’t he sweet? Here’s a picture of Arie giving an autograph.

Today is a great day (although, admittedly, I’m really tired. I haven’t been sleeping well at all.) It’s a beautiful day and I’ve shooed the kids outside to play. We will be joining some church friends for a barbecue and fireworks later this evening. I am excited to see what Rochester has to offer for fireworks. There are fireworks downtown and in just about every ‘burb, so there are plenty to choose from. We’re heading to a neighboring ‘burb to see them, since that’s where our church friends typically go.

I hope everyone has a great Independence Day!

Oh, and thank you to all active and retired military personnel. We should be thanking you every day, not just on holidays that remind us of our freedoms.