Amy J. Bennett

I have a rude awakening (literally) coming in just five days when Emma starts school. Right now, I’m lucky to get out of bed at 8:30, get the kids some breakfast, exercise (just in the past week) and log into work by 9. During school last year, we got up about 8, got ready for school at 9. I was back home just a few minutes after 9 to start work.  During school, I would take my lunch break to go get them and then I’d be done for the day at 4.

Emma has to be at school by 7:45 AM on Wednesday.

This is going to be quite the adjustment.  Since the summer, the kids have been waiting until 10 to go to bed.  Just in the past week or two, I moved it to 9 which really turns out to 9:30.  I have been going to bed earlier as I had been waiting until midnight most of the summer.  I’ve been trying to warn them they are going to have an earlier bedtime, probably 8:30 next week.

And between the two girls going to school at two totally different times, it messes with my work schedule a bit. I’m going to have to take Emma to school, and if I choose to do early stay for Lexi, go straight to drop Lexi off at 8 in the next town, pick Lexi up at lunchtime and then Emma at 2:45.  So the days Scott has to work are going to be FUN.

I talked to my manager today and had a really good conversation about my schedule. I was trying to warn her I’d be offline a few times a week in the afternoon to get Emma and my hours were probably going to shift earlier since I’ll be back at home by 8:15.  She was really, really good about it and said that’s the whole reason I’m part-time and they don’t expect me to be at their beck and call at all business hours.  I felt a lot better about that as that has even worried me before.  She did ask that I come up with “Amy hours” so they would know good times to schedule meetings that I need to be included.  I feel kind of bad that people have to schedule things around me but thankfully I don’t have to attend nearly as many meetings as others.

Not sure how it will shake out but I’m looking for some big adjustments (and a big gas bill) starting next week for sure.

OK, I know. You’re already tired of the videos. But this one cracked me up. This kind of turned into something I didn’t expect.
First, I was going to show you my house..what it looks like when you start out with a clean house in the morning and then let your kids play all day without cleaning up after them all day. Remember. I have Mr. OCD as a husband so when he’s home, he follows after them making them clean up. When I’m home, I don’t have time for that. This part of the video is kinda long. But if you haven’t seen pictures of my house it’s a little bit of a tour.
I took 15 minutes after work to clean up before Scott got home and showed the “after”. You know, Flylady, hey, look what you can do in 15 minutes!
Then I got this stupid idea to hide the camcorder and put it on record and see if I could catch Scott said anything about the house. Because, yes, that’s usually most important to him. Well, that and what I’m wearing for the day. Anyway, I was actually successful in getting a comment from him. You’ll see I’m in the living room playing the Wii when he tells me the house looks excellent. At that point, he hasn’t seen the camera at all. Then you hear him when he sees the camera standing on the microwave recording. I found the rest pretty funny. Enjoy.

(I’ll save you the time, no, I’m not pregnant)

(sorry for sitting in front of a brightly lit window and wearing a homemade wrinkled t-shirt)

Here is the Jason Date Night video I mentioned. I think he also uses a Flip Video!

(This is NOT a paid post)

Check it.  See those icons at the bottom of my PC desktop screenshot?  That’s my new taskbar thanks to Stardock’s ObjectDock.  The old regular Windows one still exists, it’s just hidden.

And what’s really cool is when you put your cursor over them, they get larger so you can see what you want to click on better like you see in this screenshot.  It includes your shortcut icons and then all your open windows as well.  I am LOVING it.

OK, this is funny at my mom’s expense.  But really, Mom, we love you and you’re a good sport.

My mom ordered the new iPhone 3G last week.  We decide she only needs the 8GB since she doesn’t need much space for TV shows, movies or music.  She basically uses the phone, timer, text, email….well, everything but the iPod (and probably stocks but that’s beside the issue really).  Anyway, so Mom has her box to open it, looks at the side and says, “Heeyy!  I thought I ordered an 8GB.  This only says 3G!”  Ahhh, Mom.  We love you.

But what’s funny is I tell Scott this tonight and he says you know, you should have played along and told her to take it back to the store and convince them they must have given her the wrong phone. Now THAT is funny.   I should have been all, “Mom!  You’re right!  You paid a lot of money for that.  We really should ride up there and exchange it.”  Can you imagine being in the store hearing that conversation?  “I just wanted to bring this back because this is only the 3G and I ordered the 8GB…see, let me show you my receipt.”  Yeah, that’d be funny.  Then again, this is coming from the same guy who told my mom’s mom in a store to go ask the clerk if they had any B batteries in stock.  And yes, for the record, she asked.  And we laughed.  Fun times.

This time next week Emma will have completed her first day of Kindergarten.  Right now, I’m so happy.  Emma is getting pretty bored this summer and she really needs some stimulation.  And I can really tell she has the capacity to learn much more than I know or have the time to teach her right now.  We’ve worked on the juice box thing which for some unknown reason really had me bothered.  Especially now since I don’t even want to send a juice box with her. LOL.  The only two things on the list that she’s not ready for are tying her shoes and her address which she’s close on that.

As for the separation anxiety, I have no clue how she’ll do.  I’ve been trying to pump it up and show her some pictures of classrooms and stuff.  And Monday is our meet the teacher so I think that will help.  I think it’s also really helped that she met Jaynee‘s CootieGirl who we found out will be in her class (can I just say it’s a small world??).  I’m so glad we did preschool now.  I would be beside myself otherwise.  And she’s always done fantastic at that so I’m trying to remind myself of that.

I do have to say Lexi and I are going to miss her a lot at home.  Today is the last Wednesday when both of them would normally come home from preschool and wait for MIL to come pick them up.  And it’s one thing for both of the girls to be gone.  I don’t mind that a bit but Lexi and I will have to do lunch and errands without our little chatty Emma.  Oh geez, here comes the tears.  It really won’t be the same.  School technically is only 2.5 hours longer than preschool but there’s something about not having her around for lunch or in the van on the way back from preschool that makes me sad.

I know, I know she’ll love it and I’ll enjoy my time with Lexi alone but a big piece of my heart will be at that school every day.  Bring on the tears….

On another school note I found out today that our school got an Excellent rating and that 32% of the kids are eligible for the gifted and talented program which is kind of crazy.  On the other hand, the private school we thought of PAYING to go to only got an average score.  I do feel even more peace about her going to the local public school now.  I’ve heard nothing but good stuff about the staff.

So now we’re on countdown.  One week and I’ll have a busy little schoolgirl on my hands.

So I know it’s barely been a week but this whole healthy-eating, water-drinking exercising thing is going well.  I’ve exercised almost every day, I’m drinking most of my water and I haven’t eaten out now since Thursday!  I think that might be a record!  And I’m really eating well.  I raided our grocery store on Sunday (?) with a bunch of natural products and determined to make meals at home.  I’ve done really good going as far as cutting up fresh broccoli and cauliflower and eating it in my salad.  If you know me, I just do not do that.  But I love salads so I cut it up really small and used a very tasty (but healthy) dressing to cover up any flavor it might have had..which it turns out I don’t think is much.  I’ve been eating bananas and/or whole wheat bagels in the morning.  And for dinner, we’ve done something very sensible every night.   Although it wasn’t my number 1 priority, I’ve lost 3 lbs in the last week too!  After gorging myself for the past month, I “needed” to so I’m really happy with that.  And I guess I sort of get when people say it’s a lifestyle change, not a diet.  I have no idea how long or strictly I’ll stick to this “new lifestyle” but I do know I’m not counting calories or points.  I’m simply making decisions based on the health factor alone.  And it works.  Imagine that.

One thing I’m not sure of is how mood-altering this thing is.  I think my body has no idea what to do without much sugar and chocolate so I’ve found myself more irritable lately.  Maybe it will just take some getting used to.