Week-End Update

Hello there.

Today I’ve been garage saling—not the kind where you get to shop around; the kind where you sit in a chair behind a cash box and add up quarters and dollars and peel little stickers off old shirts and toys and stick little stickers into a notebook. (We are having a multi-family sale.) It is more of a test of my accounting and secretarial skills than I would have imagined. Now add a toddler that’s been dragging said goods all over the lawn since 7 am and is now sick of it all and ready to go home, but we can’t go home yet because it isn’t over and it looks like rain any minute.

I’m making it sound like a bad day, and it wasn’t; it was a good day. My page is full of stickers in the amounts of .25 and .50, and when all is said and done I may just have $20 or possibly even more! But what really makes me happy is that I am rid of so much of the junk that’s been accumulating around our house. And people are buying lots of things. Things you would think nobody would be interested in. It astonishes me. Except they don’t want any wicker baskets. Of which I have many. Do you want some? They’re going for .25 a piece.

Changing subjects.

Grace is off on yet another year-end field trip. It is for orchestra, and it should be fun. She’s going to the Mall of America, and then off to see a real orchestra in action. She won’t get home until about midnight tonight. It’s been a very busy week for her, and I bet she’ll sleep until 2 pm tomorrow if we let her.

I am so glad the kids get to take some of these fun trips, but I am considering giving her a $100 year-end field trip budget next year and seeing if that even comes close to covering all the fun things they plan for these kids. John and I feel like we’re shelling out ridiculous amounts of money every other day for this trip or that. Maybe it’s because Grace is involved in so many extra-curricular activities. I don’t know. But this is getting expensive.

We went to her choir concert last night (another Mall of America field trip coming up next week. She wants me to chaperone so I can buy her things while we’re there, I’m sure.) It would have been watching that concert if Gertie wasn’t so fidgety during the whole thing. Ethan seems to think he can “help” by tickling her toes and kissing her and making funny faces. It seems to not matter that I ask him to “help” by sitting still and keeping his hands to himself. It matters not. Tickling. Kissing. When I glare at him, he goes, “Why can’t I kiss her? I just want to kiss her.” As if I am the cruel mother that doesn’t want my children loving each other. But Grace is adorable in the red bow tie and cummerbund and her brother’s white dress shirt that so small that she has to roll up the sleeves to make it work.

“I don’t even know if we’re allowed to roll up our sleeves.”

Thankfully, there were probably 13 girls there with their sleeves rolled up. I guess lots of 7th and 8th grade girls have been growing this year. They all have roll up their sleeves, whether they’re allowed to or not.

Changing subjects.

EJ has a field trip this week to the Twins game in Minneapolis. We gave him $10 spending money and he said he could afford no souvenirs . What is this world coming to? I said, “Not even a baseball?” He said, “Fifteen dollars.” I said, “How about a big hand that says ‘Number 1’?” He said, “Eleven dollars.” I said, “Did you get a hot dog or something then?” He said, “Yeah. And a pop, but they said I couldn’t have the lid.” Well, I didn’t quite understand the significance of that, but that conversation had worn out its welcome. Maybe it meant he couldn’t take it on the bus home if he hadn’t finished it. Or maybe he just wanted to save the lid as a souvenir. I just don’t know.

He received his poetry award also this week. Now he wants a new PS2 game.

Oh, and Grace was in the paper.

Isn’t she cute? That’s my girl. She was scared for the person being tazed.

Talk to you later. I better go feed my family…