Mercy me it's H-O-T!

Ohio has a varied weather pattern.  Most people pretty much think that they know that.  What people who don't live in NE Ohio don't realize that the many patterns can occur within hours of each other.

Within the past week, we've had weather that has caused tornadoes.  One tornado actually flattened much of the regional campus of Ohio State University in Wooster.  During those storms, our city received 1 3/4" of rain.  We're kind of in a deficit, so it wasn't bad.  When it all comes at once, it only runs off, though.  The tornadoes didn't occur during hot weather, though.

It turned so cold that I was wearing a sweatshirt and the outer lining to my 3 season LL Bean (short) winter coat.  K- was wearing a sweater with a poncho over top to school. 

Today, it has been kind of hot.  It was about 90 degrees.  I know that can seem like an air conditioned day to some, but we also have massive humidity.  It makes me regret having not turned the AC on today.  I will not admit that to Hubs, though.

Now, Friday (today by the time you read this) is supposed to be 90 again and we have our fundraiser walkathon for K-'s elementary.  I'll basically be there all day getting ready and whatnot.  I'll be wearing shorts.  (And a shirt!)  Let's hope that we don't have kids dropping like flies!

So, what's the weather like out your way? 

Have you been enjoying the monarch migration, or have they basically moved on from your way?  Inquiring minds want to know.  As for us, we still have a few here and there.  K- caught one today.  I think that they are on their way, though.

Smiles in my day:
-  Patty and I had a nice time visiting while attending the district PTA workshop. 

Have a great weekend!

One to lighten my hormonal crabbiness.

Hubs tells me this morning that he found Spike, our nearly 4 foot long green iguana, on a box in the basement.

"Really?"

"Yes, he escaped."

That he did.  Somehow he managed to rip through the pet mesh screen and escape.  Never mind that he's been in that same cage for 10 years and never carried out this escape plan before.  Funny thing is that the basement is so turned upside down from the floor replacement project that he didn't know what to do once he reached the outer world. 

Silly boy.

This is my second post for the day.  Read on if you want to hear about hormonalness and the moon.

The moon is full and BOY OH BOY I can tell you that I know.

Let me count the ways.

1.  PMS.  'Nuff said.
2.  Sister called flipping this morning.  I diagnosed it.  PMS.  'Nuff said.
3.  We were grossly under staffed at work today.  I left a note on Monday for the gallery director about it was never even acknowledged.  Thanks.
4.  Display by caffeine was necessary.  I was resetting a room, or at least trying and I couldn't get it finished since I couldn't start on Monday because we were under staffed.  I did get an entire wall reset, which involves many glass shelves, much measurement and a lot of product shuffling.  I was also able to reconfigure the stationery, where I was able to display our Christmas cards and the new 2011 calendars.  I know, I know.  Crazy, but it needed done.
5.  The last few days we have had the neediest, thoughtless, self-centered customers.  I'm sorry to say it, but we had the lady who was knocking on the bathroom door for her husband asking, "ARE YOU DONE YET?"  His response?  "Um, no."  Girl, he had some business to handle.  Let the man be!  We had the lady, her husband that she was training, a child that had to be shown every single toy that made incredible noise leave their big stroller in the middle of a main walkway (I asked if it was okay that I move it so that people could get around it) tell me about how Little Jimmy could say 26 words at 10 months and about how though he is screaming, there is no one in the store so she knows that they aren't being a disturbance.  (Um, are Julia and I invisible?  I have a kid.  She had screamed, but I admit that we removed her to keep everyone involved sane.)  I had a guy come in, ask me the most insane questions (if anyone says there is no dumb question, they lie), had me be a personal shopper with him and tell him the price on every single item that he looked at.  We had the girl with her brother come in, ask about a product that we didn't have but possibly had it in processing, that she "was from South Carolina."  We told her that we would see if we had it, that if it hadn't been processed yet, we couldn't sell it.  "But, I'm from South Carolina," she says to Julia.  "But I can't have you pay for something I can't sell yet."  "But, I'm from South Carolina."  I told Miss SC that we would be happy to check the box, but if it wasn't checked in, we had to follow certain procedures.  She asked if we could call the receiver at home since she, "Is from South Carolina."  We told her no, but thankfully, when Julia went to look, Miss SC's wanted item was something we had received and it was priced.  It needed gift wrapped and that was a task in itself.  Then we had someone in from out of the country.  She'd be traveling back to her home by vehicle with little space, but she wanted the item wrapped.  Then she decided that what I was going to do wasn't going to work.  Then she wanted me to, "Well, I don't know.  What do you think I should have you do?"  "You have a few different options.  It is completely up to you."  So after someone, who had never been to our store, finally struggled to give me directions on what she wanted for our gift wrapping that she's never seen, then she decides to impulsively buy a piece of jewelry.  She ripped the hand crafted jewelry from the cardboard hanger and after discovering that she was short on funds with her (but she had the remaining money at her friend's house), well, she didn't want the item.  She damaged the packaging and after discussing that with her and her suggesting that I just fix the packaging with tape (because everyone wants to purchase a hand crafted item that appears damaged since the packaging looks less that fantastic) or just put the item out as a display item, I took it off her bill and bid her a lovely evening.
7. Julia whacked her head on a metal purse hook and gave herself a bump and bruise.

Sorry.  It's an online journal.  Sometimes I just have to vent.

Smiles in my day:
-  K- decided that being Darth Vader will be cool for Halloween.  She wanted to be Padme, but I explained that no one will know who Padme is, but if she wanted to be something other than Darth Vader, I'll help her out.  After Hubs explained that he wanted to go as Darth Maul (or however you spell it), she thought that DV would be great.  She has the mask (a Target discount purchase last year), the DV treat bucket (thanks, Daddy!) and a light saber of the appropriate DV color.  What more could she want?  ;)

Have a great day!

Rain.

Mr. Jim, the crossing guard, asked, "So, do you think you'll make it before it rains?"

"Sure!  We're great!"

My husband calls when I'm about 4 1/2 blocks from home, "Rain is coming, do you need me to pick you up?"  (He was on his way to work and I didn't want him to be late.)

"Nah!  We're great!  A little rain won't hurt us.  We won't melt!"

As soon as I hung up, it started to sprinkle.  Michelle and I decided that sprinkles are completely doable. 

The sprinkles got bigger.

More of them started coming down.

They caused us to seek shelter under a tree, but then the tree wasn't sufficient enough. 

A dad sprints past.  He's on the police force, walked his kids to school today since it is Nat'l Dads Walk Your Kid To School Day or something like that.  "Come on!" he yells as he flies by so fast that it makes my hair blow in his cartoon-like wind.

We could see that it wasn't slowing.  We decided to go as Biggest Loser had done last night.  "We can do this, right?"

"I run like a girl."  "That's okay!  I do, too!"

Well, I made it three blocks at full speed.  Michelle could have probably gone a little further. 

I walked the remaining 1/2 block and by the time I reached my door, the rain had slowed.  I got in, took off my shoes and it had stopped.

Yup.  Figures.  Should have stayed under the tree.

Smiles in my day:
-  There was no lightning.

Have a good day!  :)

Tales from the Trenches: Why Swiffer will hate me.

So we have this Pergo floor.  (In the kitchen.  The rest of the house is soon to follow.)  You can't do this, that and the other to it.  Hubs read somewhere about not using a sweeper with a beater bar.  I have to clean this stuff, so I bought an O Cedar Flip Mop to do the spray and swipe with.  My mother-in-law gave me her Swiffer along with whatever little pads she had left.  She bought it and didn't like it.  I hate the idea of buying refills for it and decided that I was going to craft my own. 

At the local discount store, I bought a 3 pack of Quickie microfiber cleaning cloths for $1.99.  Since my sewing machine is in my studio somewhere behind all of the living room accessories, I took them and the top of the Swiffer Sweeper to my friend, Laurie.  The cloths were big enough to be cut in half and have a bit cut off the ends.  She zig-zagged around the edges.

You know what?  They are perfect!  They poke in just like the Swiffer pads, I can flip them over and use the opposite side then instead of flipping them in the garbage, I can throw them into the wash. 

I was an easy way to make an otherwise environmentally horrible product environmentally friendly. 

Hooray!

Smiles in my day:
-  It's bedtime.

Have a great day!

ETA:  I decided that I liked my environmentally reworked version of Swiffer so much, that the O Cedar Mop is going back.  The particles stick to the altered cloths so much better than the O Cedar pushing them into a pile for me to sweep up.  I'm picking up another pack of cloths for Laurie to alter, so my new mop will be $3.98 instead of $11.97.  :)!

Broken crayons, dehydrated marshmallows and a speech impediment.

My dear, sweet daughter.  I love her so.  I truly do.  When she is exposed to peer pressure and gives in, even though she admits that she knows better, it hurts.  When people make fun of her, it hurts me as much as it hurts her. 

So, y'all might remember the crayon incident of last year.  This year has given us a lunch sharing incident.  The lunchtime rule last year was absolutely no sharing.  It seemed to be a reasonable rule to me.  Apparently, it wasn't carried out across the board.  I'll tell you why I think so in just a minute.  So, K- knows about the rule.  She followed the rule to the letter last year. 

She had a harder time with that this year.

She has a friend that likes to share bits and bites of her lunch.  Don't get me wrong, generally sharing is a good thing, but when a rule is a rule, we must follow.  K- would tell me that she shared bits of her lunch and the other shared bits back.  I first started with some gentle reminders.

"K-, you remember that is against the rules, right?"

"Oh yeah!"

The next day, rinse and repeat.

"K-, I expect you not to share your lunch tomorrow."

The next day, rinse and repeat.

"But K- you know it is a rule that you aren't allowed to share."

"But mommy, I didn't even get caught."

Hmmm.  Like a knife right through the heart.  My child knew right from wrong but still chose the wrong path. 

"K-, this may seem harsh, but if you share your lunch tomorrow with B-, you will lose your TV.  I understand that you don't like the rule.  I understand that it may be a rule that you don't want to follow, but there are rules that B-'s mom and I have to follow that we don't want to." 

The next day, she did not share her lunch.  The last time she shared it, she did so because she was told that she wouldn't be their friend anymore if she didn't.  (Her friend had a fondness for the dehydrated marshmallows in K-'s S'mores Goldfish cracker mix.)

A knife straight through her heart.  If you really want to take my only child down to complete compliance, tell her that you won't be her friend.  She'll walk through fire to keep a friend.  In some ways, that is good.  It is good to be kind, patient, loving and understanding.  It is not good to sacrifice what you know is right from wrong just to retain a friendship.

But she's only 6.

So the sharing thing, I think that her class was so strict on the no sharing policy because of a peanut allergic child.  I didn't come to that conclusion until after the whole threat of TV loss bit happened.

Then their is K-'s speech.  Her progress has been great.  Truly, she is in much better shape than she was last year.  Over the summer, she ended up sliding on her "sh" a little.  It is a hit and miss.  Her "r" tends to be "w." 

We had gone on a play date at a friend's house the other day.  These are our friends that moved back from Wisconsin.  K- and E- have been friends from the very beginning.  The girls are 7 weeks apart and even though they experienced 4 years of intermittent play, they always rolled back into playing like they had been together yesterday and the girls truly have never missed a beat-- ever. 

They were outside playing and E-'s neighbor friend had come to talk.  She is 5 and in kindergarten where E- attends school.  When we were on our way home, it seems that fence girl was making fun of K-'s speech.  I have to say that K- has become a bit more upset when that happens.  I told her that is why she visits with Mrs. D- and that Mrs. D- is doing a good job of pulling all of her words around.  I told her about how sorry I was that she was made fun of.  "Well mom, at least I'm not Chinese."  "You mean speak Chinese?"  "Oh, yeah!  That's what I meant!"  (So as not to offend, most people here only speak English.  We have very little exposure to other languages where we live.  Yes, it is unfortunate.) 

We want K- to grow up and know that she is good enough, smart enough and that people like her.  (Yes, channeling Stewart, even though that is my husband's thing.)  We don't want her to go against what she knows is correct just to retain a friend. 

I don't expect her to be perfect.  I suppose that I wouldn't want her to be perfect.  I just want her to be her-- quirks and all.

We want her to stand up for herself, but we don't want her to be over-powering and rude.  We want her to continue to be considerate and kind, not hard-hearted. 

Any words of advice?

Smiles in my weekend:
-  K- got her flu shot on Friday after school at the Walgreen's Take Care Clinic.  The best part?  With only a whimper, she got the shot and it was all good.  Last year, it took 5 very big women to hold her at the city Health Department H1N1 Flu Shot Clinic.  When I explained to the LPN on duty the massive improvement (yes, I had tears in my eyes as I was so happy and incredibly relieved), she gave K- a pencil for a job well done.
-  K- tagged along with me to the Women's Ministry Brunch yesterday.  Though she was the only child there, they were happy to have her and she behaved spectacularly. 
-  K- tagged along with me this evening to choir practice.  We went immediately after soccer. In fact, we had to leave a few minutes early from soccer to make the trek back across the county-- from the northernmost to the southern end-- and I sat my fanny down in the choir loft at exactly 4:30 PM.  She played with the kids and one 22 month old followed K- everywhere she went.  In fact, we had a salad and dessert dinner all together and J- sat right along side K- and loved it!  We were able to have a nice time visiting with some folks that I don't normally get to talk to.  K- kept J- occupied and we left well fed.

Have a great day!