So, I'm been unemployed over two months now. It's taken me a while to get comfortable here. I've gotten to do a lot of things I wouldn't do with a full time job on my schedule. A few of those things I've blogged about. I've reorganized and did spring cleaning. I clean my own house. Yippee! (smell the sarcasm) With our house going up for sale we finally paid an electrician to hook up the fireplace in the basement that was never connected when we moved in. We also had our ceiling tape fixed and ceiling repainted in one of the rooms in the basement. I went on a field trip with Dane's class. I served food at the Seven Hills Homeless Shelter twice. I toured and visited the Samaritan House in Rogers with a few members from church. We plan to set up a schedule so that we can volunteer at this location too. I began a support group for mothers with ADHD children. I spent two hours outside in the middle of the day in 70 degree weather and got my first set of tan lines for the season. I've scrapbooked and scrapbooked and scrapbooked! I am working on my cooking skills. I deliver monkey baskets during the week instead of weekends. Redbox loves me. I am less stressed now especially when I get a call from the school saying Dylan missed the bus or he is staying after to finish work. No biggie, I have time to pick him up. I grocery shop during the day! I no longer have Sunday night blues. I learned to enjoy this extra time since it won't last forever. I only miss one thing. It's a small, petty, embarrassing thing to admit. I really don't want to say it out loud. You might think less of me. But I'll say it anyway. I miss my disposable income. That's all I'll say.
Okay, so with less extra money lying around and Dane needing a few extra pieces of clothing since the entire winter he has rotated five shirts every week (I swear, I am not exaggerating - he has seven winter shirts but two of them he says make him a nerd so he won't wear them unless I make him) I decided since spring is here I'd finally break down and buy him a couple long sleeved casual shirts from Walmart to get him by. But apparently Walmart doesn't have a boys section. At least (in my opinion) the 200 square feet of space dedicated to boys wear doesn't qualify as a boys department in my book. Dane's been able to wear the same five shirts all winter because they were all bought at the Gap in the fall and can handle being washed over and over and over. We will try Target this weekend. I do want to add that it wasn't my intention for him to only have seven shirts but he outgrew all of his clothes from last year so when we went into winter each day another shirt got moved to Dylan's closet. Anyway, the point of this rambling is can you believe Walmart has the worst boys department ever!?
Changing the subject now.
I got a call from the local news station this morning requesting an on-camera interview. In a millisecond the intense close up, bad lighting, camera adding 10 lbs, the lack of hair dye on my gray hair, high definition TV, my ability to look and sound hideous on camera, combined with past interviews I have watched laughing 'where do they find these people' I declined with a giggle and a 'no, thank you.' The reason I was called this morning is the same reason I was anti-internet for years. You may find this surprising but I am actually a private person. Randy still rolls his eyes at me with my conspiracy theories on someone watching everything we do on the internet making me feel so exposed. Well, I apparently have gotten over that. Having a myspace account was HUGE for me. I have since deleted it but am on Facebook which leads me to my point. I recently became a fan, follower or whatever you want to call it for the Bentonville Public Schools. I wrote a comment among dozens and dozens about my opinion on the board passing an earlier start time for elementary school students. This became a hot topic on Facebook. One of the local stations will be doing a segment on this topic and came across my comment. They wanted me to represent the "against" I suppose. Not only was I uncomfortable with an on-camera interview for all the reasons mentioned above it just didn't seem like a good idea to speak against my children's school. We have enough on our plate with the school's opinion of us. I have to admit, it was pretty cool to get the call.
This week I have been able to demonstrate these two philosophies
don't sweat the small stuff
and
enjoy the little things.
Dylan shot one of our basement windows with Dane's BB Gun. I am not kidding...he wanted to see if the window would really break. Our expensive Pella windows, he stood in front of with a BB Gun. This was in the few minutes I wasn't checking on him over the weekend while he was outside.
Dane showed me how to make an origami boat this week. He has made about a dozen this week. He then showed me how to make this...
Remember these from when we were kids?
Dane then made me a very, very tiny origami boat.
Just a little of this and that since I have all this leisure time. :)
