I got some new pictures of the garden yesterday! Some of the cucumbers are really getting big...almost ready to harvest. Some of the cucumbers are still babies. We will at least get a dozen or so to eat!!

and here are more pictures...

I don't feel much like writing today, but I will post some more pictures of the cats and where they lay when we are not home and a squirrel basking in the sun on the back porch. The picture of the squirrel was taken thru a window and that's why it's kinda fuzzy.

That's all for today as I'm really tired!

Already Tuesday

Just when you think everything is going great, you get hit with a gas bill for a time when you did not even live in the house. It's from July 15th thru August 13th. Tim left from there on July 8th. We had the gas disconnected, but they are telling me that I did not disconnect it and that no one has claimed responsibility for the current usage, so therefore we got the bill. I've already been on the phone with Washington Gas, as well as our former rental agency. Supposedly, Sandy in the accounting department, is going to take care of it and we will not be responsible for paying it. Will see. I don't trust them just because our property manager, Eileen was a real witch. She was always very nasty acting to me. Tim doesn't take things as personally, so she never bothered him. I hated her from the get go, but we faithfully paid our rent every month for 4 years, despite her. So now we shall see if things are taken care of or not. I will keep you informed, not that anyone even follows this blog!

I am doing this blog to keep in touch with family and friends, but no one is following it. I guess your damn if you do and damned if you don't. lol Relatives are always telling Tim and I we never see pictures of Aaron and how much he's grown, etc. etc. I do listen to what they say. So I started this blog, I guess for me, My Aunt Nancy, my step-mom, Cindy and my Mom, Janie have read the first couple of entries, and they did comment back to me via email, but no one else. I think my dad tried, but he couldn't get it work.

Anyway, today is pretty uneventful. Aaron had an appointment at the school today. He had to take some test to see where he was for Math. He actually scored perfectly on the two hardest parts of the test, but the stuff that was a little easier he got some wrong. Basically, they are going to put him in regular math, but watch to see what progress he makes and if what he's doing is too easy for him. I'm so proud of him either way! He's come along way!

Two more Mondays until Labor Day

I know that I shouldn't be counting down the days until school starts, but seriously Aaron is driving me bats!! Luckily last night he spent the night over at Jonathan and Kevin's, so I am enjoying the quiet right now and not video games, computer games or cartoons. If I hear I'm bored one more time...Aaghhhh!

Wow! I just came across this again and realized that I didn't finish it. Sorry, I think I got caught up in some laundry, or something. Anyway, I'm gonna continue this on Tueday, which is actually today.

Saturday, Saturday where does the time go?

It's already Saturday afternoon, and I feel like the day has just flown by! I have been busy scrapping, playing on ACOT, FB and all the others I go to routinely. I also got some great garden shots today, which I will be adding pictures of momentarily. It just starting raining, thundering and lightning, and hailing, and the lights are already flickering. I don't know how much I will get post before the electricity goes out.

Isn't the garden just thriving! I even put some pictures in of our first cucumbers. The 4th picture is of our baby cucumbers. There are two of those by the tiny yellow flowers.

Now I think I will put some pictures in of Aaron playing Raving Rabbits on the WII. He has to dance to the steps provided. He has about as much coordination as his dad. LOL!!

Cute huh!!

Audrey the queen of the house and soda packs.

This is the layout of Audrey that I did for the August sketch contest. What do ya think?

It's Thursday...already?

Where does the time go? It seems like I just started out the week and now it already Thursday. Well, it's suppose to rain today, so I don't know if Aaron and I will go to pool or not. It's sunny outside right now.

Yesterday, Kris' boys got to come over to play with Aaron and go swimming. We went to our house and the boys decided that they were having such a great time that they didn't want to go to the pool! Yay!! I can scrapbook! It's so exciting!!

I still have a lot of work to do in my scrapbook room, but it can wait. As most of you know, I love this site called A Cherry On Top (it's a scrapbook site, not anything perverted J Rose). It has great chat rooms and threads as well as a store, to buy lots of goodies. If your ever looking for a gift to buy me, they have wonderful gift certificates. Anyway, they have these fantastic challenges and contest each month and yesterday, I was working on a sketch contest which I thought should really be easy, but it's not. I've already redone the layout twice, but I still don't like it. I may or maynot turn it in to the contest, but I will post it here.

Today, my friend Kris and her husband Andy, are celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary. Congrats on making it 15 years! Andy's mom will be in town, so we will not get to see the boys for a few days. Aaron just loves playing with Jonathan and Kevin.

My friend, Linda, from Maryland called me today, which I was thrilled about as I miss her so much. It's so hard not having a trusted friend right across the road. Her daughter, Rachel and Aaron were best buddies most of the time during the 4 years that we lived there. They had their little spats here and there, but all kids do. Now they are going to try to stay in touch by email and occasional calls. I will post a picture of Linda and I too! Linda said that no one was living in the house that we used to rent. That makes me wonder what happened to our security deposit. We should have gotten all that back. I'm gonna ask Tim about that. Anyway, I'm just babbling on and I really need to do some other things. I'll post the layout and picture of Linda and I in awhile. Hopefully!

Cleaning and Scrapping

Many of you that follow me on FB know that I went on some sort of cleaning spree yesterday morning, into the early afternoon. I dusted the furniture in the living room, washed the table cloth in the living room, dusted all the baseboards and above the door to the outside. I dusted the ceiling fans in the living room and in the dining room. I also cleaned the baseboards in the kitchen and the living room. I vacuumed the living room and the kitchen and then mopped the kitchen floor. I also did all the laundry from last week. Do you think my husband even noticed? Nope...but that's men, not very observant. Oh well, such is life, at least he is not griping about it and telling me we have paper all over the place.

Today, I worked on my scrapbook room. I've gotten everything in place, but now I have some stuff to go thru and get rid of. I have a lot of scrapbook stuff and I'm not going to use everything. I've outgrown some of it, so it has to go! I know that the scrapbook place down the road is having a yard sale where customers can sell their scrapbook stuff. It's worth a try.

Tomorrow, I'm going to borrow my friend, Kris' boys again, so they can play with Aaron and possibly go swimming if it doesn't rain. I'll try to post some pictures! I did do a layout yesterday, but I scanned it to the other computer, which has problems, so I don't know if I will ever get it off of there or be able to pull up the site in order to send it to this computer. That is sounding like something more complicated than I know what to do.

I may have to call someone more computer literate than I. Well see!!

Playing Games

Can I just say, my neck is killing me!! I don't know if I slept on it wrong or what but it's really hurting me!! I didn't sleep that long so I must have really slept on it weird. Aaron woke me up at 3:30 am to tell me that he didn't know about all that garbage and stuff. I almost said, what are you talking about, but I just said ok, go back to bed. He came and told me something weird like that before, but I can't remember what he said.

I didn't blog anything yesterday because I didn't have much to say and I was just being lazy, which is what I do best. I finally got to scrapbook some yesterday while Tim and Aaron went to the pool. It was just some old photos from 2006 then Aaron's den in Cub Scouts was getting their Bob Cat badges. I will try and post the layout with this blog. Aaron got to play with Jonathan and Kevin yesterday afternoon for about 3 hours. They mostly played the WII, but also did some creative play with Legos. I hope Jonathan's love of reading will influence Aaron to read more. He likes to read historical books, but when it comes to fiction reading he would rather play the WII. He told me he would do it if he had to, but only for school, not for fun.

Well, it's been a week of blogging and I must say it's been really good for me. Almost therapeutic, although I guess some may not want to know all about our lives. It is kinda trivial, but family and true friends will read and comment as they wish. Not much to report today. It's a lazy day I guess, but we'll get to go to mass tonight and see our friends, Kris, Kevin and Jonathan.

I haven't really gotten to tell you about my friend Kris. Kris and I became friends back when our husbands were stationed at Ft. Bliss, Texas. We didn't really get to know each other very well, but we had the camaraderie of the army wives and all that command stuff. Well, in November of 2001 we, Tim, Aaron and I moved to Augusta, GA. Little did I know that when I went to that first army officer wives meeting and we were signing up for various activities that I would notice the name Kris M. (to protect her privacy) on the list. I said to a lady near me, "I knew a Kris M back at Ft. Bliss.". So, I yelled out the name and everyone stared at me, but I found Kris!! We couldn't believe that we knew someone else there. Now I would have to say we have become pretty good friends. We even became co-chairs of the membership committee together. When Tim was deployed to Iraq, she invited Aaron and I over for Thanksgiving dinner. She is super sweet and would do anything for you. She is a former school teacher, but still a teacher to her boys. Now, fast forward to today and Tim's second day of work at NATO and he calls me and ask if the M's were stationed in Hawaii. I told him yes and he said well, their coming here. I was so excited on the phone that I immediately went to email Kris and see if in fact they were coming here. She called me back only moments later and said, "Yes, were moving there and we'll be there next Saturday morning!" She and I talked on the phone for a hour and we were both so excited!! Her boys are close to Aaron's age and he LOVES playing with them. Truthfully, if I would have known that they were moving to Great Bridge we would have moved there too. We are only 3.8 miles apart though, so that's terrific. I think I could go on and on about her, but if your an army spouse or any kind of military spouse, you know how important your military friends are! It's awesome going somewhere and you already know someone, not to mention our husbands will be working in the same building. It's wonderful and I'm so excited that we are stationed here together once again!!

TGIF!!

Today is Friday...Yay!!! I don't know why am happy it's Friday, but I am so TGIF!

Yesterday, Aaron had his physical for school. Everything was fine. She (the doctor) said that Aaron needed 4 new shots. Yikes! I don't think so. All 6th graders in Virginia have to be immunized for TDaP before the school will allow them to start. Something about a mutated strain and babies getting sick...OK, he can get that shot. He also got the shot that fights against Meningitis which is recommended for all kids ages 11 to 18. I don't know if he has to get a booster of it every way, I forgot to ask, but anyway, I think that is a good one to have too. The others, Hep A and Varicella booster I declined for now. I told the doctor that I was sure that he had the Hep A and the booster to Hep A, but she said it wasn't on his record. When we got home, I looked in his medical records that I have at home and yes, he did have the Hep A and the booster, 6 months later. In fact, we had it together. He is still supposed to get the Varicella booster, but that can wait a while. I'm certainly glad that is over. I know that shots are for the benefit of kids and to prevent getting whatever disease, but knowing what is in some of these vaccinations it almost seems like they are better off without them. Please don't misunderstand me. I am for children getting immunized, but only 1 maybe 2 at a time, not 4 or 6.

After the doctor's appt., we went home and I gave Aaron some Tylenol for Jr's. Later, he said his arms were really sore. I bet so!

Farmer Tim grows some veggies!

These are some of our vegetables. I think we have lettuce, cantaloupe, and cucumbers.

These are pictures of our garden where Tim is growing some veggies. I can't tell you want is want, because Tim forgot to mark them, but it's still awesome!!

It's raining outside and inside too so to speak...

Raining outside of course, it rains here almost everyday. I guess it's good that we don't have to water so much! Unlike what I hear about Texas as my mom says there's a drought there and everything is drying up and dying. I think it's this way in Texas every year. Oh and by the way, some have ask and no we didn't get any of the flooding here. Yes, it rained yesterday, but no flooding. We are all fine and the house too.

The reason I say it's raining inside too is because I thought I was going to get to start working again on Monday the 17th of August, but now we are back to the well, why don't you just wait until school starts. OK, fine, but why did you get my hopes up about starting and I finally found child care for Aaron, which was no easy task. It really pisses me off to be told one thing and then a few days later something different. Maybe I should just look for a different job. It's something I have thought of before, but I know that they (the financial firm) need experienced people.

We don't necessarily need the money from me, because we do fine with just Tim's income. I just had gotten used to working and having a little extra income. I always put some of it in Aaron's money market account for college and some I try to designate to various investment funds.

Oh and I forgot about the whole Child Time child care thing that Aaron was so against. He went yesterday, it was a free day, and they went to the movies and saw, Night at the Museum 2. He said they had popcorn, but it was stale and he tried some Sprite, but he didn't like it. Overall, the movie was good and he said he made two friends, Jackson and some other kid, he couldn't remember the name. He admitted that it was pretty fun and he actually ask when he was going back. Of course, I thought it was going to be on Monday, but I guess not.

Yesterday...WOW!!

and I quote, "This was the best day ever"! This is what Aaron said to me yesterday. I, the wonderful and thoughful mom I am, decided to call my friend Kris and borrow her boys for the day. Of course, she was nice enough to agree, so I picked up the boys at 11:00am and we came back to our house for some Legos building and playing and some lunch. After lunch, we went to this place called Child Time, child care for kids, I just wanted to go by there so that I could introduce Aaron to the director and other teachers. Aaron didn't really care for it and he told me that there were only little kids there and he was not a little kid. I heard this all day over and over. Anyway, after we went to Child Time, we went to the pool at the Y. Man, was it ever crowded. I have never seen so many people at the pool. They had to have lifeguards walking around the pool as well as in the lifeguard stands. It was a madhouse, but Aaron had the best time! He, Kevin, and Jonathan had a blast. After a couple of hours at the pool, we left and went to McDonalds for some Oreo and M&M flurries. After that we went back to our house for playing some more and dinner at 7:30pm. I didn't get to take the boys home until around 8:45pm, but Aaron was already asking when they could come over again and have a sleep over. It was a great day and I'm really happy that Aaron had a wonderful time.

It's Tuesday!

I know I shouldn't be so excited about it being Tuesday, but it's one day closer to me going back to work and Aaron going back to school. He is so bored!! He hasn't made any friends yet and he spends his days going from playing the WII, playing computer games, and playing Star Wars and building various Legos. We do go swimming and other little activities, but he's still really bored. Today, we do go to a child care center to see how Aaron likes it and tomorrow he will get to go all day.

I just talked to my friend, Kris, and I'm going to get her boys, Jonathan and Kevin today!! I'm excited because Aaron will have someone to play with today! I think we will go to the pool at the Y. I just told Aaron that Jonathan and Kevin were coming over and he told me that I am a genius and this was a "sweet deal". Hey, I aim to please.

Oh yeah, I finally made it to the grocery store yesterday, but not the commissary.

Another Day in Virginia

Guess What?? I still didn't make it to the grocery store and I'm here drinking coffee again. Yesterday, I got so interested in TLC's "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" that time flew by and the next thing I knew it was time to fix dinner. Now don't think that I was just laying around not doing anything because I was, I just don't know what it was. I know I did clip coupons while Aaron was on the phone with his friend, Drake. Drake and Aaron are friends from Maryland and they play Pirates of the Carribean online together while on the phone. I thought only girls talked on the phone all the time, but I guess boys do too. Drake has been known to call a little early on a Sunday morning, and Aaron was so funny, because when Drake called the first thing he says to Drake is "Why are you calling me so early and are your parents up?". I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at him. Drake called back a little later.

Anyway, I remember cleaning the upstairs bedroom while I was watching TLC.

Today, I got up earlier so I can sorta get used to getting up early again, since I'm starting back to work on the 17th of August. It's only part time for now, so hopefully, I can get back into juggling all the responsibilities and still have a life. I, also, have gotten back into some exercising again, so that is an added part of my daily routine. School doesn't start around here until September 8th, so Aaron has to go to some sort of child care while I'm at work. I'm looking into it and I'll update as soon as I know something. Gotta run for now.

Getting Started, August 9, 2009

I don't really know what to say, or where to really begin, as I sit here drinking my coffee. Speaking of coffee, I need another cup of it. OK, I have more coffee, now what to do today. I need to go to the grocery store, which I hate. It's frustrating because the commissary is at least 25 minutes away, and while they have great deals, especially on meat, I don't want to drive so far away. Ugh! What to do? I need to go look in the newspaper for coupons. I seem to collect a lot of coupons, but I forget to use them or I don't have them with me when I need them. Of course, the last time I used coupons at the commissary, I saved like $50.00. The guy behind me in line was very impressed. He just kept saying, "Wow, that's really impressive". Well, I'm going to see what coupons they have in the paper and I'll try to write more later. This really is going to be about all of us, but since I'm typing and thinking of what to say, it's about my thoughts and perceptions.