Dave and I took a splurge and got a small fire pit for the back
porch. There's no shortage of sticks and branches in the yard to burn
up right now. I can't wait to use it this fall and teach the boys to
roast marshmallows!
Throw everything you DON’T want the packers to move into one room, close/lock/put a tape “X” over the door and make it the “Do Not Pack” room. In this case, you’re looking at Timmy’s room, emptied of his belongings. Pardon the mess, today we were trying to keep one step ahead of the packers, coming up with additional things that we needed to stash in that room.
Once the movers are through, we will redistribute what’s in this room a little better. We’re staying in our house for 9 days until closing…then we’ll stay in a hotel for 4 days. By the way, everything in this room has to fit into our Odyssey, Prius, and the car top carriers for both vehicles…plus space for the boys and the dog. I have a U-Haul small trailer reserved just in case we’re WAY overboard, but I don’t think we will be.
PS: Ever heard of Freecycle? It’s my new best friend for getting rid of stuff without having to load it all into the car. I’ve signed up for both Wake County, NC’s and Sarpy County, NE’s. This past weekend someone Freecycled a new X-Box!!!! I’ll be offering up a lot of stuff once the movers are done here. Some of it is on Craig’s List right now, but not going anywhere.
The current battery count. This takes care of all the boys’ toys.
This weekend I’ll take care of the remote controls and spare
flashlights.
I’ve had to upgrade to a larger storage container.
I don’t consider myself an extremely proud person. I’m proud of my boys, my husband, even my well-behaved puppy dog, but I don’t often get too proud of myself.
A couple weeks ago, I know, I was proud of my clean house (which isn’t that clean anymore)!
Here’s something else I’m pretty proud of: Maryann’s Birthday Cake! Click on the photo for the step-by-step in how I did this.
What Maryann probably didn’t realize was all the brainstorms her husband and I went through: a cemetary, the USS Enterprise, flowers, and a red velvet Darth Vader cake had crossed our minds.
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| From 2008 05 10 Ma… |
I guess it was after spending $35 for Timmy’s “Thomas the Tank Engine” 1st birthday cake that I felt that I could decorate my own cakes for a fraction of the cost, all the while doing something special for my boys and for friends. So for my birthday in 2006 I asked for cake decorating lessons at the local A.C. Moore craft store.
The class was fun and I learned SO MUCH! See more of my hand-decorated cakes here.
Chef Duff Goldman I am not, but I still have fun!
This show is SO twisted…it’s like a car wreck on I-95…you can’t help but watch!
As most of my loyal readers know, the Vollmer family has a move coming up. Dave has orders to Offutt AFB, Nebraska, and this week he got the first batch of paperwork verifying things. He had to select what date we want to leave North Carolina…and that resulted in a lot of discussion. It turns out the public schools in Bellevue, NE start on AUGUST 12th!
What???
Who wants to start school that early??? I remember being flabbergasted at how early the kids started in Brevard County, FL, when Dave and I were stationed at Patrick AFB.
Well, for some reason, it’s VERY important to me that if Jake has a chance to start school on the first day of school, he does so. After all, we’re talking about Kindergarten — the most important day of his life…
…well, thus far.
The point is, Jake will have enough other things to worry about with our move…having to single him out as the “new kid” a week after Kindergarten starts? I don’t think that’s cool.
So I convinced Dave to put “August 7th” as the date we’re leaving NC. Yes, it’ll be a fast trip to NE, but for Jake, I think if we can get him into the school routine as soon as he arrives, things will be good for him. The sooner he’ll make friends, establish a routine, and he won’t have to sit around bored while the furniture is being delivered.
Also, the upcoming move has had me looking at everything in my house so I can mentally label it “Should it stay or should it go?” Many things are illegal for the movers to take: candles, lightbulbs, liquids of any kind. Which means if we really want to take it along, we have to find room in our van or car.
This weekend I took a look under my bathroom sink and saw so many Bath and Body Works, Body Shop, and other pretty-smelling lotions, eaus, and body splashes. I thought to myself, “I can’t take all of it with me.”
Infant toys, magazines, clothes that are too small/out of style, pantry foods that I bought then changed my mind about preparing: need to get it squared away before July!
Not to sound like Jerry Seinfeld, but it’s a topic of conversation Dave and I have every year. Why do we need to have a New Year’s Resolution? I think Dave put it right yesterday during the Dick Clark New Year’s show when this girl was going thru the crowds asking everyone’s resolutions:
“If I think I need to improve something about myself, I’ll start improving immediately and not wait till January 1st.”
Of course, one of things we always do on Jan. 2nd is start our Annual Vollmer Diet Attempt. We’re coming up on the 13th Annual Vollmer Diet Attempt tomorrow! Yep — lose 10 pounds by Feb. 1st! Whoo hoo, the enthusiasm is there, can’t you tell???
So…after all this time of enjoying other peoples’ blogs, Dave (my Weather Warrior husband) convinced me that setting up my own blog might be long overdue. After all, I’ve suggested other people start blogs, I’ve incessantly called Dave over to look at other people’s blogs, my sister has a really cool one (a plug for my sister: Living in the Material World!), etc.
Actually Dave put it this way: “You’re always sitting at that thing [the computer], I’m sure you have lots of things to put in a blog!”.
He’s right…I spend a LOT of time at the computer, and the efforts I’ve put into the wireless networking and file sharing in the house were all just so that I can continue to e-mail friends and surf the web while still being a decent mother. This meant not spending all my time in the computer room, instead putting our very old (circa 2000) laptop in the kitchen.
See on the counter on the left side of the picture? That’s the laptop, taking up valuable food preparation space.
Sometimes it’s good — many of the other neighborhood Moms will send out “Let’s go to the park” e-mails which I can receive quickly, sometimes it’s bad — letting the pasta overcook because I’m IMing a friend!
My point is: I did it — I set up a real blog, and my next task is to somehow link my Picasa albums so that I don’t have to duplicate efforts.
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