So restricted

Just recently the old habit of thinking summer was over at the end of August due to school starting finally ended for me. I stopped thinking things like "oh I only have a couple more weeks to wear this before I am stuck in a cold building and wearing my new school clothes." and the likes. Summer ends for us when the weather turns to fall. Not this year though. I guess we will have a transition time. Summer will slow down when Ava starts preschool at the end of August. She will be in school three afternoons a week. That will give us two full days to continue our so called summer schedule. It just makes me feel like I have to pack in the activities. The weeks are flying by and it is just crazy to me. I actually kind of hate the fact that our lives are dictated by a specific school schedule. It is only going to get worse and that actually really annoys me. I don't think it annoys Ava though. She is getting more and more excited about school. She wants to drive by the building all the time. We have also started keeping our eyes open for school clothes. She is definitely growing so trying to figure out sizes is hard. I am thinking she will be in a 3t though. She told me the other day that she doesn't think she should wear jeans to school because jeans make her crazy, so she should just wear comfy pants. She probably is going to end up in comfy pants most of the time since jeans don't really stay on.

We joined a gym...again. I think we have finally done it though. We have stopped compromising on what we want and need from a gym, such as location, hours, childcare, classes, and people I know who go so I have work out buddies just to get something cheaper. Bonus of this gym is there is an outdoor zero depth pool, so we are going to hang out there as a family after we work out this weekend. Hopefully by Christmas we are both much more in shape. I had bloodwork done a few months ago and they said I had high cholesterol. Not high enough for medication, but something to watch which means overall lifestyle change. Justin had his bloodwork done today so we will see what the results are for Mr. Bacon.

reading now: Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

short attention span

I am almost done with Ava's sweater. I just have to make the hood and sew it all together. That means of course it is time for me to look towards the future and get antsy about starting Rhys' sweater. I bought yarn for his today. Very exciting stuff.

The blue isn't really blue, more of a turquiose.

Tonight I am going to see all three of the Twilight movies. I am looking forward to it, though I am not looking forward to being made to feel old because there are more 15 year olds than anything else.

me and my nook

As long as I can remember, (really since 2nd grade) I have loved reading. I can remember the exact moment it happened. I was reading Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great by Judy Blume. I remember staying up late to finish the book and after many nights of reading and getting involved in the story, the book was finished. I wanted the story to go on and on so I could keep observing my friends. From that moment on I was completely hooked. I regularly finish good books in a day or two, so I go through a lot of books. This was part of the reason why I wanted a nook. Our house was being taken over by books.

In college, Justin and I always said we wanted to have a huge library. The problem with this scenario is, we don't have the space or the shelves to have a library at this time. So ever shelf like surface was covered with books. I started trading them on book mooch. This worked sort of but I was having a hard time finding books I wanted so I was just paying to ship my books to people. I sold a couple on amazon, but I had to then ship within 24 hours of selling the book and that just didn't work out for me. I got books from the library but regularly returned them so late that I might as well have bought the book. So now I have a nook. It is the ereader from Barnes and Noble. I can finish a book and in 5 minutes have a new one to read. I love it. I am on a mission to find more people who have a nook or use the ereader on their blackberry or iphone. I want to trade books with people! I need to establish a network! I am burning through my gift cards like nobody's business.

I have been looking for a widget for this thing that will let me list what I am currently reading and haven't been able to find one. I should just end my posts with that info. It will probably be more current that way anyway.

Currently reading: Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich.

Welcome to Hollywood. What's your dream?

Thanks for the comments on being able to comment. I am happy to see it only doesn't work for Justin. He must be technologically challenged, I am sure that is it.

Everybody has things they want to do in life. Some people really want to go sky diving, climb a mountain, eat entire cakes in one sitting. I don't have those dreams. I have generally had just a couple for as long as I can remember. I want to travel around a lot more and see all sorts of places and I want to go on a whale watch. The whale watch started in 4th grade when we watched The Voyage of the Mimi. Every few weeks we would watch a mini episode and do a workbook to identify whales. It was possibly one of my favorite things that I have gotten to do in school ever.

So recently I have been doing lots of little things that come to mind when I think, hey I want to try that some day. Like making jam or bread or learning to knit. I just do it. My newest addition to the list of things to do is going to be a bit harder. I want to make my own syrup. I want to tap the tree, collect the sap, boil it down and make syrup. I read quite a few books when I was younger, Little House in the Big Woods for example, where they made their own syrup. I just want to do it. It sounds fun, tedious and a lot of work for a little syrup, but I want to say, check, I have done it. Considering the fact that I don't have any grown trees anywhere near my house, let alone an maple, is definitely going to hold up this goal. I wonder if there are syrup making vacation spots, like in Maine. Instead of going to a ranch to pretend to be a cowboy for a week, be a syrup maker for a week. (I would love to go be on a ranch for a week too, by the way. I seriously do somewhat curse the fact that I feel doomed to always live in the suburbs.)

In other news, I got an A in my business economics class. Not an A-, a full on A. I am pretty excited about that. Because I posted a picture of my pumpkins yesterday, it was apparently necessary for me to look out at the buds opening up into pretty orange flowers and then the skies to open up and pick the chair off the patio up and throw it down on my pumpkin plant.

comments

Not that I am fishing for comments, but I have heard that some people are having problems commenting (some people being Justin) and I was wondering if others have had that problem. If that is the case, please email me and I will see what I can do.

positive

The landscapers put mulch down today, for the first time in two years. They skipped last summer for some reason. Anyway, they killed my sunflower. It was growing strong and straight. It now has no leaves and is bent in half. So we will focus on the positive and look at how big the pumpkin blossoms are getting.

I am having a hard time getting a good picture of Rhys' new hair. He won't sit still long enough. He has fully hit the terrible 2's at 18 months. He throws fits about everything because he gets so frustrated with not being able to do exactly what he wants. When he is being nice he is awesome because he can communicate more and he is just funny. Anyway, here is his hair...it definitely needs trimmed up more but he got tired of sitting and so he looks like he might have been in prison sometime around 1950.

new site

Look! Our church has new website, including a blog. Isn't it so pretty??? Just thought I would share. I think it is just an example of the connectedness people feel when they are at church.