Packing is easier in the summertime...

Although somehow we still have ended up with 7 bags for our travels.  1. laptop 2. Gavin's bag (toys & coloring material) 3. Tyler's bag (same) 4. boys' clothes 5. our clothes 6. reading material 7. miscellaneous carry on stuff that I wouldn't want to get lost (camera, iPod, napkins for my family, cell phone chargers, etc).  That being said, however, I have all of my stuff in the suitcase and there is still room for Shawn's stuff too!  Hooray!  Either I am getting better at being a lighter packer or... summer clothes allow you to fit more in the bag than winter clothes.  I'm guessing it's the latter.  Regardless, vacation is almost here.  I don't have to go to work for over a week!  I'm so excited to see my family... and the ocean! :)  

Today we signed Gavin up for Pre-K.  He is going to go to a school right down the street from Tyler's school.  He was pretty shy while we were there looking around but hopefully once he feels comfortable there, he will come out of his shell a bit.  He's just a little on the shy side.  He starts August 13th - just a little over 2 weeks away!!  Tyler goes back on August 16th and will be in 1st grade.  I think we are going to let him ride the bus as I can't quite get to his school on time to pick him up and wouldn't want him to have to wait for me wondering where I am... Though it does make me pretty nervous to put him on a school bus (yes, I am one of THOSE moms)... but lots of other kids do it just fine so hopefully he will too!  If I can't handle it, we'll figure out something else I suppose.

Oh, and I have to tell you Gavin's funny for the day... He was playing with their play doctor kit.  He got the stethoscope out and put it to Tyler's chest to see if his heart was "beeping".  I almost peed my pants. :)

I will resume posting next week, hopefully with great pictures to share!  Have a great week, everyone! :)

Our First Apple

So after my little whine fest yesterday, I got some more feedback from my first napkin customers. Seems they would prefer sewn edges, just like Ellen suggested, to prevent fraying. My mother-in-law graciously agreed to help me with this, so last night the boys and I went on a hunt for a sewing machine at some thrift stores around town while Shawn did homework played golf.

Well we didn't have a lot of luck finding sewing machines - though I did find what I think will be a good one, my MIL wants to go look today and see what she sees also, we did score on some other goodies.

Shawn and I have been discussing lately our need of a second computer. You see, he's taking two classes right now and has to spend a LOT of time online and on the computer doing homework, writing programs and posting to the online message boards, which is the "class participation" part of his class. Unfortunately, the majority of my advertising is online. His class trumps my business, so it's hard for me to get online to do what I need to do to get my company out there. We've been drooling over Apple notebooks for awhile and thinking that might be our next purchase... But when I happened across this iMac at the thrift store last night for $24.99, I thought that might be a good option... Even if we have to replace the OS, which it looks like we do as the programs have all been removed and the OS9 is a little outdated, we invest $75 in a computer rather than $1000+ for a new notebook. Hooray! And isn't it cute?? I wanted one of these when they first came out. And it works!

Tyler and Gavin found goodies too, of course, seeing as how they are my spawn. *ahem* Tyler found some great new Spiderman sandals...

And Gavin found cowboy boots. Which he is insisting on wearing today. Even though it's supposed to be 97 degrees today.
My little thrift store kings are so cute though... We were talking about what a score we found as we were headed to our 2nd thrift store last night and Tyler said "yeah, I hit the jackpot!". All that excitement for $5 shoes. :)

Argh.

So I got my first napkin order Sunday evening... that wasn't family, friend or friend of friend. You can imagine my excitement, I'm sure, as I mentioned in a previous post how frustrating it's getting. We've had over 300 page clicks and very few orders. If it weren't for my wonderful family or friends we'd have had none! So I got her napkins boxed up and ready to go... and mailed them out Monday morning. On Monday evening Shawn got an email saying the order had been cancelled. Shit. So now someone in Arizona is getting a box of free napkins. I'm not really sure what to do about this other than just hope my Karma is such that this lady will do the right thing and either send them back or pay me for them...

In other news... vacation is less than a week away and we sure need it! I am so excited I can hardly sleep at night. I haven't been to a beach (with water warm enough to swim in) since Tyler was 3 weeks old. He's almost 6 now. Clearly, it's long overdue!! I love the ocean and would vacation at a beach somewhere every year... but our entire family is 1000 miles away in Indiana. So when we DO get vacation time, and have the money to travel, it's important to go home to see our family. This year we are lucky enough to be able to vacation WITH our family as my sister, brother & parents are all meeting us there. The boys love their cousins - all 4 of them - and they all have a blast together. Hopefully it'll be really fun. I was hoping to swing over to New Orleans while we were there but it's 3.5 hours away and my family doesn't seem to be too psyched about a little road trip within a road trip... so that may not be happening. Maybe Shawn & I can sneak away on our own for a minute. :)

Ellen and Sicko and Poker, Oh My!

So I'm totally a blog slacker lately... In my defense we have, as usual, been super busy. And it seems like the little things we do wouldn't be that exciting on a daily basis... but all together in one fun, action packed blog post it'll be uber exciting! :) Perhaps I'm deluding myself... but I digress.

Quick update on Mamaw - she's doing much better! Thanks for well wishes and crossed fingers... She's getting her strength back and is like a whole new woman! We even got to go shopping yesterday, together, and that's something that hasn't happened in awhile. It was great (though I spent over $50 on herbs and a house plant that I hopefully won't kill).

This week one of my favorite mamas was in town. Ellen used to live in Denver but when her hubby got a new job relocated to New Joisey. I've known her for about 3.5 (?) years or so and she is definitely one of the coolest chicks I've ever met. She has been there for me through some very rough parts of my life in the past couple years and is one of the most honest people I've ever met - definitely one of her best qualities. You can always count on Ellen to tell you the truth... She was my doula when the twins were born (even though she was pregnant with her own little one!). Anyway, she was visiting Denver this past week - in town for a wedding and also to close on her house. Ria & I got to enjoy lunch with her on Monday, as well as a little shopping and playing at the Cherry Creek Mall. On Thursday, after they attempted to close on their house, she and the kids as well as Ria & her family came over to my house for dinner... It was so great to see my friend again and we were sad to watch them drive away, not knowing when we'd get to see them again.

We had a good week at work this week but I had to work on Friday, which I never enjoy. Luckily, Friday evening, Shawn and I got to go on a date! We went to dinner at Croc's (yes, I have been spending a lot of time there lately. It's not my fault. It calls to me.) Then, we met Ria & Thomas at the Mayan Theatre to see Sicko. Wow. It is a powerful movie. As usual, Michael Moore made us laugh, he made us angry and he made Ria cry. He was only slightly obnoxious trying to make his points and I found the movie very very informative. But I am definitely sad that we are so behind the rest of the civilized world when it comes to benefits that every citizen should enjoy - health care, good affordable child care and a long life span because we didn't work ourselves to death with 40+ hour work weeks and only 2 weeks of vacation. I highly recommend seeing this movie... Even if you are not for national health care, it's quite informative and perhaps you'll leave with a greater understanding of why those of us who are, think the way we do.

Yesterday we spent the morning with my Mother-in-law, as I mentioned... shopping and lunch at Red Robin. By the time we finally got home, Shawn had finished his homework and we decided to go swimming! It was perfect - hot outside and cool in the pool. Half of my block was there, too, and I'm convinced we moved to the most friendly block in the neighborhood. Everyone is so nice! It's such a pleasant change from what our life was like back in Castle Rock. After dinner we were outside working on the yard when our across the street neighbor, Dirk, invited Shawn & I to play poker with his wife Jani (pronounced "Shawn-ee" - she's German) and some of their friends. We had to bring $20 each, which made me a little nervous as we were not playing Hold 'Em, which I am Ok at... It was dealer call it and I learned a bunch of new games. We had a great time and Shawn won back all the money I lost, so we ended up breaking even. They were a really fun group of people to hang out with and we had a blast. Jani got a little drunk and I swear she is one of the funniest drunk girls I've ever seen.

Today I am trying to work up enough energy to at least go for a walk... but seeing as how it's 9 o'clock and already pushing 80 degrees and I got about 6 hours of sleep last night... I'm not sure that's going to happen. So I'll probably work on napkins and relax the rest of the day.

Hope you've had a great weekend too! :)

Poor Mamaw!

Shawn's Mom is in the hospital!  She went to the doctor last week because she wasn't well and they ran lots of tests and determined that she is severely anemic.  Her levels were dangerously low so when they received the results back Friday morning, they told her she needed to immediately get to the Emergency Room.  She called me and the boys and I took her.  They gave her a blood transfusion - I believe she's up to 6 pints of blood so far - but her levels are barely rising.  They are definitely not up to "normal" levels.  To make matters worse, today is her birthday!!  The boys and I are taking her flowers and a balloon so all the nurses will be extra nice to her today knowing it's her birthday... And I'm bringing her some of my not-yet-famous homemade organic (except for the chocolate chips) chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. :)  Hopefully she'll be done with her clear liquid diet she's been on so she can eat them!

In other news... Our business isn't nearly as successful as we'd hoped it would be.  The only orders we've had so far are from my mom and my cousin.  I am starting to feel really discouraged and think maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all.  I'm going to try taking them to a Farmer's Market and maybe a craft fair to see if they fare any better there but I'm thinking maybe this was just a big waste of money and time! :(  Hopefully they won't all end up at Goodwill!

Other than all that, we've had a pretty normal weekend... Ria and a couple friends of hers went out Friday night while Shawn and Thomas played video games.  We had a good time, as usual, until Ria's friend passed out in a booth and we got kicked out of the bar. *ahem*  But that wasn't before Ria dazzled the owner of the place with her impressive personal PR skills and he gave us cards to get a free drink on our next visit.  We didn't get a chance to use them so we'll save them for next time.

Saturday, after visiting with Shawn's mom, Shawn headed to work while the boys and I went grocery shopping.  Tyler and I made cookies, which he loves to help with - mostly so he can lick the beaters! :)  We also squeezed in a few games of Uno.  Tyler's really into playing card games lately.  He comes from a long line of card sharks, so he gets it honest I suppose, from my side of the family.  That night we had our 3rd annual neighborhood block party.  It was a lot of fun - we put tables and grills and block off one part of the street and just eat and hang out all night.  That was why I made the cookies... Someone else made homemade sushi!  There were lots of other yummy things too.  It was lots of fun meeting new people and hanging out with my neighbors while the kids ran crazy in the streets.  Unfortunately, Shawn couldn't join us because he ended up not getting home from work until almost 3am!  It was a 14 hour shift!  They had some issues with software they were testing.  Poor guy :(  Luckily it's only like this once in awhile - most of the time his hours are pretty routine - but these occasional long nights are no fun...

Today we are not doing much... Catching up on sleep, cleaning the house, and of course visiting Mamaw in the hospital.   Keep your fingers crossed that she will get to come home today!!  And that they will make some headway in figuring out what's causing her blood levels to do what they're doing.

Why isn't there a law for this?

I was browsing Craigslist the other day, searching for places to advertise our website and I ended up in the Ecology forum.  Someone mentioned that in some countries in Europe, it's illegal to throw things in the trash that could be recycled.  And I thought to myself - what a great idea!  Why isn't there a law in America for this??  We have laws for other things that people would rather not do, even though they better our society and our lifestyle.   One example of this would be paying taxes.  People whine and complain about paying taxes, though we ALL benefit from this requirement.  We all utilize roads, public schools, public libraries, and much more.  Granted, our current administration doesn't always use my tax money in the ways I would like, but we have the power through our votes and our voices to ask our representatives to spend money the way we'd like it to be spent.  Taxes do better our society but without being forced by law to pay them, how many of us would voluntarily give a chunk of our paychecks to Uncle Sam?  

Another example is insurance.  Most of you know I work for Allstate... and I hear on a daily basis the grumbling of consumers who are forced to pay for insurance because by law you have to have it to drive or even own a home.  If they had a choice, it's unlikely that they'd purchase the policies I have for sale... But if we didn't have insurance and we were faced with a loss of our home or a car accident in which our child ended up hospitalized for months, most of us could not afford to replace the home or pay for our child's medical care without insurance.

I think recycling should be a requirement for American households as well.  And along with that, easier ways for people to recycle their discarded items.  Curbside recycling is not an option in my neighborhood (yet).  We have to bag up our items weekly or bi-weekly and drive them down into town where the city has a recycling center set up.  Yes, it's inconvenient, but it's still important.  A curbside recycling program would make this a lot easier on the citizens of my city.  

There is plenty of evidence out there and scientists no longer disagree about the effects of our carbon output on climate change. We know what we're doing is wrong and we all know of the positive impact recycling has on our society.  Yet we still have bags and bags of trash out on the street each week to be taken to a landfill.  I think it's time for the government to step in and force us to do what we should already be doing but for whatever reason ... don't.  Isn't that what they are there for?

Tyler is funny

So I am a mom and I feel like I rarely blog about my kids. They're just so easy going and we don't do too much exciting stuff so instead I talk about me. Ahem. Anyway, Tyler was hysterical yesterday... I'm not sure if it'll be as funny typed out but here goes.

His Uncle Scott & Aunt Audrey once gave him a T-shirt that says "It's my brother's fault". He decided this shirt was magic. Yesterday he had it on and came up to me... pointed at his arm, where someone had drawn on it with a marker, and then pointed to his shirt so I could clearly see whose fault it was. That was his way of tattling without tattling. (they are told they will both get in trouble if they tattle on the other one without being asked by me to do so or if someone isn't bleeding). Nice.

Later we were playing outside... well, they were playing and I was chatting with my Indiana neighbor, Amy, and her new puppy (he's so cute and appropriately named: Indy). Anyway, Tyler fell off his scooter and skinned his knee up a bit. We went inside to wash him up and put a band-aid on. But before the band-aid, I pulled out the Neosporin. I've never put that on a cut of theirs before so Tyler asked me what it was. When I told him, he said "oh, I've seen that on TV". As I continued putting him back together, with the Neosporin and the band-aid, he muttered "it heals cuts 4 days faster". Hmmm... think he is watching too much TV? :)

Nothing!

This was the weekend of nothing! I worked on Friday, again, so it was a short weekend... but with a little weekend in the middle of the week (I had Tues and Wed off), it wasn't bad. We didn't have any plans all weekend. We passed the time by reading... I finished my book finally (this has been a several month long affair!). It was great but a tough read, with strange names to get used to. I did really enjoy it, but I'm also glad it's over. I'm ready to read something more "chick lit"-ish. We also played at the park... Shawn worked on our website - which is getting totally revamped. Complete with a "check out" so clients don't have to email me for orders. We did some grocery shopping and I made it to the gym... The boys played on the Slip N Slide... We watched a movie ... Oh! And while I finished up on some more napkins, we watched the Live Earth stuff all day yesterday... it definitely got me pumped up to find more ways to be greener!! Some of that will be reflected on the updated website, so hopefully you'll be able to check it out. I'll let you know when it's done.

So that's about it... nothing too excited to share. We don't have too many weekend like this, but it was nice. I sort of wish we'd made it to the Cherry Creek Arts festival, but we're short on cash so we wouldn't have been able to thoroughly enjoy it anyway, so that's Ok. We'll hit it next year.

Happy Birthday, America!

Hope everyone is enjoying their 4th of July so far... We have had a good couple days. But busy, as usual. I'll fill you in on that in a bit.

Yesterday, after farting around doing car sh*t all day (oil change, a new tire, etc), we mosied on over to the Flatirons Mall so the boys could play at the giant sandbox. We ended up getting there a little later than we'd originally planned, unfortunately, so they couldn't play for too long because of the heat. It's freaking hot here! To make it up to them, I took them to the pool. That didn't go so well because as soon as we got there, the sun went behind a cloud and the temperature dropped by about 10 degrees so we just about froze to death! We got home in time to make dinner for Shawn's dad, who is home alone this week while his wife (and as luck would have it, Shawn's mom) is in Indiana visiting family. We had a nice dinner with him and hopefully helped alleviate some boredom and loneliness. Tomorrow he's watching the boys while I work, which I'm sure will help with the boredom too.
So today we've been working on my project some more... I'm not sure if you recall my mentioning it a post or two ago, but it's pretty much ready to go. I have decided to start a small business. I'm not sure how intelligent a decision this was, but I guess that will be determined. I am making homemade napkins and selling them in recycled baskets. Here is the website: Earth Napkins ... If you do not yet have a collection named after you, never fear... I am not done yet! This is just the beginning... That is, if they sell like I'm hoping. Check it out and let me know what you think!! Any and all feedback is highly appreciated - positive, negative or indifferent.

I originally got the idea from Ideal Bite, who sends me tips each week on how to live a little greener. We do a lot to help out the earth, but are always looking for new things to do, to be better. So when the website suggested replacing paper napkins with cloth ones, I went on a hunt to find good, cheap napkins at various places - online, thrift stores, etc. I wanted something cute and kitchy (sp?) and couldn't find what I was looking for anywhere. So I made my own. And I really liked how they turned out and hated to keep it all to myself. Well, one thing led to another and now I have 30 something baskets ready to sell.

So the project has been keeping us really busy. Other than that we haven't had a lot going on. Tonight, however, we're going to see a movie and then watching the fireworks show that Dick's Sporting Goods Arena (that's a mouthful, eh?) puts on. I am confident that this means an 11pm or later bedtime for my kids, which should be fun to reap the consequences of, but hey... the 4th of July comes but once a year!

Go see this movie!

Shawn and I just got done watching Fast Food Nation.  I was expecting more of a documentary type film and it wasn't... but still definitely worth watching!  It is so disturbing to see a glimpse of where our food comes from.  I try to buy organic and natural as much as possible... but that only matters when we eat at home.  We eat out a lot and there is no way that what we're eating out is healthy for us in any way!  Anyway, just thought I'd share...

We have survived...

... our week from hell. And it was a doozie! I worked until 4pm for two days... til 5pm for two days... and then I ended up working Friday too. It went really fast but I wasn't getting home until after 6:30pm! I really don't know how people do this.... try to work full time and have a family. When do they have time for their kids? How do they fix dinner each night (we ate out three nights last week!!)? When do they have sex? When do they work out? When do they do anything for them like watch TV or read a book or magazine? Ugh. I just have to say I'm glad that's over!!

Shawn had a crazy week too... It was his finals week for his first class. I think he did pretty well on it. He also worked some crazy hours. He had (software) testing all day on Thursday and worked from 8am until 1am. Can you imagine? He did get to take Friday off (which is why I worked) and then turned around and worked 8am-4pm on Saturday. Hopefully his testing will slow down for a bit.

On Friday we decided to do something fun and took the kids to dinner and a movie. (by the way, I think I have fixed my link problem... it should be safe to click.) The movie was long and we didn't end up getting home until almost 10pm!! It was cute though - they liked it a lot. Oh, and we had some time to kill before the movie and happened upon The Children's Place, where they are having a Monster Sale - 30% off clearance prices. I got jammies for $7 and T-shirts for $3.50! Sweet! I usually buy clothes at thrift stores for the boys - it just makes more sense in a lot of ways to me - but with jammies, as much as they wear them, I like to buy them new.

Yesterday I mostly worked on my new project. I have only told a few people about it - I'm still trying to get it up and running... I'll share more when it's ready to go. We also picked up some fireworks for the 4th. Last year we bought a package and it ended up only being poppers - not even the kind sparking fountain or sparklers or anything. Oops. This year we're doing it right though. I also got the house cleaned. I had good intentions of taking the boys swimming but that didn't happen. Today some friends are coming over for a cookout, so they are looking forward to that. Also, our neighborhood is doing the annual Independence Day celebration, which includes some activities for the kids, a live band and the best fireworks this side of Denver!

Oh and let me just share with you how cool my boss is... You know how I said I worked Friday? Well I only actually worked a few hours of it. You see, today is our anniversary - we opened our office on July 1st, 2004. I was pooped on Friday from a loooong week of work and my boss was pooped from a long week of vacation. And since we had some celebrating to do, it being our anniversary and all, we decided to skip work and go gamble. We went to Black Hawk for the afternoon. And she gave me $120 to play with. Of course, I ended up losing it all. I have no luck where slot machines are concerned. But Robin did really good! She ended up winning $480 on a $1 slot and $250 on one of the penny slots. So when we left she had won back what I'd lost (whew) as well as what she'd spent. I felt better then!

And now my friends... I'm off to walk. I have not seen a gym or worn a tennis shoe since Monday, and I'm not happy with the scale's response to that plus eating out. So this week I have some making up to do.