This is how a 15 year old entertains oneself before going to school on a Friday.
(Disclaimer: She did have a denim jacket over that strappy (less) little dress. Lawman took her to school so if he's willing to let her walk out the door, I am too because I'm a lot more forgiving than he is!)
It happens every year. It seems that we labor on Labor Day unless we leave town. This year was no different.
I had made a vow to myself to not work from a list this weekend. I'm a list maker by nature so this was a big step for me. Rachel prompted me to get rid of the list. I managed to be able to do this for Friday/Saturday/Sunday. It allowed time for fun.
We went to a pep rally on Friday night. Saturday I took the girls to the mall for new jeans and then we spent 2 hours poolside with friends. Sunday we spent the day at a family reunion (more on that with a later post).
I will admit that it was fun but by the time Monday arrived I felt like I hadn't accomplished anything. And yes, I realize that time with my girls is something. A big something. And that I shouldn't feel like I always have to be doing. (I think that's a family trait; my youngest brother and our mother are the same way.)
My only option was to labor on Labor Day. And labor I did.
Lawman and I have opposite schedules for the most part so we took advantage of our being together for half of the day yesterday and labored. In the yard. We trimmed bushes, cleaned out flower beds, cut back tree limbs. It was labor. No question about it.
But I didn't stop there.
I made a big lunch in honor of the holiday -- grilled burgers, brats, and a potato & carrot casserole. I also had Slow Cooker Lemon Chicken going in the crock-pot for dinner (which no one ate because we were still full from that big, late lunch). I made homemade salsa. So much so that I've instructed the family that tortilla chips and salsa will be the snack of choice this week.
Lawman went to work at 3:00 and I was exhausted by that time. I showered, put on my comfy clothes and found my favorite spot on the couch with remote in hand and a pile of recipes to sort through. I'm not sure I moved until it was time for bed.
Once-in-a-while I am surprised by my oldest daughter. Highlights from Wednesday --
She popped a new CD in the car for our listening pleasure; Adele19. Very artsy. A nice change of pace from the top 40 hits.
Admitting that shedidn't really need anything but supplies for back-to-school.
A revision to that statement followed only moments later. "Ok, maybe a complete outfit for the first day." She is 15 you know.
Reading again. This girl used to read the back of the cereal box at breakfast. She took a book with her when we went grocery shopping. She read 5 books during the month of July, none of which had fewer than 400 pages.
This may be old news to some of you but that's the way I've been operating this summer.... behind on everything.
Last night I was tired. So tired that I wanted to do a lot of nothing. I laid myself right down on the couch, closed my eyes and before I knew what hit me, I was asleep. Then one of the girls came in and announced she was going to have a piece of cherry pie. I said I'd like to have one too, could she get it for me? Her response was, "well then you better get up and get in here if you want any pie." Hello? How many times have I gotten pie for you? How about sharin' the love here? So I got up and got my own pie.
Then we sat down on the couch to find something worthwhile to watch. There's not much to pick from in the summer. I suggested the National Spelling Bee. The girls didn't think that sounded appealing as "the spellers are all nerds." (Hey, be careful there. I was in the school and county spelling bee several times as a kid.) The youngest suggested American Gladiators. Yuk. Double-yuk. I convinced them we could watch the spelling bee and switch to the gladiators (yuk) on commercials. Ok, that worked.
I'm a good speller. I read a lot. I do word puzzles. But where do they get these words for the spelling bee? I'd never heard of them before. I couldn't pronounce them. What's their origin? Hello? Is that really necessary? For fun these kids read the dictionary. One gal had read it seven times. 7 times. And it was F.U.N. Are you kidding? The same gal had studied multiple languages - - Greek, Latin, Spanish. How can a 12 year old be fluent in multiple languages and we've got workers at Taco Bell that can't even speak English? There's something wrong here but that's another post.
The funniest part of what we saw was a young boy was asked to spell NUMNAH. The look on his face and the reaction of the audience were great. Yeah, you know what they thought they heard. NUMNUT. Talk about a sigh of relief when he realized NUMNUT wasn't actually the word.
What's a numnah? A cloth or fabric that is placed between a horse and it's saddle.
Wasn't that a children's book? Last night it is what was going on in our house rather than me enjoying the REM stage of sleep.
I was exhausted last night. Everyone was in bed and lights out by 9:40. I can't tell you how good my bed felt. I know I was sound asleep within a nano-second. So sound asleep that I didn't even hear the garage door when Lawman came home from work.
Then all that hard work to get to bed early went straight down the toilet.
3:30 Bump in the night ~ Kitty was distraught by another cat on our deck.
4:15 Bump in the night ~ Kitty found Lawman's exercise band and decided to get a little early morning workout in.
4:30 Bump in the night ~ Playtime. Kitty discovered a long, lost, noisy toy.
4:45 Another bump in the night ~ Kitty was pestering Lawman. Lawman hurled him from the bed and said, "We'll be having shish-ka-bobs for dinner tonight." How can he come up with such a funny at this hour? I got the giggles and couldn't hardly get settled down to go back to sleep.
5:15 Yet another bump in the night ~ Not only did kitty exercise but he had a tasty little rubberband snack. Anyone with a cat knows what this leads to.
5:30 Alarm sounds ~ hit snooze.
5:40 Alarm sounds ~ hit snooze. Repeat until 6:10 when I finally had to drag myself from bed.
Uh, no. Oil & Water don't mix. Somedays we don't either. Me and Blonde 2.
Today was one of those days and I feel terrible about it. We had a 'situation' this morning and I didn't handle it well (although let me just say that in my opinion there was no reason for a 'situation' to begin with). This has lead me to question why it is that hormonal teenage girls have peri-menopausal mothers? Kind of like oil & water, huh?
Law-Man read my post titled, "What if the Hokey Pokey is all it's about?". He said, "Well that's great honey but don't you think you should talk about the hokey pokey?" What was he looking for, a hokey pokey history lesson? A YouTube video of me doing that silly dance? You can forget that!
Well, beings I'm a law-abidin' wife, I googled the history of the Hokey Pokey. I'm tellin' you, research used to be much more time consuming. According to Wikpedia here's a brief synopsis of the HP's history.
Known as the Hokey Pokey, it became popular in the USA in the 1950s. Larry LaPrise, Charles Macak and Tafit Baker were granted the copyright for the song in 1950. According to popular legend they created this novelty dance in 1949 as entertainment for the ski crowd at Idaho's Sun Valley resort. However, as the dance was wildly popular with American servicemen and Britons during World War II, this date cannot be correct.
What? Entertained the ski crowd? Are you kidding me? The costumes must have been amazing (maybe something Brittany-esque?). Did the dancers contort their bodies as they were throwing their right arm in? Did those wild movements cause wardrobe malfunctions? Wow, they must have been good. Maybe Law-Man needs to take a trip to Sun Valley for a little Hokey-Pokey R&R.
