Last night I went to bed at 10:30 to watch the Charlie Brown Christmas DVD which is an all-time favorite. I dozed off through most of it. I finally gave in, turned the television off and went to sleep at 11:30. At 1:00 am my son E wakes me up because he has a nosebleed. No biggie, I thought, kids have them. I told him to pinch his nose and it would stop. After all, he's almost 15 years old, not a baby. Within minutes I hear him in the bathroom saying, "Mom, it won't stop! Ugh, what is this?!" So I got up to see what was happening. There was blood everywhere - on his clothes, on the floor, in the sink, on a hundred tissue papers. It was a lot of blood, and he was freaking out, which only made the bleeding worse. When I looked up at him I could see the blood gushing from his nose and I knew I had to take action. I got a clean tissue and had him lie down, since he said he was feeling woozy. I then pinched his nose myself. He wasn't really pinching the part of the nose that was bleeding; he was holding his nostrils shut, so whenever he would let go all the blood would come rushing down. I got him to calm down and kept the pressure on his nose for a good two minutes. When he said he couldn't taste blood in his mouth anymore, I had him get washed up. As he went back to bed it started up again, but not as heavy. I pinched his nose again for another 2 minutes, and that time it did stop. All along I kept telling him not to worry, calm down, everything was okay (though I was concerned seeing him in that state), and he would tell me he was fine. Once the bleeding had stopped he admitted that he was pretty worked up and the amount of blood had scared him. He asked that we pray, and I prayed for him to be healed and get rest. He lay down and, even though he was still a bit worked up and headachy, went right to sleep. Mama, on the other hand, was awake for another hour checking on him and making sure he wasn't bleeding anymore. He woke up fine, praise the Lord.
So after that overnight adventure, I woke up at 7:00 in the morning because, when you're a morning person like me, there is no sleeping in. I checked my little monkey and he was sleeping soundly, no more bleeding. I went to the kitchen to make breakfast and realized I'd forgotten to take out the ground beef for today's chili. I reminded myself repeatedly that I had to take the ground beef out, but I still forgot. I put it in a pan with warm water to defrost, shaking my head at myself the whole time. I kept breakfast simple today, cereal and toast. I had decided yesterday that today I would update my iPhone to the newest version. I still had version 7.1 on my phone because my daughter had insisted that upgrading my 4S would not be a good choice. When I read all that the upgrade would fix I showed it to her and she agreed that I should update. I had tried to back up my phone first, but my computer was so bogged down with unnecessary files that it wouldn't even recognize the phone connected to it. That's when my son R cleaned up my computer and took all the junk out, making it super fast and efficient again. At 8:30 am I plugged the phone into the computer to back up. It couldn't; one of the files that my son disabled was needed to recognize my phone. Thankfully my daughter was awake; she knows more iPhone stuff than I do. She fixed the disabled file and the back up got done. Then we tried to update. Well, that wasn't happening because I didn't have enough space on my phone, so I had to start deleting stuff. Ugh! All in all, it took 2 1/2 hours to update, but at least that's one thing I can knock off my to-do list.
After taking care of the phone, I got to work around the house. I had all the laundry to fold and put away. Right after that it was time to make lunch. Along with the black bean and beef chili we had white rice and cornbread. We all love chili, so I make a big pot, enough for lunch and dinner. At least that's my goal. We ran out of rice and chili, and there's less than half of the cornbread left. I can't complain about no leftovers ;-). While I ate lunch I watched a really old version of The Christmas Carol. This one is with Reginald Owens. It's in black and white. While it isn't faithful to the actual book it's still a classic as far as I'm concerned, and it's one of those movies that I have to watch every Christmas season.
Then after lunch I ran to Winn-Dixie to buy a couple of things I needed to finish making cupcakes. I thought I had vanilla pudding in the house, but it turns out all I had was chocolate. I'd also run out of frosting, and you can't decorate cupcakes right without frosting. So I ran over to the store, and for some reason I felt the need to go check the meat department for ground beef. Good thing I did - I scored 2 packages of about a pound and a quarter each for under $3.00 per pound. It's the meat that has to be sold or thrown out because of the sell-by date. There's nothing wrong with the meat, but government regulations and all, they either get it sold or get rid of it. I was so glad that God pushed me over to see that bargain - we never have enough ground beef in my house!
I baked 2 orange streusel loaves, one for my next door neighbors who are an older couple, and the other for my daughter's coworkers at the church office. Then I baked chocolate cupcakes because, who doesn't love chocolate cupcakes ya'll?! I was pleasantly surprised that I got 27 cupcakes out of the one batter I made. It meant I could get 3 plates with 8 cupcakes each, and one left over for each of my kiddos. It also meant I was able to take cupcakes to 9 homes with just 3 boxes of cake mix. My son R had to work so once again it was A and E going to the neighbors with the goodies. The first neighbors we went to see have lived here just over a year, and I have to admit I'd never met them. I saw the wife recently going to her mailbox and saw that she was expecting. So I knew a chocolate confection would be welcome :-). Come to find out she'd had the baby just last week, a gorgeous little boy. They're a young couple with another little boy who is about 3 years old. They were so grateful and so nice! We then went to the folks next door to them, who I've seen from afar but have never spoken to. The husband was very surprised but also very thankful. The third house was a little more intimidating. The folks have lived there since we've been here, but they've always kept to themselves. They have a daughter who is handicapped and in a wheelchair. When we got to the door the husband seemed a bit bothered, like we were coming to ask for something or complain. I think out of everyone we visited, he was the most surprised that we were bringing a gift. He didn't even know where we lived, and they are literally two doors down from us. It made me sad to think that we've lived here so many years and yet we don't know our neighbors, but at the same time I'm so glad that we showed kindness to those we don't know. It was quite an eye-opener for me about how our culture has changed. People used to be so much friendlier towards their neighbors, but now everyone is either too busy to be bothered or too distrusting. I hope our neighbors will be more willing to reach out to one another with this small gesture.
My daughter has encouraged her little brother to work out on her Wii Fit. I think it's good for him. We haven't gone out this week, partly because A and I weren't feeling well, and partly because it's been so warm out. E went to the park with his friend yesterday but he was home all day today, so Wii Fit it is. Whatever works to keep him moving.
It's early still but all I'm gonna do now is shower and maybe watch a movie or something. That's it for today (at least I hope it is; don't need another episode like last night). The day is approaching - is everyone excited? :D Yeah, me too! Good night.
Showing posts with label computer woes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computer woes. Show all posts
Monday, December 22, 2014
Thursday, December 18, 2014
The Countdown Is On - One Week Till Christmas!
It seems so hard to believe that we are just one week away from Christmas. The time has flown!
I went to bed early last night; I was totally exhausted after our Awana evening. So I was in bed by 10:30 and awake by 4:00 am. Don't you just hate that?! I stayed in bed, though. If I got up I'd wake the whole house, and that certainly wouldn't be thoughtful. I eventually dozed off (like an hour later) and woke up at 7:00 am with my stomach doing all kinds of flips. That's what I get for eating pastries at 8:45 in the evening. I know myself only too well, that eating at that hour of the night will give me a major stomachache and won't let me sleep. I guess I'll know better next time. Yeah, right.
My ancient computer has been acting up again, so I asked my son R to take a look at it. He found a lot of junk going on in the background that needed to get deleted. This computer was my daughter's. She got it a year before going off to college. She graduated in 2012. So this computer has been with us since 2007, making it an antique. When she gave it to me she didn't delete a bunch of school programs she'd downloaded, and they were taking up precious computer space. Add to that the Norton Antivirus that we haven't used in like, forever, that was still running in the background, and it's no wonder my computer was slow. He got to work on it, and I went to the grocery store. I have to do my 2 week shopping trip this weekend, and I was trying to figure out a menu plan for the next two weeks, but it's difficult if you don't know what's on sale. So I went to Winn-Dixie to pick up meats. I purchased 3 packages of ground beef at $3.99/lb. I know that last time I said I wasn't going to pay that much for ground beef when it was $3.79/lb at Costco, but the Costco ground beef was so fatty! When I would brown the meat I'd have all this grease to get rid of. Better to pay a bit more and get better quality beef. I got pork chops and a pork shoulder as well, and a few staples that I knew I needed like onions, potatoes, rice, etc. In all I spent $79 but the only meat I need to get now is the turkey for Christmas Eve. I still have plenty of shopping to do but I'll leave that for Walmart. Much as I hate going there, the prices on canned goods and frozen foods are cheaper for the most part. The turkey I'll get at Publix. Theirs is the best.
I took E to the park for his PE assignment. He has to do several tasks to show how he has improved in his exercises since the semester started. Well, I'm pleased to say he shaved off another 19 seconds on his mile run! He was huffin' and puffin' but he finished in 10 min 48 sec. This was better than the times he'd had when he had daily PE in school, so we are very happy about it. He won't be turning in this assignment till Saturday, since he has to show 3 days of exercising, but it's okay. The teacher says this assignment isn't due till January 18. I'm having him do it now because he needs to finish his hours for the week, and he's done with all his other classes. We took our time doing the science lab (translation: dragged it out as far as we could) and that got turned in today; it was the only assignment he had left to complete. With exercising and watching documentaries on ocean life he was able to complete his hours for today, but I'm at a loss as to what we'll do tomorrow. He has one live lesson that he has to attend, and his PE. He'll be doing lots of reading and documentary watching I guess.
We had sandwiches for lunch and dinner today. I kept it simple because I just didn't know what to make. I have those days sometimes, when nothing sounds appealing. Thankfully my kids don't make a fuss. As long as there's food to eat they're happy.
I remembered something today: I have some outdoor penguin decorations in the shed that hadn't been put outside! How in the world did I forget that?! Penguins are my favorite Christmas decoration. I have all kinds of decor for Christmas - villages, musical and animated figurines, Santas, Nativity scenes, and enough items in storage to make the North Pole come alive in South Florida. I could live without any of them, except for my Nativities and my penguins. Oh, and my rabbits. I have the Lloyd family from back when I sold House Of Lloyd, and I love them. Anyway, after dinner and before the sun went down, I got my two penguins out of the shed. One is made of metal and is holding a hot cup of tea, and the other is a light up cutie pie that is now on the pavers next to the front door. Both were gifts from my dearest friend DPP. I have to give her a call soon. I really do miss her. She'd moved out to Arizona at the beginning of the year, but thankfully she's back. I don't have many friends, and she is one that I truly treasure.
Oh! I got my Ulta order today! The gift set I got so the kids could give to their dad...is a lot smaller than I expected. I'm glad I got a bunch of stuff to go with it. It was all freebies but it makes it a much nicer gift which makes my kids happy. I also got my Bare Minerals Delight and Dazzle set that I'd ordered for myself. The original price was $49; it was on sale for $34 and I had $8 in reward money, so I ended up paying $26 for it. It's wonderful! All the products are full size. I have 2 new eyeshadows, 2 new blushes, 2 eyeliners and 2 lip glosses. I'm debating which set I'm gonna try first! The Delight set is for daytime, and the Dazzle set is for night. I like that the Delight set has peachy colors. I don't have anything in those tones so it'll be a nice change once in awhile.
My daughter got home from work, then headed straight to the store to pick up supplies for her birthday celebration, happening tomorrow. Her birthday is actually December 27, but since it's 2 days after Christmas and so many folks are out of town, she decided it would be best to do it 2 weeks before. I'll have all the details to her festivities here on my blog either tomorrow or Saturday. She did make something she calls reindeer bark, with crushed Oreos, pretzels, and more goodies, topped with melted almond bark and M&M's. It looks pretty tasty, but it has to go into the fridge to harden. It'll be interesting to see what everyone thinks!
I sat down to relax and watch some videos, and I kept dozing off. I'm tired because I was awake at 4 am. I'm gonna try to stay awake, but no guarantees. I think I'll be snoozing before 11:00 rolls around. Oh well. Good night.
I went to bed early last night; I was totally exhausted after our Awana evening. So I was in bed by 10:30 and awake by 4:00 am. Don't you just hate that?! I stayed in bed, though. If I got up I'd wake the whole house, and that certainly wouldn't be thoughtful. I eventually dozed off (like an hour later) and woke up at 7:00 am with my stomach doing all kinds of flips. That's what I get for eating pastries at 8:45 in the evening. I know myself only too well, that eating at that hour of the night will give me a major stomachache and won't let me sleep. I guess I'll know better next time. Yeah, right.
My ancient computer has been acting up again, so I asked my son R to take a look at it. He found a lot of junk going on in the background that needed to get deleted. This computer was my daughter's. She got it a year before going off to college. She graduated in 2012. So this computer has been with us since 2007, making it an antique. When she gave it to me she didn't delete a bunch of school programs she'd downloaded, and they were taking up precious computer space. Add to that the Norton Antivirus that we haven't used in like, forever, that was still running in the background, and it's no wonder my computer was slow. He got to work on it, and I went to the grocery store. I have to do my 2 week shopping trip this weekend, and I was trying to figure out a menu plan for the next two weeks, but it's difficult if you don't know what's on sale. So I went to Winn-Dixie to pick up meats. I purchased 3 packages of ground beef at $3.99/lb. I know that last time I said I wasn't going to pay that much for ground beef when it was $3.79/lb at Costco, but the Costco ground beef was so fatty! When I would brown the meat I'd have all this grease to get rid of. Better to pay a bit more and get better quality beef. I got pork chops and a pork shoulder as well, and a few staples that I knew I needed like onions, potatoes, rice, etc. In all I spent $79 but the only meat I need to get now is the turkey for Christmas Eve. I still have plenty of shopping to do but I'll leave that for Walmart. Much as I hate going there, the prices on canned goods and frozen foods are cheaper for the most part. The turkey I'll get at Publix. Theirs is the best.
I took E to the park for his PE assignment. He has to do several tasks to show how he has improved in his exercises since the semester started. Well, I'm pleased to say he shaved off another 19 seconds on his mile run! He was huffin' and puffin' but he finished in 10 min 48 sec. This was better than the times he'd had when he had daily PE in school, so we are very happy about it. He won't be turning in this assignment till Saturday, since he has to show 3 days of exercising, but it's okay. The teacher says this assignment isn't due till January 18. I'm having him do it now because he needs to finish his hours for the week, and he's done with all his other classes. We took our time doing the science lab (translation: dragged it out as far as we could) and that got turned in today; it was the only assignment he had left to complete. With exercising and watching documentaries on ocean life he was able to complete his hours for today, but I'm at a loss as to what we'll do tomorrow. He has one live lesson that he has to attend, and his PE. He'll be doing lots of reading and documentary watching I guess.
We had sandwiches for lunch and dinner today. I kept it simple because I just didn't know what to make. I have those days sometimes, when nothing sounds appealing. Thankfully my kids don't make a fuss. As long as there's food to eat they're happy.
I remembered something today: I have some outdoor penguin decorations in the shed that hadn't been put outside! How in the world did I forget that?! Penguins are my favorite Christmas decoration. I have all kinds of decor for Christmas - villages, musical and animated figurines, Santas, Nativity scenes, and enough items in storage to make the North Pole come alive in South Florida. I could live without any of them, except for my Nativities and my penguins. Oh, and my rabbits. I have the Lloyd family from back when I sold House Of Lloyd, and I love them. Anyway, after dinner and before the sun went down, I got my two penguins out of the shed. One is made of metal and is holding a hot cup of tea, and the other is a light up cutie pie that is now on the pavers next to the front door. Both were gifts from my dearest friend DPP. I have to give her a call soon. I really do miss her. She'd moved out to Arizona at the beginning of the year, but thankfully she's back. I don't have many friends, and she is one that I truly treasure.
Oh! I got my Ulta order today! The gift set I got so the kids could give to their dad...is a lot smaller than I expected. I'm glad I got a bunch of stuff to go with it. It was all freebies but it makes it a much nicer gift which makes my kids happy. I also got my Bare Minerals Delight and Dazzle set that I'd ordered for myself. The original price was $49; it was on sale for $34 and I had $8 in reward money, so I ended up paying $26 for it. It's wonderful! All the products are full size. I have 2 new eyeshadows, 2 new blushes, 2 eyeliners and 2 lip glosses. I'm debating which set I'm gonna try first! The Delight set is for daytime, and the Dazzle set is for night. I like that the Delight set has peachy colors. I don't have anything in those tones so it'll be a nice change once in awhile.
My daughter got home from work, then headed straight to the store to pick up supplies for her birthday celebration, happening tomorrow. Her birthday is actually December 27, but since it's 2 days after Christmas and so many folks are out of town, she decided it would be best to do it 2 weeks before. I'll have all the details to her festivities here on my blog either tomorrow or Saturday. She did make something she calls reindeer bark, with crushed Oreos, pretzels, and more goodies, topped with melted almond bark and M&M's. It looks pretty tasty, but it has to go into the fridge to harden. It'll be interesting to see what everyone thinks!
I sat down to relax and watch some videos, and I kept dozing off. I'm tired because I was awake at 4 am. I'm gonna try to stay awake, but no guarantees. I think I'll be snoozing before 11:00 rolls around. Oh well. Good night.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Tackling Tuesday
Did you ever get the feeling you were the last person to find out about something? Like everyone is in on the secret but you? That was me this morning. The world is progressing forward and I'm stuck in neutral.
Last night my computer (which is pretty old, by the way) started acting up as it sometimes does. I shut it down multiple times but for whatever reason I could not get internet access. At all. It wouldn't recognize our wireless network or any other wireless network in the area. I was concerned because this is the computer my son uses for his schoolwork. He can't get Java to work on his computer so he watches all his live lessons on mine, and today he had two. I prayed this morning that my son would be able to figure out what was wrong with the computer before 10 am when E's first lesson started. As soon as R woke up I told him what had happened last night. He walked over to the computer, pressed a button on the top of the keyboard, and all the wireless connections came up. I sat there in amazement and asked what he'd done? His matter-of-fact answer: "I turned on the wireless." I couldn't do anything but laugh my head off at what an idiot I was. I must have turned the wireless off without realizing it. Even funnier, I pointed to another button and told the boys I'd thought that was the button for the wireless. My 14 year old said, "No Mom, that turns off the mousepad." I shook my head and wondered when I'd left the prehistoric era and landed here in the 21st century.
Breakfast today was pretty basic: one fried egg, 2 strips of bacon, honey wheat toast with homemade apple butter, and coffee. Lunch will be tacos, with lettuce from my backyard. I'd started a garden months ago but had given up on it when the caterpillars waged war and were winning. Still, without even trying, my lettuce seeds sprang up and I have large gorgeous lettuce leaves ready for the picking. Not only that, but I was watching our dog Molly and happened to look at my tomato plant. There's a tomato growing! The first one on this plant! I stopped watering this plant because I was sure it was a dud. It grew and grew but never gave me a single tomato. Now it has a small tomato and 2 more little tomato buds. Proof again that I plant, I even water, but it's God who makes things grow.
I watched Alexandrea Garza's new video this morning and had to tell my daughter about it. She goes over her evening skin care routine, and there were some really good pointers. For instance, why hadn't I thought of using Johnson's Baby Shampoo to remove eye makeup?! Oh my goodness, that is genius! It's gentle on the eyes and cleans really well, plus it's way cheaper than any makeup remover on the market! She also had some advise for people with extra dry skin which my daughter suffers from. Especially now that the humidity has gone down, our skin gets drier than usual, and her skin gets downright flaky. Her regular moisturizer isn't doing a good enough job; hopefully she can find something that will work for her. My daughter has started using Michael Todd products which are totally organic, since she has sensitive skin. Hopefully a good moisturizer regiment will also help improve her complexion.
I thought today was gonna be another busy school day; after all, E had a couple of assignments to do, and 2 live lessons. He went in for his first live lesson, English class. Except it wasn't a class per se, it was review and question time for their end of semester assignment. The class is writing a thesis on Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail (which is an inspirational read). They've done the thesis statement, introduction, body paragraphs, and today they were writing the conclusion. It took all of half an hour. So he read his book till his next live lesson, leadership. Turns out the teacher had cancelled the class because they are just about finished with the semester. So he did his reading for leadership, wrote his conclusion paragraph, and was done in 3 hours. Great. He needs 5 hours of work per day. We went ahead and started working on his music history lab, but I don't want him getting to far ahead of himself; the rest of the week is really light, and if he does all the work today and tomorrow he'll have nothing to do the rest of the week. I'm looking forward to Christmas break so I don't have to figure out what schoolwork to do.
While my son was listening to his English teacher review for his assignment, I took our dog Molly out for her bath. Molly is an American bulldog mix. She acts very much like an American bulldog, except that lately she had gotten to digging in the backyard. She comes to the door with filthy paws. She also has taken to rolling in the dirt, causing her to stink to high heaven. I was dying to get her cleaned up good but it had been too chilly out - we have to bathe her outside because she absolutely HATES getting a bath and she would not stay still for a moment to get bathed inside the house. Besides, she sheds enough to build a second dog, and I can't imagine the damage her hair would do to our plumbing. The weather has gotten nicer the last couple of days; 50's in the morning, 70's in the afternoon, 60's in the evening. I had to wait till the sun came out so I could give her a bath without her freezing. Now, normally I tie Molly up to the patio furniture to get her bathed because if I don't she'll run off. The patio furniture is light, but she wouldn't move it because the sound it made against the patio floor would scare her (she's part dog, part chicken). Today, however, she decided she wasn't having anything to do with cleaning or water or shampoo or anything. I brought the hose out and started getting her wet. All of a sudden, she bolted. And I mean she was taking everything that was in her path! She knocked down one of the patio chairs, a large planter, the glass from the patio table she was tied to went flying and only by God's grace landed on the grass and didn't shatter, and she ended up on the other side of the house, patio table still dragging behind her, where she turned and gave me that look said, "I'm in trouble, aren't I?" Yeah, you better believe it! I not only had to give her a bath, I also had to put the patio back together again. She was in the doghouse, so to speak, after that little incident.
I got the email from Ulta today: my order has shipped :-). I'm glad; it's one less thing I have to worry about. The Bare Escentuals orders are also supposed to ship this week, in time to receive them for Christmas, though none of the items we ordered are actually Christmas gifts. Of course, there might be a birthday gift for my little girl, whose birthday is two days later ;-).
Tonight was our weekly group run, and I met up with my friend DS at the corner of our block. We live about a mile away from the meeting spot for our running group, so DS and I sometimes go there on foot. We took my son E since he'd been cooped up at home all day. The night was brisk - 61 degrees felt nice for our walk/jog around the neighborhood. DS and I don't usually run like the others in the group; we either walk or jog, so we lag behind and chit-chat the whole time. Tonight we were walking along a path that is directly behind a bunch of houses, and there is a concrete wall separating the houses from the sidewalk. My son E was a few feet ahead of us, running. As we walked something along the top of the wall caught my eye. It was a possum. Possums are nothing more than giant rats as far as I'm concerned, and anyone who knows me knows I hate rats. I let out a scream, grabbed my friend DS, pulled her away from the wall and yelled, "Run!!" I hit my turbo button and took off like a mad woman, DS was trying to run but didn't know what was going on, and my son turned around and wondered, "What in the world are they doing?!" He heard laughter and thought maybe we were laughing at a joke. Then he saw us running and thought we were racing! It wasn't until I'd gotten far enough that I told them what I'd seen. It was so hilarious, we couldn't stop talking about it and laughing! Even our exercise time is an adventure!
Oh, and I did change the background on my blog today. The background I had was pretty but it was more appropriate for spring; this background is more of a winter theme, but not too wintery - it's not like we get snow or anything. Hope it looks appealing! Have a good night y'all.
Last night my computer (which is pretty old, by the way) started acting up as it sometimes does. I shut it down multiple times but for whatever reason I could not get internet access. At all. It wouldn't recognize our wireless network or any other wireless network in the area. I was concerned because this is the computer my son uses for his schoolwork. He can't get Java to work on his computer so he watches all his live lessons on mine, and today he had two. I prayed this morning that my son would be able to figure out what was wrong with the computer before 10 am when E's first lesson started. As soon as R woke up I told him what had happened last night. He walked over to the computer, pressed a button on the top of the keyboard, and all the wireless connections came up. I sat there in amazement and asked what he'd done? His matter-of-fact answer: "I turned on the wireless." I couldn't do anything but laugh my head off at what an idiot I was. I must have turned the wireless off without realizing it. Even funnier, I pointed to another button and told the boys I'd thought that was the button for the wireless. My 14 year old said, "No Mom, that turns off the mousepad." I shook my head and wondered when I'd left the prehistoric era and landed here in the 21st century.
Breakfast today was pretty basic: one fried egg, 2 strips of bacon, honey wheat toast with homemade apple butter, and coffee. Lunch will be tacos, with lettuce from my backyard. I'd started a garden months ago but had given up on it when the caterpillars waged war and were winning. Still, without even trying, my lettuce seeds sprang up and I have large gorgeous lettuce leaves ready for the picking. Not only that, but I was watching our dog Molly and happened to look at my tomato plant. There's a tomato growing! The first one on this plant! I stopped watering this plant because I was sure it was a dud. It grew and grew but never gave me a single tomato. Now it has a small tomato and 2 more little tomato buds. Proof again that I plant, I even water, but it's God who makes things grow.
I watched Alexandrea Garza's new video this morning and had to tell my daughter about it. She goes over her evening skin care routine, and there were some really good pointers. For instance, why hadn't I thought of using Johnson's Baby Shampoo to remove eye makeup?! Oh my goodness, that is genius! It's gentle on the eyes and cleans really well, plus it's way cheaper than any makeup remover on the market! She also had some advise for people with extra dry skin which my daughter suffers from. Especially now that the humidity has gone down, our skin gets drier than usual, and her skin gets downright flaky. Her regular moisturizer isn't doing a good enough job; hopefully she can find something that will work for her. My daughter has started using Michael Todd products which are totally organic, since she has sensitive skin. Hopefully a good moisturizer regiment will also help improve her complexion.
I thought today was gonna be another busy school day; after all, E had a couple of assignments to do, and 2 live lessons. He went in for his first live lesson, English class. Except it wasn't a class per se, it was review and question time for their end of semester assignment. The class is writing a thesis on Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail (which is an inspirational read). They've done the thesis statement, introduction, body paragraphs, and today they were writing the conclusion. It took all of half an hour. So he read his book till his next live lesson, leadership. Turns out the teacher had cancelled the class because they are just about finished with the semester. So he did his reading for leadership, wrote his conclusion paragraph, and was done in 3 hours. Great. He needs 5 hours of work per day. We went ahead and started working on his music history lab, but I don't want him getting to far ahead of himself; the rest of the week is really light, and if he does all the work today and tomorrow he'll have nothing to do the rest of the week. I'm looking forward to Christmas break so I don't have to figure out what schoolwork to do.
While my son was listening to his English teacher review for his assignment, I took our dog Molly out for her bath. Molly is an American bulldog mix. She acts very much like an American bulldog, except that lately she had gotten to digging in the backyard. She comes to the door with filthy paws. She also has taken to rolling in the dirt, causing her to stink to high heaven. I was dying to get her cleaned up good but it had been too chilly out - we have to bathe her outside because she absolutely HATES getting a bath and she would not stay still for a moment to get bathed inside the house. Besides, she sheds enough to build a second dog, and I can't imagine the damage her hair would do to our plumbing. The weather has gotten nicer the last couple of days; 50's in the morning, 70's in the afternoon, 60's in the evening. I had to wait till the sun came out so I could give her a bath without her freezing. Now, normally I tie Molly up to the patio furniture to get her bathed because if I don't she'll run off. The patio furniture is light, but she wouldn't move it because the sound it made against the patio floor would scare her (she's part dog, part chicken). Today, however, she decided she wasn't having anything to do with cleaning or water or shampoo or anything. I brought the hose out and started getting her wet. All of a sudden, she bolted. And I mean she was taking everything that was in her path! She knocked down one of the patio chairs, a large planter, the glass from the patio table she was tied to went flying and only by God's grace landed on the grass and didn't shatter, and she ended up on the other side of the house, patio table still dragging behind her, where she turned and gave me that look said, "I'm in trouble, aren't I?" Yeah, you better believe it! I not only had to give her a bath, I also had to put the patio back together again. She was in the doghouse, so to speak, after that little incident.
I got the email from Ulta today: my order has shipped :-). I'm glad; it's one less thing I have to worry about. The Bare Escentuals orders are also supposed to ship this week, in time to receive them for Christmas, though none of the items we ordered are actually Christmas gifts. Of course, there might be a birthday gift for my little girl, whose birthday is two days later ;-).
Tonight was our weekly group run, and I met up with my friend DS at the corner of our block. We live about a mile away from the meeting spot for our running group, so DS and I sometimes go there on foot. We took my son E since he'd been cooped up at home all day. The night was brisk - 61 degrees felt nice for our walk/jog around the neighborhood. DS and I don't usually run like the others in the group; we either walk or jog, so we lag behind and chit-chat the whole time. Tonight we were walking along a path that is directly behind a bunch of houses, and there is a concrete wall separating the houses from the sidewalk. My son E was a few feet ahead of us, running. As we walked something along the top of the wall caught my eye. It was a possum. Possums are nothing more than giant rats as far as I'm concerned, and anyone who knows me knows I hate rats. I let out a scream, grabbed my friend DS, pulled her away from the wall and yelled, "Run!!" I hit my turbo button and took off like a mad woman, DS was trying to run but didn't know what was going on, and my son turned around and wondered, "What in the world are they doing?!" He heard laughter and thought maybe we were laughing at a joke. Then he saw us running and thought we were racing! It wasn't until I'd gotten far enough that I told them what I'd seen. It was so hilarious, we couldn't stop talking about it and laughing! Even our exercise time is an adventure!
Oh, and I did change the background on my blog today. The background I had was pretty but it was more appropriate for spring; this background is more of a winter theme, but not too wintery - it's not like we get snow or anything. Hope it looks appealing! Have a good night y'all.
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