What???

How can today be the last day of August??? I know the first weekend in June I said that I would be busy all the way until now but I really thought the summer wouldn't have moved this fast.  I think we went to the pool 3 times this summer, last summer we went almost every weekend.  Now on the upside we have a million things that we did do and we still have gone to the zoo once a month since April, so that's awesome.  After this weekend summer will be over and hopefully i will regain some sanity and relaxation.  Then hopefully I will be able to post pictures of our fun summer. 

Cooking

I hate doing it.
I don't have patients for it.
I'm not that good at it.

But when I do make something yummy I enjoy it.  Tonight it was Salmon on the grill with barbecue rub covered in a honey glaze.  It was yummy

First day of School

Children are not the only ones starting school this week.  I had a grad student start with me today making me the teacher for the next 10 weeks.  BOO.  I love taking students, it is really an eye opener and lets me know what I need to freshen up on and makes me be an even better therapist.  I have to set good examples, however, I am a fly by the seat of my pants sort of therapist that plans a session after it has already begun.  Now I will need to do so before I start and have all of my materials gathered and organized.  Plus we also started another full time SLP today which means I have to share all of my materials and my space.  Wish me luck.  The next 2-3 weeks will be difficult, the last 2-3 of my 10 weeks will be a piece of cake. 

What I did this weekend.

I should have taken before and after pictures, however, I was just too ashamed about what the before looked like.  As far as the after picture is concerned, I'm too sleepy to do that right now.  So let me just tell you.  First of in three weeks time we will be participating in a community garage sale.  BJ and I spent a while last week starting to organize things around the house.  On Saturday night we spent from 5 until 11:30 moving things, deciding to get things out of the house, and organizing.  We now have half of our old Crap room in the garage ready for pricing and organizing for the garage sale and a semi-craft room upstairs.  Then we went through our third closet and emptied out the random stuff in there into the loft.  Now we need to figure out how to organize our billion rolls of wrapping paper, ribbons, tissue paper, bags and all that other stuff used to gift wrap.  Then we spent most of Sunday cleaning and let me just tell you how lovely half of our house looks.  Maybe the rest of the week we will get to the rest of the house. 

Mission for next weekend: Sort, and Price all the stuff for the garage sale.  Therefore, if you have some free time come on down and join in the fun.

Community Watch

For those of you that don't live in our neighborhood I'll get you up to speed on things that happen around her.  We are a townhouse in the middle of a bunch of homes.  Things happen, just like in all neighborhoods.  Last year we had a drug bust in November after an entire summer of stake outs in front of our house.  This whole summer has been real quiet, not a lot of cop activity going on.  However, after dinner today we noticed a weird car parked behind our house on the construction road.  Hmmmm, more drug activity?  What's going on? What do we do?  Call the cops!! Duh.  Out came the cops and it was all good.  They were there for legal reasons and it was all good.  Then the cop got to come to our house and let us know.  But just an FYI: if you are parked on a road behind my house that is not really a road I will call the cops on you just to make sure your not up to no good. 

Dinner

Was delicious.  BJ is the creative one in our family from art to building and somewhere in there cooking.  On Monday and Wednesday I work late and get home even later.  So on those nights I leave out meat or a box of something.  Around 6:15 B.J. will call me at work and ask me what is for dinner.  I always say ??? By the time I get home, there is some thing yummy on the table. 

Today, I put out chicken.  BJ decided we were going to have pizza.  So he made the crust, sprayed it with olive oil, put the chicken on it, and covered it in tomatoes from our yard.  It was so yummy.  I like the nights when I come home to this.  It makes me smile.

Guess What?

The housing market is horrible.  I just wanted to let you all know in case you have been living under a rock over the past few years.  However, if you live under a rock, it probably couldn't depreciate in value.  I mean it was probably dirt cheep.  Get it "dirt" because it's covered in dirt.  HAHA so funny.

Anyway, BJ and I tried to refinance our house but we knew we had lost value in our home because we built when the housing market was at it's peak.  Right after we closed on the house the market crashed and has continued over the past 4 years.  Well today we found out just exactly how large the crash was.  We lost $65,000 from then until now.  So refinancing is out.  Unless, as the mortgage guy said, we could bring 12,000 to the closing.  Yeah if we had that kind of money we wouldn't be looking to refi.  Just awesome. 

Daddy too.

Our bedtime routine with Elijah veries occasionally but the end of the routine is always the same.  However we get to the point we still get there and here is what it looks like from that point on. 

Elijah turns on his music

I turn off his bedroom light

We both turn on his night light

Elijah gets his blue blankie out of his bed

I pick up Elijah and walk to the quilt on his floor.

We dance for about 1 minute

During that time Elijah tries to stick his fingers in my mouth and we give each others close to a hundred kisses.

I ask Elijah if he is ready for bed.

Elijah says no.

I ask Elijah if he wants water

Elijah says yeah.

I place Elijah in his crib and go get a bit of water.

I give Elijah water.

He holds the dixi cup in his teeth to give it back to me.

I take the cup

Elijah lays down after making sure Mambo is covered in his special blankie.

I have to cover Elijah with his special blankie

Elijah tells me I have to share it with his polar bear

I pat Elijah on his back and tell him good night.

I leave.

Elijah calls me back after about 10 seconds.

I look at Elijah

He he points at me and says "Go to bed"

I tell him yup, I'm going to bed.

He lays back down and says Daddy too.

Yup Daddy is going to bed too.

Then were done.  He goes to sleep and we do it all again the next night.  Just like clock work.  I love it.

Oh Rescue

What are we going to do with you?  The poor animal woke us up for the first time in quite awhile so she could let us know she was about to vomit on the carpet.  I then spent the next couple of minutes chasing her trying to convince her that the tile is the best place for that.  Then having to clean it up, wait, BJ had to clean it up.  Then she refuses to eat her medicine, then we bathe her and we find a rash on her skin.  Awesome.  We will be monitoring her skin and still trying to shove those pills down her throat. 

I just ask that Rescue, you stay healthy and just hang out for a while.  We need this right now.  Okay?

Happy Anniversery

We hit our 5th anniversary this past weekend.  We typically spend our anniversary watching our wedding video, and talking about if this is where we saw ourselves in 1997.  It usually isn't but we haven't yet regretted any of our decisions at this point.  But I'm still happy and it really doesn't seem like 5 years.  However, apparently we are getting old because we are having a hard time remembering what we have done over the past 5 years.  So for the sake of my fleeting memory, we had dinner with Sara and Dan on Friday.  On Saturday we dropped Elijah off with Grandma and we headed to a hotel to spend the night and eat the cheapest pizza we could find.  On Sunday we enjoyed a free buffet complements of my mom and Sonny's wonderful bidding at an auction.  It was nice, it was relaxing, and it was cheep. 

Old Fashion

Way back before there was technology there was a barter system.  You know, I'll give you a goat from my farm for 20 ears of corn.  Oh that's a good idea.  I'll take 5 of those ears of corn and trade them for a new pair of shoes.  I like that plan.  So I am willing to give 50 pound bags of sugar and speech therapy to anyone willing to fix B.J.'s car or treat my dogs UTI.  Anyone?  Anyone?  Right we need to just cross our fingers and hope we hit the lottery.  If we don't it will just be a couple more months and we will get back in a good place.  On a nice positive side is that my pants are all fitting better. 

And how in the world does a dog get a UTI? 

If I got money...

For every person I got to start on My Fitness Pal I would be flipping rich.  I feel like ever since I started my fantastic diet plan (food, not money) I have gotten about 20 other people hooked.  That's how much I like it.  I tell everyone about it.  It's not a diet, it's just about being smart.  However, I am a bit annoyed because BJ signed up last night and has almost 2x more calories than me.  Stupid boy, stupid being taller than me, stupid having to have more weight than me to be healthy.  Oh well, I might not be rich, but at least everyone I love will be supper healthy.

Diet Plan

So my diet is going great, however, we started a new diet plan today.  Unfortunately, it is a financial diet plan.  Not nearly as much fun as a real diet plan.  We have a lot of medical bills that have come due at the same time as every thing else.  We also started putting money into my new 401K at work which means I'm bringing home less than I was 6 months ago.  Well I would like that little bit of money back.  So for the next 60 or 90 days the only things we can buy are gas, food, bills, and dog expenses.  (Yesterday Rescue passed a kidney stone but seems fine now, so I won't bring her into the vet.)  So for the next several months we will be getting creative with our lives, learning to cook again, and taking full advantage of things that have been already paid for (like the zoo) and enjoying each other's company.

That sounds fun doesn't it...