Amy J. Bennett

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Roles. I had to list them all today for a training exercise at work. Balancing Family and Work, it was entitled. What roles do you have and what responsibilities do each carry, it inquired. The worksheet I was given had half the required slots that I needed to list them all. Sure some of them don’t have daily responsibilities and others need hourly attention while still others, might only need monthly attention. But still, I’m balancing a lot of roles. The training suggested I also list my values and priorities and what I’m doing to show that the things I say are priorities really are. I’ll tell you, as I sat in my gray cubicle 35 miles away from my home where my girls were playing all their after-school activities, the task was daunting. If there haven’t been enough occassions lately that have made me want to throw my laptop in the nearest trash can and run straight home to my babies, I’ll tell you that topped them all.

We’ve had my parents’ pool for the last several years.  They moved to a new house and even though the pool was already over 10 years old, none of us could let it go.  So it’s hobbling along here.  We’ve had holes, bought new liners (yes, liners), gotten splinters on the old deck, bought a new water pump, and brush, and net, and floats and more chemicals that I care to remember.

It’s a lot of work.

But when it’s a Carolina 101 in mid-July you just can’t beat having a pool steps away. So this year’s work has begun.  Last night we took off the now disintegrated cover, which needs added to the to-buy list this year.

This is what we started with.  So green it was almost black.  Lots of algae, some bugs and lots of pieces of the pool cover.

Less than 24 hours later, we’ve gotten this far.

I consider it a win when we can see the bottom.  I’m expecting to be able to swim somewhere between now and oh, August.

I recently discovered Pinterest. I SO wish I would have signed up before we did our addition. It would have been the perfect tool to gather all my design ideas. In any case, I signed up just when I was looking for a way to use my ever increasing jar collection. There’s something about a jar that I love. I just can not throw it away or even throw it in the recycling bin. I just love to have them around. The problem is I’m not crafty enough to figure out what to do with them other than store them in all my cabinets. Thank goodness for crafty bloggers and uh, Pinterest-ers. Make sure to follow the links below the photos to get to more pictures and many times, directions.

 

 

 

Source: farmhouseandchickens.tumblr.com via Amy on Pinterest

 

Source: storageandglee.blogspot.com via Amy on Pinterest

 

Source: designspongeonline.com via Amy on Pinterest

 

Source: theblissfullycontentlife.blogspot.com via Amy on Pinterest

 

Source: alwayswithbutter.blogspot.com via Amy on Pinterest

 

Source: google.com via Amy on Pinterest

 

Source: hiphiphoorayblog.com via Amy on Pinterest

 

Source: yourhomebasedparties.com via Amy on Pinterest

 

Source: blogs.babble.com via Amy on Pinterest

 

Source: bakerella.com via Amy on Pinterest

 

Source: distantbloggers.tumblr.com via Amy on Pinterest

I know technically that’s more than 10 but I’m counting all the food in a jar as one 🙂

I think my favorite is the jars with the straw.  Or that caramel sauce.  Yum!  What’s yours?

Find other Top Ten Tuesday posts over at ohAmanda.com

It’s official!  The shower is DONE!

 

Love how it really finished that side of the room off.  It’ll be fantastic when the cabinet and mirrors are in!

Thursday evening and into Friday evening we were in total yard sale mode.  Ok *I* was in total yard sale mode.  With everyone changing rooms around here as well as the season change, it was time to haul a load of stuff out of here!  I have a love/hate relationship with yard sales.  It all sounds so romantical (and profitable) until you have to organize, price and move everything and then wake up at 5:30 am just so you can haggle with people about 50 cents just so your total can be $63.75 instead of $63.25.  Oh but, give it 6 months and it’s a little bit like childbirth…you forget all the pain and can’t wait to do it again!

Actually, ours turned out well this weekend.  We had a beautiful Saturday morning.  People came steadily until after noon and everyone was on their best behavior.  To boot, we made $177 as well as my parents raking in a few hundred.  I was exhausted afterwards though and since the girls were still off watching their cousin’s skate competition, I crashed at home.

We managed to gather the troops though by dinner time and head out to the local Italian festival around the corner the kids had been begging to go to.  We managed to fit in some rides and eat some yummy Italian food.

Sunday was church and then we were off to Scott’s second home, the local bike shop Tailwind Cycles for their year anniversary celebration.  The kids had a blast playing and of course Scott was in his prime around all his cycling buddies.

(see if you can spot all four of us in that bounce house pic)

Last night we did a whole lot of nothing.  Just family time.  The girls and I worked on a craft I had bought them at Michael’s last week as back up for Heather while we were at the POTC movie.  “It’s like jewel city!” ~ Lexi

Scott played his game and did some small things left from the addition.  I finished up the night by working on our adoption package a little more.  Turns out I’m a horrible paper organizer.  OK, so we all knew that.  But in any case, I have no idea where Lexi’s birth certificate, mine, if I ever had it, is and our marriage license was lost a long time ago in a move.  I had to order each from a different state.  But I loved seeing this in the reason we’d be needing them:

 

 

 

The bad news is this delays turning it in a week or two.   I have to wait on these and I realized my doctor’s appointment was scheduled at the exact same time as Lexi’s Kindergarten graduation so I’m rescheduled a week later.  It will be soon though!

As for an update on the addition, the shower glass is being installed today.  The same guys are measuring for the mirror today, to be installed hopefully later this week.  The cabinets were supposed to show up today. We are *this close* to being done.

This week is the girls’ last full week of school.  All four of us are off on Monday so I’m really looking forward to getting through this week and enjoying a long weekend together!

If you have ever felt like your forehead morphs into an oily mess each day, please read on. If not, please be assured I have beautiful, flawless skin like you and the rest of this is all a lie.

So yes, I have an oily T-zone. And it’s not fun. But I’ve found a solution–literally.

When I did my first Mary Kay order a few weeks ago I tagged on a tube of their Oil Mattifier after one of my friends ordered it saying she had heard good things about it. So glad I tried it! I just rub a small amount on my forehead just after my moisturizer and shazam! No oil ALL DAY. The first day I used it I kept looking in the mirror all evening waiting, waiting for the shine and it never showed. If it does happen to show up, you can just rub some right on top of your foundation. But honestly, the stuff is so good I haven’t found a need to do that.

This is no sales gimmick, just an honest review that I think will help but I can order the product if you want to try it out. Mary Kay has a 100% guarantee so if it doesn’t work, you can return it with no cost you (or me!).