Fireworks

A couple of the churches in our neighborhood have decided that this is THE weekend to have loud outdoor concerts and fireworks. I could hear Jars of Clay just fine from my porch. Not sure how much tickets were, but I didn't need them.
The fireworks show last night was very enjoyable...except for one thing.
TREES! Why can't people shoot off fireworks for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Valentines Day? There aren't nearly as many leaves to block my view! Why, if there weren't so many leaves around, I could probably have seen the whole show last night, instead of just the high ones.
You know why I like watching fireworks from my house instead of going? 'Cause I LOVE the delay in sound vs. light. It took "one one-thousand" last night between seeing the thing explode and then to hear it. So whenever I saw one of the little ones that is REALLY LOUD, I knew to cover my ears before the sound reached me. I think that is SO COOL! I've known that sound waves are slower than light waves. Everyone learns that with thunderstorms. Yet, I am still so excited about such things when I discover them again and again. Ah, the wonders of creation! I'm hearing really loud music from outside right now. Could that be the REALLY LOUD sound of tonight's outdoor concert? Guess we shouldn't plan to go to bed early. Those fireworks will just keep us up anyway.
The first year one of these churches did this, it irritated me!!! They should stick notes on the doors of all the houses within a mile, "WARNING: Fireworks will start at 10:00PM tonight. Be prepared." Last night, the emergency vehicles came around our neighborhood (police, fire...). I wondered if someone had wrecked their car while watching the fireworks. Everything must have been ok, cause they left soon after. I did think I saw the blinking lights at an intersection nearby. Whatever. That's neither here nor there.

My kids were excited earlier that they were going to go to this carnival sponsored by this local church. They got there with their friend to find out that there is a $25 admission fee!! My comments on that will be kept to myself.

Back to my original subject:

PLEASE shoot more fireworks for the holidays that don't include leaves on trees. Besides, it gets darker at those times of the year. You can get the show started earlier!!

ACK! The stress of coordinating schedules

I am very thankful that we are a homeschooling family. This gives us a lot of flexibility with our schedules and activites. Only one problem, the activities in which we would like to participate are not so flexible. 4:30 is when you need to be there. 5:30 is when you leave. No flexbility there.

Anyhow, I've double-booked my taxi cab service again. Everyday we pick up Jill at the bus stop around 3:45. We then take her to her babysitting job. We are typically home around 4:15. Jill gets off between 5:15 & 6:30, depending on which day it is. I try to schedule around those times. As I mentioned a moment ago, some activities don't have flexibility built in.

Soccer. I gave Rebekah & Neleh a "list" of activities from which they could choose their favorite. This would be the ONE they participated in. Becka chose soccer. We'd missed the LYSA deadline, so we signed up for a team with the YMCA. Last season, we practiced twice a week with 2 games on the weekends! This year, one practice a week, one game a weekend! AND it's a lot closer to the house!! I thought I had chosen a team with a Friday afternoon practice.
Swimming. Neleh chose swimming as her activity. I wanted them to be able to participate in the YMCA's Homeschool Gym & Swim program, but it overlaps the Jill transportation time. So I signed her up for swimming lessons. Now that she is 6, she has to participate in the afternoon lessons. No more school time lessons for kids who should be at school. So I went online and registered her for Tues/Th lessons from 4:45 - 5:30.

PROBLEM! I email the soccer coordinator to make sure I know when Becka's practices are. I learn that they are on THURSDAYS AT 4:30-5:30! Hmm...this is a problem. I could drop Jill off at babysitting around 4:00, make it to soccer in plenty of time, but then have to rush down the street to swimming lessons and be a few minutes late. THEN, having to leave Neleh at swimming lessons to go back to soccer to get Becka early so we could go back to the Y and pick up Neleh. *whew* I'd asked a few friends if they'd be willing to help, but I hadn't heard anything back. STRESS OUT TIME!!!

The more I thought of this situation, they more troubled I became. I looked online and there aren't any open soccer teams at feasible times. The one available team practices during the Jill transportation window. What am I going to do??

*light bulb above head* Maybe I could change swimming lessons? So I go to the website and discover one lesson block that might work for us. However, it is during the Wednesday Jill transportation time. Hmm...on Wednesdays Jill can go to church with her client's family. We were planning to go to Mass all together. BUT since it looks like we have no other option, everybody wins. I think Jill wants to still go to GROW to see her friends.

Jill gets to go to GROW

Rebekah gets to go to soccer (without just being dropped off and picked up in a hurry)

Neleh gets to go to swimming lessons (without Mom abandoning her for a while!)
And I don't have to drive myself crazy!! Just a lot of driving...but not totally crazy.

$1000 Yard Sale for Missions

We had a yard sale this past Saturday to raise money for our friend's upcoming mission trip to Rwanda. We, the Longworths, hosted the event, yet over 20 individuals/families contributed time and stuff.

I've got to share a couple of the fun stories from the experience...

First off- I received TEN different "deliveries" on FRIDAY! That was awesome. We thought we had a lot of stuff before that! Thanks, guys! Friday night, we had a big group of folks helping us set stuff out. It took 2-3 hours for 5-6 people to get the job done. I think we had more folks at one point. I can't imagine how long it would have taken Bill & I to have done it all ourselves!! Also glad we decided to set stuff out on Friday night!!

One of the things that was donated was a recliner. Bill took it upon himself to be the guard of the sale and sleep in the recliner that night. Our neighbor arrived home from playing bridge that night, around midnight, and went shopping, since Bill was in the yard anyway. :-) We like to share the story that our first customer was at MIDNIGHT. :-) People started shopping as early as 6:30 AM on Saturday. I was glad I'd decided to go ahead and get up early! (If you know me, then you know that I don't get up early for much. Yup. 6:15 folks. 6:15. Miracles do happen!)

One of our first customers of the day was a guy headed to work. He stopped and paid for the recliner, but said he had to go clock-in before he could come back! He did. He ended up visiting our sale 3 times and buying some of our bigger items.

We had a VCR...looked new in box. Anyhow, we couldn't find the remote that went with it. If it had a remote, it may have mistakenly went away with a couple of TVs sold earlier in the day. When asked, we said it cost $8. This guy said that was too high since it didn't have a remote. We went down to $5. He wanted to pay $2. No way, we said. The next guy who walked up bought the thing for $8. There were four sales on our block. A few minutes later we saw guy number 1 carring a VCR from the neighbors yard. Buzz is that he paid $1 for it there. Good for him. Glad we got our $8.
The next story involves cookies. We had a little bake sale with cookies, brownies, a cake, cold drinks, etc. at the "check-out." We had a bunch of "add-on" sales with these. And for folks who couldn't find anything else to get, they often bought cookies or a coke to help out. This one group of ladies bought a couple baggies of cookies ($.25 each) and were headed to the car. I'm not sure if they ate them on the way to the car or what, but they were soon back at the table buying another set of baggies. Next thing we knew, they were back and just bought a plate full of Liz's cookies!!
Last little comment from me...
We had A LINE at the sale. Yup. People actually had to wait in line to "check out" at one point!! We got everyone to help with that and I think there was still a line (up to 4 people deep). Thankfully, we had friends helping us with that too!!!

Yippee! Ain't God good! Praise God for the wonderful work He did on Saturday. We may be "professionals" or good at "wheeling and dealing" but the LORD is who really did all the work. And YES - we did raise over $1,000 for Emily's trip!!!

Kroger Baggers Revisted

You know, I really DIDN'T want to bring this subject up again. Three times may be a little much, eh? But I went to the grocery again and had to return to my blog with my thoughts.

*sigh* Should I just apply to be an official "bagger trainer" at Kroger or what?? These folks just don't get it. I group my stuff together as I put it on the checkout conveyor belt so that it will be bagged together and, therefore, easier to put away at home. Sadly, it never works out this way. I don't understand why not. Isn't the cashier scanning them as they come down the belt? Aren't they passed on to the baggers in the same order? I may be mistaken in this. It makes sense, but the way things end up in the bags makes me wonder where the wires cross. Perhaps I should spread my stuff out more so that it is more obvious that the groceries are arranged in a specific order. *sigh* Now I just have to sort everything when I get home.

I was quite pleased to see that my milk was put in one of the insulated bags this week! YAY! Was it zipped? Nope. But at least the milk was in the right type of bag. This looks promising! Of course, I then see that non-perishables are filling the other insulated bag and realize that, perhaps, little progress has been made after all. :-( Now, I have complained about the insulated bag thing before. But to top it all off on my last trip...my hot dog buns were at the BOTTOM of a bag. Isn't that a basic rule of bagging? Oh well.


I have a solution to my insulated bag "problem." I'm going to take my giant permanent marker and write instructions on the inside and outside! "COLD ITEMS ONLY! PLEASE ZIP WHEN FULL!"

Yes. I may complain about the baggers a lot, but at least they HAVE baggers at Kroger AND I got help out to my car this past trip!! At some of the other stores around town these days, you are your OWN bagger, like it or not. And I'm not talking about U-Scan. Either U-bag, or forget it. You only get help to your car if you have A LOT of stuff and a handsome strong young man happens to walk by at that time. ;-)

What have I accomplished this today?!?! (the life of a SAHM)

I am a Stay-at-Home Mom. Sometimes I don't think I do a very good job of that. I'm not always good at staying home, and I don't always feel like a good mom. As I consider what I've accomplished today, I just had to blog a bit about my lifestyle.

Woke up this morning and got ready for the day.
Convinced the kids to stop watching TV and get dressed. We'd done well at making beds this week, but I think they forgot today.
(Oh well.)

I came downstairs to the computer to "quickly" order homeschool books before lunch. Well, I only got half of the stuff ordered before having to leave.

We drove by the bank on the way to Chick-Fil-A. I endorsed my checks and pulled out a blank deposit ticket. Oops. I don't have my account # with me! So I just cashed the checks instead. Oh well.

We met my grandparents for lunch and had a nice visit with them. We were continuing the celebration of Neleh's 6th birthday (which was a week ago).

After lunch, instead of going home to get stuff done there, we headed over to the house which we are currently housesitting. That only takes about 30 seconds: get mail, run in, put in kitchen, lock up, take paper. Ta da.

BUT - on the way back home, we saw a YARD SALE!!! I saw a tripod out and had to stop and inquire. Only $1? SOLD! And, of course, we bought a few other things while we were there. I got a set of placemats; Jill got some shorts; Becka some shades; Neleh a curling brush.

On the way home, Jill & I do some garbage picking and come home with a nice card table.

We do end up getting home eventually. Of course Neleh wants to use her new "toy" right away. ALAS - apparently it had spent some time in a makeup drawer and had foundation residue all over it (should've checked that before purchasing, perhaps?). Yuck. Who wants that in their hair? So I spent a little while this afternoon trying to clean that off. The little brush parts slide off of the iron. I used a toothbrush and eye makeup remover. The stuff didn't wash off very quickly. After a little bit of scrubbing, and realizing other things I needed to be doing, I ran a sinkful of water + eye makeup remover, and let the brush parts soak.

Meanwhile, I come back down to the computer to finish ordering homeschool books. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!! Ta da. *whew* Of course, once I'm online, I check email, play on Facebook, etc.

I did switch the laundry around, so that was some "housework" that was done. As I was finishing that up, Neleh and her friend come down and ask again about the curling brush. Since I was at a stopping point in things, I headed upstairs to finish cleaning up this brush thing. Realizing how much time I spent on that brush inspired me to come down here and waste time blogging about it.

It made me stop and think that these "silly little things" are what motherhood is about. After cleaning the thing, we had to use it. Not sure if it is working the way it should, but the kids seem content now that it is, indeed, usable.

SO WHAT HAVE I ACCOMPLISHED TODAY?????
Love. A mother's love. And a few little other things along the way.