Visiting the folks

In NY this week with Nana and PopPop and the girls. Got to see some friends and just hang out. Nana is spoiling the girls and they are enjoying it. Looking forward to the beach. Now we just have to sing: rain, rain, go away!

Got a job!

As I was packing for our vacation, I got a phone call with the offer for a part time job as a technical writer / editor! It won't ever be more than 10 hours a week, and I can do it at home on my own time. Hooray for me!

Bloggerjeanne is going on vacation

Off to NY to spend time with the folks, and then the beach in NJ with family. Rene will join me and the girls for the week at the beach. Rene just sent this email to a friend, and I thought it was funny, so here is an edited version:

Summer is going alright here. It is expected to be warm the next 2 days, with highs in the mid 90's. High humidity, but not REALLY high. Jeanne had her birthday yesterday. Can you believe it that she is 29 already??? Seems like only yesterday that she was 19!

She leaves for New York tomorow with the girls. I join her next week; one whole week of bachelor-hood. Who-hoo!

I had a temper tantrum last week; the tree people cut down some trees for us, broke a water pipe (of course they wouldn't pay for the repairs), a bunch of sprinkler heads, etc. Then my tractor died (still isin the shop) and I was attacked by a swarm of killer mosquitoes while I was trying to deal with everything. Of course the painter's mother died (I thought she died a few months ago when they failed to show up for another job?), and his assistant broke his back, so my door never got painted. Still isn't. Might happen any day now. "Hard to say". Did I mention that we have a hard time finding and keeping healthy tradespeople? We do. We must be jinxed. I secretly envy renters.

Erin is enjoying living here more. She opened the door on Saturday and was greeted by a very calm looking turtle waiting for her. Yup, we have armadillos, snakes, turtles, gators, and weird looking lizards. Never had wildlife like this in Canada! She has been taking swimming lessons here. She actually got on an diving board! Of course, I should add that she promptly walked off muttering "no way".

We have a REALLY big vegetable garden here, which is very fortunate as the previous owners provided little food for the rabitts and leaf-footed bugs. What? Never heard of leaf-footed bugs? Me neither, but they adore tomatoes. They have these little group gatherings on tomatoes where they suck 'em dry one at a time. Apparently nature has equiped them really well for survival. They taste so bad that even lizards won't eat them.

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday dear me,
Happy birthday to me!

I love letter K

This morning, Lauren said to me, "I love letter K".

I can't say that I love letter K, but it is a useful letter.

Blah day

The neighbors are gone, no kids to come play.
The sun is not out, so no pool today.
The tree men are here and they cut down some lumber.
But they drove over a waterpipe,
So we're waiting on the plumber.

Rene versus the ivy

On this very hot weekend, for some reason Rene decided to tackly the ivy that had slowly been taking over the back yard. My verdict: Rene won! Although Rene might not think so as he is tired and achy today. :( On top of that his eye is still puffy from getting sunscreen in it. Erin and Lauren had the same thing happen. We're not using that sunscreen on our faces any more.

I know the battle of the ivy is not over yet, but for now, it looks like we have a winner.

Lauren as a punk rocker

Actually, it's just her post-nap "do". We love Lauren and her crazy hair.

Our luck continues

Our luck with deliveries, repairs, contractors continues. We had
ordered a bedroom set for Erin. I asked if I could get the bed
without the footboard. Salesperson says, let me check. She checks.
Yes I can get the bed without the footboard.

Bed gets delivered. Wrong bed frame. They tell me, "What you need is
a 99, m'am." I call and tell them I need a 99.

99 arrives next day. They install it. Legs don't come all the way to
the end so bed is all wobbly and unstable. They'll send a technician.

Technician arriives. He says they don't have the right bedframe and
advises I just go to some bed store and buy a metal bedframe and screw
it to the headboard.

Why do these guys always tell you that you need a 99 when a 99 is not
what you need?

(Note, I tried to post this last night but blogger was down).

A posting a day!

It's been brought to my attention that my blog posting has been sparse lately. It's summer in the south! Everything moves more slowly in the south. Including me.

Here's some random updates:

Erin's swimming is progressing nicely. She can put her head in the water and swim a few feet to me. Her swim teacher called her "fearless" which was never a word we would have used to describe Erin. But peer pressure is working in our favor. Erin sees her friends swim and she really wants to swim too.

Erin got a new bed and bedroom furniture yesterday. She's quite excited to have a big bed. We moved the toddler bed to Lauren's room, but she prefers to sleep in her crib for now.

Rene did an excellent job of cleaning up the vegetable garden this weekend. It looks nice. But now we have some nasty bugs on our tomatoes. Looks like we may not be able to eat our tomatoes. :( Erin is eating the sweet peas off the vine, though. We've got enough mint to make mint juleps for the entire south!

Daisy has surpassed Erin in weight.

I'm now the treasurer and webmom for the mom's club. This after being the chairperson of the nominating committee. I could not persuade anyone else to be treasurer. :(

Thanks to Rene, we can now fit both cars in the two-car garage! Whoo hoo!

Looking forward to our trip to NY to visit Nana and PopPop and the beach in NJ with the family in a few weeks.

OK, enough, or I will have nothing to post in following days.