National Honors Society

36 out of 1875 students (sophomore - senior) were inducted.
First sign the "oath"


Shake the first hand, get your paper


Then book for the exit completely skipping the officers of The local chapter as well as the principle. I was too busy chucking to take pictures ;)

All done!


The reality


Hahaha - she wants THAT excited, just that goofy!

Dad working in the yard

Whoohooo I figured out how to email pictures to the blog now!
A few folks who follow the blog have been asking about Dad and how he's doing. Well this is how he's doing - great! A little slower and still needs the stability of the walker or in this case the tiller :) other than that he's out and abut and mowing the lawn and working in the garden as well as he is able. He's starting physical therapy to stretch his left legs ham string as its tightening up on him...
So doing good!

What happened to the LAST day off?

Well, I guess I really took it off :)
I honestly think I just puttered around the house... I would get up an do something, I would take a break and watch the world go by and repeat.
I know I went through my "crafty projects" in the garage to get them all gathered and tidied up and put the cardboard in the car to take on base to recycle... then found out Mom and Dad could have used it in their garden for weed control under the pavers she wants to put down.  Rats!

Monday Angela was able to check the stats on her try out for High School Color Guard - and (drum roll please) she made it!  Gracie did as well, so they are excited young ladies!

The hot tub was cleaned out by the crew and sand put in the filter - and they made a heck of a mess with the backwash efforts - if you don't put the tube on the overflow it will dig a whole in the yard... guess what they didn't do - even with it sitting right next to the pipe?  Yep - dug a whole, put mud all over the walkway and generally made a mess of the place... I mean come on boys... clean it up!!

Sigh.

The hot tub was then filled and grocery store was visited... cooking even occurred for the 2nd time in the week.  This is an accomplishment anymore!  Spaghetti on Sunday and meatball sandwiches on Monday if you must know - so not really cooking on Monday, but I'll count it anyway!

Today is Tuesday and let's just say that the crap that I left a week ago at work is STILL there, still as deep... and I don't really have a better attitude to deal with it.  Ah, well, it was worth a shot, eh?  The sad thing is I think I made it worse and didn't want to go back at all - come on lotto!!!  I promptly checked all my tickets at the store and found none to be winners.  I had manually checked them and didn't think I had won, but I like to double check. I took another shot at it because Fantasy 5 was up to $309 million... sweet chunk of change.  A girl can hope, can't she??

OK, back to the salt mine - time to figure out something for dinner, then off to watch Liz be inducted into the national Honor Society (95 GPA cumulative for her HS career... scary smart that one.  She loves math... I still don't think she's mine!  I had to help Angela with math and had to keep calling Liz in to show ME how to do it... good grief.  I have NO memory of Factorials - they didn't really have those in my day, did they?

The weekend. Saturday - 2nd to last day off :(

Makes me sad to think I have to return to work Monday. Booooo. I should be a stay at home mom, but lets face it, not gonna happen. AND I'm still not good at this. I didn't cook all week! Yes, horrible mom and home maker. Ah, well you can't win them all, right?
Today started as most have all week. Up at 8:30... However motivation was lacking today. I did get out and dry off the soon to be "little yellow table" as I mistakenly left it outside overnight. I had gotten one coat of paint on it yesterday. The sun was up so I dragged the wooden ironing board out and put some of the wipe on polyurethane on it.
If looks GREAT if I do say so myself ;). It's in its new home upstairs now. Holding a karaoke machine at present.
A few more coats on the yellow table and some more scrubbing on the grout in the kitchen.
Some sorting and box breakdown and I think I'll shove then in the car to take to works cardboard bin Monday.
So it's looking better.
The pool in the other hand is looking yellow with the brown bottom. Weird effect. Not all horrible, just takes some getting used to.

Daylight

In shadow.
Butch feels it will warn up faster.
The jury is still out. I do, however, love the boarder. The only issue is only 2/3 shows. Weird. Oh well, the bottom is smooth, there are no more patches, just new liner and new overflow that I'm dying to run today but cant as they have not finished cutting in all the holes - the skimmer and the pool supplies are still not hooked in yet. Also still need the hot tub
cleaned out and the sand replaced in the filter. Then we'll be at 100%

Isn't stopping me from enjoying MY favorite spot regardless!!
Temperature is back in the 70's after a few days in the 40's and 50's - all is right with the world!!

Little yellow table is yellow now! Now to put tile on the top. Question is - will it happen today?
Pool guy just hooked everything back up. Skimmer and such is working. Now for them to put the hot tub to rights and clean it - yuck!!

And all before 3pm. Not too shabby for no motivation.

Day five (Friday)

Stickers applied.


While the water level was still low I froze my toes off and applied the non-skids to the steps. :)

I then had a nice, albeit short visit from mom and dad, then we were off to the bank. Cashed in a few more CDs for Liz's education funds.

Then off to get Angela's ears pierced! Yep, she was allowed at 12 but couldn't get the courage up until now ;)














All done!! Yay Angela!

Then I tried something I read in Pinterest for grout cleaning. OMG!!
I couldn't tell it was this great until I let it dry!!



The center square us surrounded by clean grout ;)
What did it?
This!



Yep!! Off to clean the rest now!!

Day four (Thursday)

Nothing but laundry on a rainy day!!

Day Three (Wednesday)

Cherry Blooms!

 Angela announced she would like to go to the zoo, that she has no memory of going to the zoo... which, regretfully is very true as we left Utah when she was 2.5 and when we got here we didn't go to the zoo at all - it's an hour plus away, so who can justify that?  Not me!!
So - today we had our first outting to the zoo... and discovered it's just not for Angela. Sigh. *I* still enjoyed the heck out of it.
The first thing we saw was the elephant - she's a big one!!

 I bought foot to feed the parakeets :)

 We checked out the meercats.

 A BIG Rino... and you know what *I* discovered about zoos in Georgia?  All the animals have a red hue... wonder why...all that RED clay!!

 Doesn't this gorilla look forlorn?  I saw her sitting up there all alone behind the wires and thought "oh, how sad..... she's not with the group - turns out there are two groups with two differnt silver backs in their confines.  I guess the two can't mix?  Who knows.

 This guy cracked me up... he was laying on his belly when he rolled over and then crossed his legs and just "chilled" for a bit.  Ha!

 One of the three "babies" in the cages... this is a younger one.. but NOT the youngest!

 THIs is the youngest... can you see her in her mom's arms?  She was sound asleep!  She's only three weeks old - the youngest in the group.

 Here's a better picture of mom and baby...

 Yet another baby in the zoo - hanging out with mom in the hammock

 Not a baby, but a red panda hanging out in her tree house preening and primping.

 I wish this would have focused on this old guy... he was sitting on the edge of the moat just checking everyone out and rolling something around in his mouth... I swear he looked like was thinking "get a load of this bunch of idiots"  ha!

 Another baby in the zoo... soooo cute just clinging to his moms back.  There was one other mom in the cages, but I didn't get a good shot of that baby...

 And with that we had toured the whole zoo - it's not much bigger than Hoggle really and without having little kids to play in the playgrounds and me not wanting to check out the petting zoo full of goats and sheep, we headed on out... once you've seen them all, you've seen them all... sadly

THIS is a dream house for me... on the corner near the zoo - very pretty victorian.

After the zoo we went to Ikea to get some stuff for me... and to eat some lunch.  Their meatball special is very good and very inexpensive for what you get.  We then walked all of Ikea just shopping and enjoying... until the last two sections and Angela was loosing it... feet hurt and she was DONE walking.  No choice in this one as carts are few and far between and she's 13 and too big for one anyway.  ha!  So we headed out to the car and home.  On the way home, we had to pass by The Varsity and I told her we needed to get an orange shake - she couldn't fathom why until she had one.  YUM!
A quick stop off at the outlet mall to return some shoes and we were on our way home.  And only 4pm - I didn't think we would be home until 10pm with all we had planned.  Oh, well, my feet hurt too, but I wasn't going to admit it!!

HERE is what greeted me when I got home... an NEW liner!!

 

They still have to cut in all the "details" like the light, the steps and the overflow - however the rest is looking great!!!!

Paint from yesterday

I DID say I would watch paint dry while chilling out before my hair appointment :)



Get the reference?
One fish, two fish
Red fish, blue fish


He really looks better in red. I had it black to begin with.

Day two (Tuesday)

An empty pool!


Angled so you can see it all in one frame.
The house is now vacuumed as well. Small accomplishment, but an accomplishment nonetheless. Unsure what is in the agenda for today. Guess its finish the flower bed.

Done!
And Angela and I went for "breakfast" (it was after 11am so really it was lunch) at Waffle House. After my haircut well be going to see The Host at the movies.
AND tomorrows event is planned as well.
While at Lowes getting the pea gravel to finish off my garden Angela picked out some spinach to grow. I picked out Cilantro and radish and carrots and we picked up some flower boxes to grow them in!

Angela got them all planted and I cleaned off the deck! Busy morning!!
I came home from my hair appointment to see this!


Super naked pool!!

Week in progress - Day 1 (Monday)

Monday: consignment store run!
I only had $60 profit from Easter drop off... Only - ha! It was great profit. I bought some sheets and took mom to lunch - yum!
Next month will be a teensiest tiny profit as I didn't put much in :)

So I came home by way of Lowes and picked up blocks for a tiny wall. I picked up 20 blocks and two bags of pea gravel.



Yeah. I had to go back and got twenty five more blocks and two MORE bags of pea gravel - and I still don't have enough gravel. Hurumph!


While taking a break the pool guys showed up to drain the pool for the new liner! I took a longer break than planned. But that's cool.


Then I forgot to go to my Chiropractor this afternoon. Crap!! Ah well lots more done than not!

Easter!

Angela was the bunny cake assembler this year. She mixed, baked and assembled with a lot of instructions and help. I think the torch has been passed to another generation!


Yes, only 1/2 grass. Butch and Elizabeth don't like coconut :o/
Note the malt balls at the back - hahaha!

Dinner at mom and dads for ham and yummies. A game of push the dummy and back home again. I great Easter!