Zach made the middle school basketball team!

Way to go Zach! All your hard work paid off. Zach went to probably 60% of the summer open gyms and 85% of the basketball conditioning for the last month. He tried out for the team on Monday from 4:30-7:30 and Tuesday when he went to school he saw his name on the 7th grade team list. There has been practice every night this week and there will be practice every night next week and games start around November 11th. 5 Sixth graders tried out and 3 of them made it. Not too shabby boys.

Don't tell Zach but I was really excited because I did not want to deal the parents running the 6th grade team this year. They were really overbearing and already saying before we even started practices that each parent was going to be assigned a "chore" that they were going to be responsible for--whether it was set up, concessions or tear down and clean up. That mom was going to pick the best jobs for herself and the moms she liked and she was going to give the crap jobs to those she didn't like. I don't call her Dragon Breath for nothing.

I have to deal with a over bearing parent on the 7th grade team too--maybe more than one I don't know, but the one I know about I can ignore easily. The other lady is so in your face.

The Small Town Rumor Mill Churns Them Out!

So, last Sunday Doug's dad announced in church that I was no longer going to be church secretary. There were a few that were disappointed--a lot of them were shocked. But relatively no big deal.

Wednesday at work I get a call at work from Doug asking if anything was going on and did I need to tell him anything. Confusion on my part. Apparently, one of the old ladies from church told an old lady at a nursing home who told a old lady in a meeting who told Brad's mother in law that I took the kids and left Doug. I beg your pardon!!!

So Brad called Doug wanting to know what was going on. We traced it back to one of the women at church and Doug called and confronted her and then Doug's dad ended up getting in on it. I thought it was humorous at first, but after it went on for a while I was pissed.

Turn up your bell tones ladies!!

Now I am sick

Dog and son are back to normal. I wish I was. My nose started running when I went back to work Thursday and now I have a full blown cold. Scratchy throat, congestion, coughing...lovely.

As I am typing I am thinking that I will be lysolling this keyboard when I get done typing.

I am going to miss my neice's birthday party& Kate going to homecoming tonight--I will have to trust Doug to get the pictures for me. Looks like I will be watching tv and lying on the couch all day. Really I need to try to finish up this week's laundry. Since it had been raining for the last few days I was unable to catch up for fear of water in the basement.

My friend, Scott, is coming to see us tomorrow afternoon. He lives in New Jersey now and is coming home for his 20th class reunion. I hope I feel better before he gets here.

Sick day #3

These pics didn't go in the order I wanted them too, but I have already spent 15 minutes on this and I am done. The first picture is of our 3 year old yellow lab Lily, after a night spent itching and pacing. She apparently had some type of allergic reaction to something in the yard or house last night. Notice how swollen her jowls and eyes are. Poor thing. The second picture is how she looks normally. Doug took off work to come and get her and take her to the vet to see what is going on.

I am at home again with Zach again. It seems he still isn't over what ever bug he has. 3 days is a long time to be out. I will go get his homework after lunch today. I really want to start disinfecting everything, but don't want to do it too soon--I don't want to have to do it twice. I've gotten sheets washed in our room and Kate's the last few days. I haven't seemed to be able to work those in to the chores for a while. It's nice to be able to get those done. Just think in 23 days I will be able to wash those when I want.

Homecoming bonfire is tonight. Kate and her friend are going over there this evening. I don't remember a bonfire when I was in high school. Don't know if we even had one or if it was just that I didn't go.

I did it!

I put in my notice yesterday. I gave them until the end of the month. If I could I would be done today, but I can't do that to them. I am patiently (who am I kidding--I am anything but patient) counting down the days until I am home again. I have 24 days to go. I sat down Sunday night and wrote out my schedule of things I must get done on a daily basis. You know the important things like showering and getting dressed. Ha. I will save those things for Saturday mornings. That's when I will allow myself to run around doing inside chores in my nightgown until lunch. That will get that out of my system. I also made a list of additional things I would like to accomplish--hopefully before Christmas. These are things that need done to the house or around the house to ease my stress during the holidays. Cleaning out closets and what not. I know, not many people worry about clean closets during the holidays, but I am not like that.

I have 2 other projects that I want to be working on during the holiday season too and they are fun projects. My BFF and I are going to be doing a favorite ornament mini scrapbook--we both love ornaments and it is time to document that. Also I am going to attempt a scrapbook that starts at Thanksgiving and goes through New Years. At first I thought it would be a daily book, but now it just may be every few days. I'm still on the fence about how to do it. If I do it everyday it would be around 38 pages plus a title page and a letter at the end. I will be looking for coordinating Christmas paper/embellishment sets to get for both projects along with stuff for Christmas cards. It would be nice to get those done ahead of time too. Well, for now those are my plans. Throw in Christmas shopping, I'd like to do a little baking this year, decorating the house and trying to coordinate a progressive dinner party with our Sunday school class.

Zach is home sick today. He came home yesterday with a stomach ache. Yesterday afternoon he had a slight fever (100.5) and I am keeping him home today. He is complaining now of a sore throat. He woke up with a nightmare last night and crept into bed with me at 4:00 AM. Don't tell him but it was kind of nice. I'll be lucky if I don't get sick--He was coughing a lot. But I will take one for the "mom" team.

Off to do a little laundry--I will be lysoling everything in sight later when he is feeling better, so I better get some of my regular chores done now.

Quote of the week

“You’ll never leave where you are until you decide where you’d rather be”

I've been struggling with working and staying home. It doesn't help that I'm not fond of my job. I've been thinking about this for over a month and last night I decided that I had made a decision--I'm not going to work. For right now. Even though my kids are growing up--a freshman and a 6th grader and don't really "need" me at home...they still like me here. And if the job was something I was in love with I wouldn't be leaving it, but I sit there and think about all the stuff I could be doing at home. I am not "me" there.

I worked the whole time before Doug and I got married up until Kate was 4 and Zach was a little over a year old. Then I stayed home with them for 6 years. And although it didn't seem like it at the time it was the best time of my life. I volunteered at school libraries and helped teachers, was in the PTO and had other moms in my life to have fun with and share stories. 4 years ago I decided it was time for me to go back to work and I went back to the credit union. I wanted to work part time and although technically I was only working 4 1/2 days a week--I was working over 36 hours a week and it was just too much--because also at that time Doug changed jobs within ADM and began travelling. His first trip was to Amsterdam for 15 days. The work thing and taking care of the whole household even if was only for 15 days took its toll on me. We have always shared the housework and kidwork evenly and I just couldn't/didn't want to do it all by myself and work too. Last November our church secretary became sick and was no longer able to work--at the time I thought my prayers for a better part time job had been answered. It was 3 hours a day--from 9:00 to noon--the perfect thing--or so I thought. Little did I realize that I wouldn't really fit into that job either. I was fighting a losing battle--I thought because my kids were older that I needed to work--that I should work. I know now that just isn't in the cards for me. I am 39 and at this point in my life I only want to be doing something I adore. I don't want to go through the motions just to say I have a job. Luckily, Doug's job allows me the freedom to not work if I don't want to. I will be happier. Much happier even if there are days when I will be bored and weeks that money will be tight. I'm hoping my moods will improve because I am not forcing myself to do something I don't really want to do--just felt obligated to do. It was like trying to sticking a square peg into a round hole. It just doesn't work.

I've felt like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders once I made the decision. I slept better than I had in weeks. Now I just have to get through the resignation letter and telling the congregation...

I was reading blogs on Monday and came across the quote above. I believe that things happen for a reason. That quote gave me the courage to do something that will not be easy. It won't be easy telling my friends and fellow church goers that I won't be their secretary any more. It won't be easy telling the minister that I can't work for him. It won't be easy to continue to be on the committees and teams I am on, but you know what? Life isn't easy. I will do it. I will get through it. And I will be happier. Who knows, maybe there is someone out there who needs that part time job more than I do and this will be their prayer answered. God has something in store for me--I just don't know it yet.