Check out...

Martha Stewart's craft room.

http://tinyurl.com/2vlrn9

This is life.

I haven't been blogging regularly. Life has been...great, but filled with challenges.

The kids' school year started. I try to be an 'involved parent', so including all of the regular back-to-school activities (schedule change, after school activities [soccer, soccer again, art, 'hoops', creative art], back-to-school shopping for clothes and supplies, etc.), I also try to volunteer, participate in PTA activities check my kids' homework and try to read to or with them.

I also designed and maintain the PTA's website. I volunteered to help with the school directory this year (I didn't realize it, but I was tasked with desktop-publishing the entire directory. Fortunately, someone else did the data entry and proofing, and most of the narrative sections were provided electronically). The directory came out awesome, by the way, and we received lots of support and kudos from the PTA board. I also co-own the Yahoo group for the school's PTA, so I maintain it and post all of the content and messages. I'm also the school's NAACP parent rep this year. September and October have been busy, school-wise.

Work was ridiculously busy. The end of the federal fiscal year is always crazy, but this year, my schedule was especially insane, as we bid on and won three small contracts, and I had to do start-up activities for them in September (in addition to maintaining my primary contract). I also had to plan a conference and 2 meetings for my clients which were all held in October. September and October have been busy, work-wise.

My crown needs to be replaced. I've had a temporary crown in for 3 weeks. I was supposed to get the permanent today but it didn't fit (ugh!). Two more weeks with this awful thing in my mouth. When I go back, they will also repair two fillings. September and October have been uncomfortable, oral health-wise.

My husband has been in cycle with cluster headaches for over a month. My sister started radiation in September, and my father was diagnosed with lung cancer toward the end of September. He started radiation yesterday and starts chemo next week. My sisters and I will collaborate to take care of him and get him to his daily radiation and weekly chemo. We may have to take turns staying at his house to help care for him. September and October have been heart-wrenching, family health-wise.

The check-engine light came on (again) in the minivan. That's not helpful.

My kids are safe and healthy and wonderful. I'm relatively healthy. My client and boss are completely understanding and will afford me lots of flexibility. I'm so very grateful and thankful for that. I have a wonderful, if not clutter-free, home and a loving, supportive husband. Thank the Lord.

You know what? This is life. All things being equal, I'm so glad I have it (life). Thanks for being a part of it.

A little work place humor

I urgently needed a few days off work, but, I knew the Boss would not allow me to take leave. I thought that maybe if I acted "Crazy" then he would tell me to take a few days off. So, I hung upside-down on the ceiling and made funny noises.

My co-worker (who's blonde) asked me what I was doing. I told her that I was pretending to be a light bulb, so that the Boss might think I was "Crazy" and give me a few days off.

A few minutes later the Boss came into the office and asked, "What are you doing?"

I told him I was a light bulb.

He said, "You are clearly stressed out. Go home and recuperate for a couple of days."

I jumped down and walked out of the office...

When my co-worker (the blonde) followed me, the Boss asked her, "...And where do you think you're going?!"

(You're going to love this....)

She said,

"I'm going home too. I can't work in the dark!!"

Out from under!!!

This has been such a ROUGH and busy month or two (since August, really). I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'll still be busy (work, kids' school, PTA, etc.), but I will begin to feel sane again. :)

Meanwhile, if you have a minute, and you see an 'ad' like this in my left sidebar:


please take a minute and complete the survey. Click on the picture in my sidebar (not the one in this post!). The ad will disappear on October 20th or when they get enough response.

Thanks!

Mommy demerit

Work has been so, so, so, so busy lately. It's the end of the fiscal year, which is a traditionally chaotic time in my line of work.

Yesterday, my daugther missed soccer practice because I had two huge deadlines that ran a little late, and I just couldn't get out of the house in time. She had a meltdown. She was really looking forward to going.

I felt terrible. Ideally, work would never get in the way of my children's activities. Incidents like this could easily breed resentment. But, at least I have a job and an income, so I try to remember that and be thankful.

We decided to make the most of the evening and have some FUN. We drove through McDonald's, snuck some food into the movie theater, and saw Mr. Bean's Holiday. It was a school night ::shock and awe::, so we were the only people in the theater. That scared my 6 yr. old son at first, but we quickly realized that we could talk and walk around because there was no one to disturb! (There were lots of subtitles, so it was great that we could read them out loud.)

About 20 minutes into the movie, my son pulled out his Nintendo DS and played it for the rest of the movie. We all had a great time, and we definitely needed the stress detox.

Have I mentioned lately...

...how much I love free stuff?!

I received a free book from Barns & Noble.com by UPS today. A couple of weeks ago, I received an invitation to join their First Look Club (The email said, "Get a free copy of the book your friends will be reading next year."), and I was just sent an Advanced Reading Copy of The Monsters of Templeton. There will be a forum and talks with the author starting in October. Cool stuff.

I can't wait to unwind and read it (stressful weekend and work is stressful right now, too).

Apparently, Stephen King recommends the book, too!

I love give aways!

I found several while blog surfing today, and this one is especially cool for us scrapbookers. ;)

HP Photosmart A626 Compact Photo Printer:



First, go here to the 5 Minutes for Mom blog and leave a comment.

Next, share the blog love and mention the contest on your own blog with a link back to the contest post.

Good luck!

Smarter than a 5th Grader

I'm smarter than a 5th Grader (online). Are you?

I made it to the top and answered the million dollar question correctly. Whoo hoo!

MomAgenda Planner Giveaway

This lady is giving away a Mom Agenda Planner on her blog. Just comment on her blog for a chance to win.



Want a bonus entry? Just post a link to her contest post in your own blog and post a link to the MomAgenda Planner site and then let her know that you've posted. Like I just did!

Miscellaneous knitting

Here are some squares and cloths that I’ve knitted and never shared (at least I don’t think I have). Sorry that some of the photos are blurry, but I haven’t figured out the best way of showing detail in the knitting yet. Also, I haven’t blocked these squares, so they don’t look “polished”, but you’ll get the gist. Maybe I’ll post new photos when/if I ever get these blocked.

This is the September Knit Along (KAL) for a group I belong to. The KAL started yesterday, and I’m knitting along as they post the pattern. Yesterday, 9 rows were posted. (I actually knitted 10 rows because we already know that every even row will be knitted across.) I’ve knitted cloths from KAL’s before, but I’m usually not able to knit along with the group. I knit the cloth later after the whole pattern has been posted. I’m going to try to actually knit along with the group this time. We don’t know what the pattern will be in advance, so the pattern on the cloth will be a surprise to us.

Here’s Day 1 of the September KAL:




This is the A+ Apple cloth that we gave to the student teacher at the end of last school year. We also gave her a simple, hand-made card. I’m not sure, but I think she might have been more impressed with the card! LOL



This is a cotton cloth for my father. It’s a cowboy hat. The image will show better when I’ve blocked the cloth. Can you see the hat? (Sorry for the blurriness.)




This cloth was a KAL, but I knitted it after the whole pattern was posted. It’s a cute swimsuit.



These two squares are knit from acrylic. One is a basic pattern. (I think it’s a basket weave.). The other is a plain leaf square from the book 200 knitted blocks.





Thanks for looking!

Off The Wall

I find myself listening to Michael Jackson's Off The Wall album.

FUN stuff! I'm just singing along to every song.

I remember when this album came out. Album. (I guess I'm dating myself now!)

Sigh. Those were the days.

Listen to a clip here on Windows Media Player.

Chorus
So tonight gotta leave that nine to five upon the shelf
And just enjoy yourself
Groove, let the madness in the music get to you
Life aint so bad at all
If you live it off the wall
Life aint so bad at all (live life off the wall)
Live your life off the wall (live it off the wall)

2nd verse
You can shout out all you want to
cause there aint no sin in folks all getting loud
If you take the chance and do it
Then there aint no one whos gonna put you down
cause were the party people night and day
Livin crazy thats the only way

Love this email signature

I saw this in someone's email signature and LOVED it!

"I'm not 40 something. I'm 39.95 plus shipping and handling."

Too funny!

Easy triangle shawl

I knitted this shawl for my sister, and I think she really loves it. (She seemed to enjoy modeling it, at least!) When I gave it to her, I hadn’t woven in the ends because I hadn’t decided whether to add fringe (and I figured the ends could be part of the fringe).



This is my first shawl ever. It’s an easy triangle shawl--a prayer shawl--knitted with Homespun yarn (which I think was the biggest challenge). The Homespun feels wonderful against the skin, so the shawl is so soft and cozy.



My sister thinks she wants fringe, but I’m told Homespun yarn frays terribly and looks horrible as fringe, so I’m trying a couple of different ideas to see if they’ll work. If not, the shawl will go fringeless.



Thanks for looking.

The Sound of Silence

Do you hear that?

It's so...quiet.

The kids are back in school. My teenage stepson is taking the dogs (I just accidentally typed "kids" LOL) to the vet.

Why does it feel so different here today? The kids were in camp for a month this summer. Was the house quiet then?

Maybe it's because I can institute some routine in the household. Try to keep everyone to a schedule. We struggle in this area, but the start of a new school year brings renewed hope that we'll do better this time.

Time to get some work done. Peace out.

Interval training

I was reading an article in O (The Oprah Magazine) called "Sprinting to Weight Loss". According to the article, research shows that if you exercise by alternating intervals of high-intensity movement (like, as fast as you can go) and intervals of medium to medium-high intensity, you will lose more weight than if you stay at the medium to medium-high range for your entire workout.

Furthermore, if you do the interval training, you will lose more while shortening your workout to about half the time of a regular workout (say 20 minutes rather than 40 minutes).

"...Intensity, not duration, is really the missing piece in our fitness puzzle."

I want to try this on my elliptical, but I'm not sure of the best way to time my intervals. Should I dig out my old stop watch? I wish I had music that had a voice-over telling me "Get ready to walk your fastest for 10 seconds in 4, 3, 2, 1, GO!" I wasted spent half of my afternoon searching iTunes and the Net for interval training music. Well, I have to figure out something, because I don't want need another excuse to NOT exercise.

I can totally relate...

After a couple of years of taking 2-4 kids to the grocery store with me, I told my husband, "I'm not grocery shopping with the kids anymore. It's just not fair." And 95% of the time, I've stuck to that.

So I cracked up laughing when I read this ladies ebay post:

Hilarious ebay listing

I'm probably the last to have seen it, but thought I'd share the laughs, anyway!

Little Miss Sunshine

I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and couldn't go back to sleep. I decided to watch someting On Demand and Little Miss Sunshine expires on the 19th.

After about 5 or 10 minutes, I didn't think I'd be able to watch the movie, but I perservered, and I'm glad I did. I laughed, cried, moaned, you name it.

That was definitely a good middle-of-the-night movie. I'm guessing it would be good at other times, too.

Back from the beach!!!

Last week, we went to Virginia Beach for some much-needed (and much-deserved) rest. Besides the record high temps (the highs were above 100 a couple of days with a heat index of 115), we had a wonderful time.

I was able to complete a knitting project and enjoy the most recent CK magazine, so I even fed my craft/hobby jones!

I worked while on vacation, checking and responding to emails and finishing a couple of projects. Right now, as I sit at my home office, it's taking everything I have NOT to flip through the mound of faxes sitting on the printer. The thought of them waiting there for me is actually giving me palpitations.

I'm going to leave this room and go back to my bedroom and knit and catch up on the shows I recorded last week. Work can wait till tomorrow. :)

Cool paper site

The Peace of Paper displays a collection of origami and other paper arts. Like this cool box:



I wonder if I can figure out how to cut that with my CraftRobo. The pattern can be found in this post: Link.

This explains it!

Obesity may be contagious.