WHEW…. I don’t know where time goes. It seems like I have hardly any time to blog these days. Several months ago I posted a summary of everything we had done for a day or week. I haven’t done that for awhile so I’ll post a note now and hopefully you’ll understand why I’ve been so absent on the blog these days!

Monday: Co-op had to leave early to drop off a few bills before hand, stop to pick up a few things, etc. Choir after co-op until 4:30 or so. Then pick up a few groceries on the way home. Stop to do a payroll check and drop it off before heading home. Dinner. Start on school work for the week after dinner. Work on our personal bills for awhile. Some cleaning.

Tuesday & Wednesday: School, chores, bookwork, cleaning, cooking, etc… it’s sort of all mixed together and that’s why we say homeschooling is a life style for us.

Thursday: School, work on East Coast trip plans for the co-op, other co-op stuff throughout the week. Head to town for to do a few errands before band practice. Practice. Home after 10:00. Read a few blogs, go over some of Josh’s math, etc.

Friday: School in the a.m. Help Em with a research paper. Josh’s school in the a.m. My mom called and offered to bring us lunch from town which was nice because we were busy cleaning during our lunch break and forgot to eat lunch. We were starting to get hungry right about the time our “lunch” break was over! Mom dropped off some lunch for us and then took the boys to run the train with grandpa. The boys were there for FIVE hours! Em and I finished up some cleaning. I showered and did some more book work. Took a 20 minute power nap and then headed to town. I had 8 hours worth of errands to do in 3 hours (LOL)! I managed to get all of these done:

Pretrip stop at the post office to drop off some things
1. Power shopping at Walmart! In and out with $200 of groceries in less than 30 minutes and that was without ANY help from either of the girls and I had forgotten my list! Good thing I just made it last night so it was fresh on my mind.
2. Stopped at the bank. I cleaned out the car awhile ago and wouldn’t you know I didn’t have a single pen in the car.. ugh.. that meant an extra 75 seconds in line at the bank while I had to wait for them to send me a pen. Fortunately, I picked the fast moving line today! YIPPEE!!
3. Dropped off some returns at Target and picked up some more things I had seen on clearance the other day and we decided we liked them and wanted more…75% off so it was time to stock up on body wash and deoderant! I LOVE Target sales!
4. Picked up pizza for our dinner and picked up one for Amanda and her friends for tonight
5. Stopped at the library! Can you believe I now have *SIX* books checked out! That’s DEFINITELY a record.
6. Filled up with gas.
7. Stopped at K-Mart to get the free bag of candy I had a coupon for and picked up some candy that Em needs for her youth group’s service project this weekend.
8. Met Amanda to drop off the pizza, some coupons for she and her friend to get free candy at K-Mart, and gave her some dish soap she asked me to pickup for her while I was at Walmart.
9. Stopped at Lowe’s to pick up the special order light switch cover that just came in…. FINALLY it’s the right one. They ordered the wrong one the last time.
10. Stopped at the lighting store to pick up a part for the light and wouldn’t you know it’s the wrong part.
11. Stopped at Michael’s to get 2 more things I need for the scrapbooking convention.
12. Stopped at the local grocery store for some flour since Em is making cookies and we’re out.

The lady at the grocery store knew our account # and said Tim had just been there a little while before.

Boys unloaded groceries while I started to make lasagne for tomorrow night and while I threw the pizza in for tonight. Em worked on the cookies and the filling for the lasagne. We realized I didn’t buy enough butter so Tim rushed to the store before they closed – 5 minutes to spare. YEP.. the lady just laughed to see him again and only 20 minutes after I had just been there (LOL). Em made the RESTAURANT size batch of chocolate chip cookies so now we have 2 one gallon freezer bags full of dough balls for the upcoming holiday season.

I finished the pan of lasagne for tomorrow night, plus another pan for next weekend for the family to have while I’m gone, and 3 individual pans to give to Amanda tomorrow night. While Em and I finished all of this cooking and baking the boys and Tim painted Em’s bedroom (Amanda’s old room.. it’s been a month.. she’s not coming back so it’s time…. snifff… .snifff..)

I emailed Emily in FL with some questions about which Mineral Makeup I need to get next. She emailed me back at 10:30 to say she had just gotten home (12:30 her time) so I called her and we chatted for 45 minutes or so…. Tim and Josh are still painting. Em and Nathan are reading. I’m working on vacation plans, co-op work, and now the blog. We should all be ready for bed shortly after midnight.

Tomorrow is a busy day. Em’s youth group has a service project from 10:00 – 2:00. Tim will drop her off while I bake chocolate pies, make salad and bread, etc for dinner tomorrow night. We’re having company after church. We need to be to church by 3:45 since we play tomorrow. I will head down to the office to do our bookwork after I finish the baking and then head to town to pick Em up by 2:00… do a few more errands that I didn’t have time to do today. Then… after church we’ll call our friends to tell them we’re headed home and meet them here. If everything goes off without any incidents the oven will have come on and shut off at the right times and dinner wil be ready when we get home! Amanda and a friend are coming out as well as a friend of Emily’s who is staying the night. WHEW.. then back to church early Sun a.m. another service project for Em’s youth group Sunday night.

Monday: Early a.m. ortho appt BEFORE co-op as if going to town in time for co-op isn’t early enough (LOL)! Choir after co-op. Women’s event that night if I can find someone to take the boys home and IF I think I can stay awake to drive home. If not, I’ll have to skip this one.

Tuesday: school and packing.. make some page kits, etc. Prayer meeting that night.. again I may not be able to go if I don’t have enough of my “work” done yet.

Wed: The boys want to go get some candy.. .we’ll see…. last minute packing (as if I think I’ll even have time to start any packing before it’s time to do last minute packing)….

Sometime before TH a.m. at 4:30 I need to do the quarterly reports, fix a payroll I messed up earlier and resend it, and prepare next Fri’s payroll checks since I’m leaving on TH. WHEW…..

Somewhere in there I’ll have a few catnaps. Poor Lisa won’t have anyone to talk to on the flight because I’m notorious for falling asleep before we even take off and not waking up for several hours…. (LOL)…. most of the time I hardly even know we took off until it’s time to land!

Well.. there you go. At least you know we’re still alive and well.

Dorothy, you didn’t need to make out your Christmas cards you only had to think about going to buy some.. and if you just send a photo you don’t even need the card so maybe you’re good? Just thought I’d throw that in there for you. I didn’t even look to see what we were supposed to do yesterday or today.. but I did do a few Christmas things today:

While at Target I picked up the thing that Emily wants to get Amanda (of course I can’t say what it is since she reads the blog, but she’ll love it since it’s from Target). While at Walmart I noticed the pie crusts were .48 cents off PER box PLUS they had a $1.00 off coupon if you buy 2 boxes. Anyone IRL who knows me can guess that I probably bought a dozen or so give or take a few… I won’t admit to how many, but I do make a lot of pies during the holidays and no I don’t make them from scratch. I tried scratch crusts a zillion times… had a contest one (against myself) and everyone’s favorite crust was the Pillsbury… so there you have it.. and if you want to get a jump start on the holidays BUY THEM NOW! I remembered these coupons and sale last year and was glad to see them. I also bought all of the making for 2 of the salads that I know I’ll make for Thanksgiving and Christmas! WHOO HOO! The makings are already in the freezer or in the cupboard.

so.. Dorothy.. really even if you just THOUGHT of something you need to do for Christmas you’re good!