it’s raining. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t bear much comment. Except that today, I had actually planned to dig in the shed and get out the Christmas decorations. I don’t want to do that in the rain!!! It’s no fun!

On the other hand, I did ask the kids to get the living room ready, and they didn’t, so …. I mean, some of them did some of it, but it’s not finished, and I refuse to decorate a dirty house, so I have to finish that first. But I’m not real thrilled about it. I am trying to squeeze in a bunch of stuff over the weekend, and had hoped they could finish that small part for me, because my master plan calls for finishing the work before we begin to play.

So, instead, I am looking at nursing scrubs. Not because I plan to be a nurse, but because I have heard they are comfortable. Since I am starting school soon, I need to find some comfortable clothes, and I am not quite willing to wear sweats all the time. As appealing as that might be in winter, I think cheap scrubs might be a better summer-time option. Unless they have the a/c maxed out, unlike my current job where we sweat all summer and shiver all winter. Just sayin’ In that case, I’d need to pack a sweatshirt in my bag for slipping over my scrubs top.

In the meantime, I’m starved, and I just heard my food beep at me. Yay!!!!

This is a guest post by Christine Duda

Want a television show that makes your children more accepting of other cultures in the world? Then I highly recommend “Gullah Gullah Island” for your enjoyment. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching “Gullah Gullah Island” with my own children on our direct tv Mississippi. This show is inspiring for its use of a variety of educational tools and ability to combine educational value with a bit of entertainment value.

I think this show is great for children with an interest in art. It truly encourages the creativity of children and motivates them to excel in whatever they do. I think this show is great for the way it exposes them to other world cultures as well.

In one episode I watched with my children, they were able to learn the craft of bead making. The show depicted the way beads are created from start to finish and was truly fascinating. While I don’t expect my children to someday be bead makers, I do expect that they will value the hard work of other people. I think they also learned how to appreciate true craftsmanship and originality from this episode. The show made my children work harder in their own endeavors and work to do an excellent job in being open to new ideas. I really enjoy watching Gullah Gullah Island with my kids and think you will too!

an outfit called Zenni Optical. And I am blogging about them to remind myself of them, because I am betting I need them sooner rather than later.

—BTW, let me stop right now, and ask you something: you are getting a copy of your prescription when you go to the eye doctor, right? Because it is YOUR prescription, not theirs, right? And you are entitled to buy your glasses anywhere you want to, not just there at the optometrist’s office. Unless you are my mama and pay 300 bucks for a pair of glasses because you have gone to the same eye doctor since Hector was a pup, and think it’s ok for him to overcharge you because of that long term relationship, but oh well, it’s her money, I guess. Oh wow. Major digression and big run on sentence there. Ok, back to Zenni.—

My kids have eye appointments starting on the 30th. I;m pretty sure we’ll end up with at least one needing glasses, maybe 2. And insurance will graciously cover one pair per kid, but knowing my kids, that will not get them through the year, and I will be either replacing those (broken) glasses or letting them walk into the wall within a couple of months. Now, if I buy them at the eye doctors, they will be about 140 bucks. I know this because I bought mine there last time, and I chose a pair of kid frames and I have a very simple prescription, mostly to correct astigmatism. But I am not going to do that again.

Because.

Because I can get eyeglasses for around $8 at Zenni Optical, and while math may not be my strong suit, I do at least know that 140-8 is 132 bucks still in my pocket, and that’s a lot of yarn or beads. And maybe even some shoes.

And if the savings alone, doesn’t impress you, read what Clark Howard has to say.

Mine was mighty fine! Dh got up and got some of the children ready to go to the ball field on Saturday morning. They were still in the driveway at 7:30 when the phone rang, and it was one of the board members letting me know all the games were canceled. I do enjoy football season, don’t get me wrong. It’s busy, and exciting and frenetic and all that stuff, and it’s a very big deal for the whole family. But I do love the sound of “canceled”. It just feels good in my brain at this time of year, because it is literally found time, and in this case, it was about 12 hours of found time.

The fact that dh was still in the driveway was an extra bonus, and meant that no gas was wasted with him driving across town. Since he’s currently NOT employed (yeah, I know, I neglected to mention that), any savings is a good thing.

And it get’s even better! Mama saw my tweet about no games, and hopped on IM to ask me if I wanted her to come get me to go to her house and bead. I giggled, because I was already setting up to bead at my desk. Needless to say, I packed it back up and Country and I spent the day over at Mama’s beading and yapping. It was great! I made 7 pieces, plus there was shopping. Does anyone else run out of findings, go after more, and end up with new beads, too? Yeah? Thought so.

I totally need to update the bead stash pictures. Also, the jewelry store page and maybe the finished object page, too. Muhahahahahahahah

Here are some recent pictures for which there is no real blog post coming, at least not on this blog, but which intrigued me enough to share on this day when I discovered my PR is once again a cosmetic ZERO in spite of the fact that I am blogging better than I ever have before. And no, I am not full of myself. I know when I am writing crap, and I am not writing crap here. Sigh. Whatever. PR belongs to Google and always has. Let’s talk about pretty stuff.

Playing dominoes with the kids when the lights went out last week.

A butterfly the kids found the other day. They said it tore it’s wing on a blade of grass, so I think it must have been very new.

Diva playing Ariel. Love this shot.

Not much crafty has happened here the past few days. You know it’s football on Saturday, and then Sunday I was at church for most of the day getting Kid’s Ministry stuff taken care of.

Maybe soon I will pick up the sticks again. I do have a sock that I am working the toe on, and a Wallaby that I am making the pocket for. And scouts, and football practice, and feeds to read, and 353 emails to answer. And 5 more weeks to go until life approaches a reasonably sane level of activity, and by reasonably sane, I only mean that I am not double booked, and have only one place to be at any given time.

I’m thinking my carpet’s time might be just about up, here. I was just vacuuming my bedroom and living room. Oh, shut up. Quit laughing. It happens. Rarely, I know, but it happens. It’s embarrassing enough without listening to you giggle. Can we move on now? Ahem.

I was just…..stop…..vacuuming my floors. Now, I have reported before that my carpet looks a little worn on spots. I might even have mentioned the bald spots in it. But I don’t think I have told you that those bald patches seem to be growing, and that we may eventually be walking on just the carpet backing because the carpet will be gone. You know how some people check the brush each morning after they brush their hair? Well, I have a bagless vacuum, and and I check to see what’s in there when I dump it, and you know, lately, there has been an amazing amount of lint-y type fuzzy stuff. You know. The kind of fluff that might be made of *gulp* carpet fibers. I’d show you, but I just dumped it after I got through vacuuming, and now it’s in the nasty trash can, and some things just should not be seen, and among those things are my kitchen garbage.

Of course, I have mentioned before that I am ready to give up my carpet and my kitchen linoleum for hardwood flooring. I just love the look of it, and seriously, the idea of being able to clean my floors with a swiffer instead of lugging around a vacuum does have a wonderful appeal. Mine is light, yes, but not as light as a swiffer.

And have I mentioned the mud? You know that pile of koolaid created sludge there where the kitchen meets the living room? My kids like to stand there so they are technically “in the kitchen” but can still see the tv. Well, I am scared to clean it, because…….. what if the [tag]carpet[/tag] just dissolves? Ykwim? That could be bad. Really bad. Of course, maybe I should do it just to see, because if that did happen, then I could have a good excuse to just rip the whole mess up, LOL!

Heh. Maybe they can give me a good quote on the kitchen, living room AND the small bathroom. The floor in there has just a touch of water damage. Then I could write one of those Empire Today Bath Stories, only way funnier than the ones they have now. Because life is just easier if you can keep on laughing, right? Especially if your carpet has bald spots created by many happy little feet.

Ok, I do have lots more Orlando stuff to talk about, and I also need to rave some more about Marisa and my now amazing hair and the t-shirt I ordered today, and I want to talk about a few other things to, SO! There’s just no way I can do all that in one post, or even two. Go get coffee, LOL!

What I want to talk about this very minute is diapers. And contests. And videos. And my amazing hair. Wait, that’s later. Sorry.

Have you ever felt like this “dad”?

Yeah, I know it’s a little out there, and I’ve never had a kid quite this “good”, I do still chuckle when I remember my first born son peeing in his own face when he was a couple of days old. I also laugh at dh when I recall that he has been peed on by all three of our boys, but none of them ever peed on me. So there. Anyway, the point of the video is to let you know about a contest where the prize is free diapers and wipes. If you will visit the Huggies contest, you will have the chance to tell your own funny diaper story and win coupons for free diapers. I like free, so I figured you might, too. And about that coffee? Don’t be trying to drink it while you read the entries. Just sayin’

So, yesterday was another youth meeting at church. I know I have been talking about beads and food so much ya’ll almost forgot I knit and have kids, but I do. HA! Anyway, the youth group is hosting a fall party for the whole church on October 31st, and then after we drive them all the younger kids and other adults out (muhahahahah), we are having a sleepover lock in (might as well quit kidding myself, there will be no sleep). We spent yesterday brainstorming our games and food and fundraising methods for that. (Not to fund the party, but to raise more money for our big trip.) We decided to do several cakewalks and charge a buck per walker per walk. Each youth member will bring a baked good to contribute to that.

We are also having a costume contest. I plan to go as Mary Poppins, naturally. Wal-Mart has the cutest little tweed skirt and jacket set that I can put with a pillbox hat to make that costume, Diva wants to be something that requires cutting up a pair of tights to wear on her arms, and I don’t know what else, and Country wants to be Rogue, so she’s begging for the leather jacket that is displayed near my “Mary suit”. Heh, I’ve wanted that suit since they put it on the rack. I visit it every time I go in there.

The little ones, though, that gets a bit trickier. They don’t have the plethora of wardrobe options that us bigger girls have, so I might end up at Halloween Costume Stores for the first time in a long time. They have plenty of Childrens Costumes, most of them cheaper than I could buy the fabric and sew them. And it’s way quicker, too, LOL. More time for knitting and beading and cooking, you see.

You know, it’s funny. When we stopped doing the traditional Halloween stuff, I figured my kids would get over the holiday. Instead, they look forward to it every year, and start talking about the fall festival months in advance. In fact, I had to stop Diva from cutting up her tights already last night. So, why don’t they just dress up through the rest of the year?