Painting Fun

As part of my New Year's Resolutions, I made myself a list of projects I was hoping to complete this year. Most of the projects have to do with de-cluttering and organizing. One of them; however, was to paint my laundry room.

Friday was the big day. Greg was in California and it seems to be my habit to paint almost every time he leaves town. I made the mistake of taking a job that day, so I couldn't start until around 3:30 p.m. I came home from work and started taping off the room. Four hours later I realized that I was insane for wanting to paint that room. There are so many cabinets and things to go around, and hardly any big walls to paint, not to mention moving the washer and dryer.

I got up early Saturday morning and started in. Hailey helped me for a little while and then I was on my own. It took FOREVER!!!! I worked from about 6:30 a.m. until 10 p.m. I did take a few small breaks....like running to Home Depot for paint etc. I forgot how much fun it is to paint with dark colors. Painting makes me realize just how anal I can be. Every white line drove me nuts, and I found myself re-taping for hours trying to touch up all the places that were making me nuts. It turned out pretty good for the most part.

I really missed Ashley. Most of the painting projects I've done, she's helped me with. There were no pictures of us working, & no "I love Dad" or stick people painted on the walls. It is way more fun painting with a partner, and sooooo much quicker. I'll have to keep teaching Hailey, so she can help me more.

Greg came home and was surprised to see what I had done. He, of course, was way excited to get another room decorated. He won't be going out of town for awhile, so after I finish the hall by the laundry room, I'll have no reason to paint. Now on to de-cluttering and organizing....maybe I'll even work on scrapbooks!

A Most Embarrassing Moment

Everyone has embarrassing moments they wish they could forget. Today was one of those days. My day started out great. It was raining (I love it when it rains), I got to go to my adult religion class, and then I had to work a half-day at school. I was subbing 5th grade in one of my favorite classes. It started out just great. The D.A.R.E officer came and taught for almost one hour while I surfed the web. Then I got to eat lunch with some of my favorite teachers. After lunch they had to take a math test. Piece of cake sub. job right? Well, that's when the moment in question happened.

The kids were all taking the math test. They're a really good class, so they were being really quiet and concentrating. Some of them had finished, so they were drawing or reading while waiting for the rest of the class to finish. While they were testing I decided to make good use of my time and balance my checkbook and write myself a little note of things I needed to take care of. Well, when I leaned forward to grab a sticky note, something unexpected happened....I farted. The problem was it had a little volume to it. I tried to pull off the academy award for best actress and not change my facial expression and acted like nothing happened. I wanted to burst out laughing, but I was able to contain it. I noticed one of the boys looked over my way. I'm sure he at least suspected it was me, but I was hoping he wasn't sure it was me, and hopefully he thought it was a fellow student. Anyway, I wanted to die. If only I could have a do over!!!

Anyway, embarrassing moments happen all the time, but today just happened to be my turn!!

Homework Horror

Most parents would love a kid who was self-motivated about doing their homework. I have one of those kids, but she takes self-motivated to a whole new level. The problem we're having is that she brings work home from school that is supposed to be done in class, as well as her regular homework. If the teacher tells them to get on Compass Learning once a week, she thinks she needs to get on it every night. This adds up to hours of homework every night. At first, I thought the teacher was giving an enormous amount of homework. Her teacher is my friend, so I talked to her about it, only to find out it was my daughter not the teacher which brings us to the homework adventure of the week.

Wednesday was the day........It was an uneventful day, that is until Hailey got home from school. Shortly after she got home, the homework marathon began. She was working on a writing assignment about trying something new. She wrote a rough draft and asked me to read it. When I read it, I thought it sounded like she had two subjects, so I made some suggestions to make it sound a little better, and that's when the meltdown started. She cried and argued longer than it would have taken to fix it. I guess I'm only supposed to say everything sounds great, even when I don't think so. I guess I shouldn't actually try to help her learn anything. The drama got so bad that I finally left the room and put myself in time-out. I figured that was the best way not to hurt anyone. I've been trying really hard to not yell (that was one of my New Year's Resolutions). I broke my Resolution. I was so frustrated.

About that time, Ashley happened to call. She was the queen of tantrums growing up. I've never seen a kid that could out do one of her tantrums. Since she perfected the art of having a tantrum when she was growing up, she seems to have the magic touch to get Hailey to calm down. I have to say it has been quite hilarious to me having Ashley give me advice on how to get Hailey to stop freaking out. Anyway, after talking to Ashley, Hailey calmed down, and finished her paper. She didn't change anything, but she finished it, and then proceeded to finish the rest of her pile.

The next morning, I went and exercised with my friends. Jackie was there. She is also a teacher and her son is in Hailey's class. I told her about the homework torture session I had been thru. She then told me the paper she was working on was supposed to be done in class. It wasn't supposed to come home. AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! It's bad enough just to do the homework that has to be done. I just don't understand why she wants to be such an over-achiever. It frustrates me and her teacher.

Anyway, I survived the week. I'm enjoying having a four-day weekend and a homework break. I can't wait to see what fun next week will bring. I can't seem to get Dallin to do his homework and Hailey can't seem to get enough of it. Oh the joys of Motherhood!!!! I can't wait until her next book report is due. I hope she wants me to read it!!!

It's a New Year!

My daughter Ashley thinks I should have a blog, so to make my only follower happy, I will write a blog, so she can read it. I'll start with the events of the new year, so far.

For New Years my niece Jennifer Redfearn and her family came to Vegas for a visit. We had Carne Asada for dinner on New Year's Eve. It was really yummy and we all enjoyed overeating. Other than eating, we just watched movies, and fireworks on TV. We're big on New Year's. Jen & Greg both fell asleep before midnight. Justin and the kids and I stayed up and watched the fireworks here in Vegas. They did a much better job this year. On New Year's Day, we went to Hoover Dam for a dam tour and to see the dam bridge that is being built. Several in our group had never been on a dam tour and we all had a dam good time! The dam bridge that is being built to stop traffic over Hoover Dam is truly amazing. It is so dam high that I don't know if I ever want to drive over it. After the dam adventure, we went to the park in Boulder City and saw the bighorn sheep. We then were off on yet another adventure. We went to McCarran International and let Brandon watch a few planes land and take off. What better way to spend time when visiting Las Vegas than that! Who wouldn't want to come and visit me, when I'm such a great tour guide. Anyway, it was great having the Redfearns come and visit.

Another fun event this year was..........the kids went back to school! Actually we had a great vacation and I wasn't quite ready for it to end. Now we have to be on a schedule again and deal with fun things like homework. If you'd ever watched Hailey do her homework, you'd understand why I hate it. Speaking of school, I subbed 1/2 day on Tuesday and I got another 1/2 day job for Friday.

Ashley was here until yesterday. It was nice to have her home for longer than normal. She spent a lot of time sleeping, so I didn't get to have as much fun with her as I was hoping.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I went to the case lot sale at Smith's Food King. I felt kind of stupid with my overloaded cart, when no other customer's seemed to be "stocking up" quite like I was. It was quite a good workout pushing my cart. When I was done checking out and $200 later, it was time to haul it all to my car. The bagger that was asked by her manager to help me out, argued with him that she was bagging for another checker. She reluctantly pulled off that checkstand and took time out of her busy schedule to help me push one of the carts. She proceeded to tell me how another coworker was gonna be mad at her because she wasn't helping collect the carts in the parking lot. When this very busy girl got me to the front of the store, she passed me off to another employee and let another girl finish helping me out, cuz she was just soooooo busy! Girl number 2 acted put out too, so when we got to my car, I thanked her and told her I could load it myself (I didn't want her to miss out on helping collect carts). After that I got to go to Costco for a few more things, and then I got to come home and put it all away. I got to rearrange the pantry and fridge to try to get it to all fit. I realized some of the things I bought I already had A LOT of, so if anyone needs black beans, kidney beans, tomato sauce or cut green beans, just give me a call.

While I was having so much fun cleaning up the pantry, I got the best phone call of the year. Mallory Reese called to see if it was ok to ask Derek to the Sadie Hawkin's Dance. Being that Derek is a Senior and has been old enough to go to Sadie's the last two years, but has never been asked, I told Mallory it would be just fine if she took him. Then she told me how she was gonna ask him and what she needed my help with. I got off the phone and I was so excited that someone was FINALLY asking my son to Sadies that I wanted to turn cartwheels. Mallory made a cute little ransom note and stole Derek's guitar and he has to go to the dance or pay her to get it back. I told her she could drop it off when Derek went to Young Men's. Well, Derek didn't go to Young Men's because BYU was playing UNLV and he wanted to watch the game. I had to get him to run to the store for me and let him buy Twix candy bars to get him to leave and let Mallory bring her poster. When Derek got home, he found out it was worth running the errand for me. He came downstairs with a big smile on his face and is now thinking of how he can answer her back. That made my night! Anyway, the dance is February 6th.

Today I started back at my adult religion class. We're studying Isaiah and I for sure am not the smartest one in the class. We were talking about some of the chapters & we got talking about how much Lot loved his daughters. If you don't know that story, you might want to check it out. Anyway Ashley, there you go. I blogged!!!!

BLOGS TO COME...

Hey followers of my mother! I am Ashley, the eldest child of the middle aged house wife. I have forced my mom into creating this blog. She has made it a "new years resolution" to write on this blog weekly. Rather its good news, bad news, funny stories, stories about satan (the cat) or anything else, I know my mom will blog and LOVE IT! I cant wait to read your blog mom! WRITE ON!

Love your FAVORITE daughter,

Ashley