Say hello to Fiona! Yeah, I know, you probably think I’m crazy, but I couldn’t stand by and let this little sweetheart get kicked to the curb.

   C’s friend showed up at our house after school with the puppy, asking if we could take it since her neighbor didn’t want it anymore. Summer was over, and he was planning on letting the puppy play in the street until she was hit by a car, thus “solving” his problem. C’s friend couldn’t take the dog herself since her parents landlord doesn’t allow pets. So I did the only sensible thing, I grabbed the dog, gave her a bath, fed her, scrounged up a spare kennel, and dubbed her Fiona. (a few more pics in my gallery) Now this isn’t to say we’re keeping her, frankly I don’t think getting a new puppy on the eve of listing our house for sale is considered a particularly brilliant move. We will have to see if we can find her a nice home, or foster her until the local shelter can find one. C’s friend said she’s about 6 months old, and partially potty trained. I don’t know if I believe either statement, not that it matters.

This is the time when everyone that got a puppy at the beiginning of summer for their kids to play with, suddenly see the flaw in their plan now that summer is over. School is back in, and people are not quite so charmed by the whole puppy idea now, and a ton of them get turned over to the pound. But as badly as I feel for this sweet little dog, I just can’t take on another animal right now, Lucy is my limit, and I don’t think that having a new puppy around while we are trying to sell this house is going to work in our favor. I have to say though, she is such a sweet, loving and mellow puppy, and loves the kids, and when I kenneled her last night, she whined once, then laid down and went right to sleep without another noise the entire rest of the night. I can’t tell what her “heritage” is, she’s 100% “Heinz 57″, but I am still trying to figure out just which breeds she’s made up of. (Banna, I think you will know best, so I will have to defer to your expertise.)

Anyways, so here we are, still working like slaves to get our house done, in the homestretch, and now we have another dog running around. Lucy thinks she’s just OK, but I can tell she thinks this puppy is a bit “uncultured”. So you might think I’m crazy (Ok, yeah, I am), but frankly, I just can’t turn a cute little puppy face away. Who knows, maybe we can find her a nice loving home, and maybe that home will be with us…..or not.

   I am trying to decide what color to paint our porch swing. It’s currently a rusty red shade of brown, and in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. I am re-painting the porch railing white, so I am toying with painting the swing white too. Or should I re-paint it the same brown/rust? or how about black? My house is largely white with rusty red/brown trim and some brick as well, a black mailbox hanging by the front door, and a concrete porch. I really want people to see the charm of the porch swing, I know how much we love it, and often sit out there in the evening to enjoy our gorgeous mountain views. I know it could be a selling point, but only if I give it a new life with paint. I just don’t know which direction to go with the color though, so any thoughts and opinions would be extremely helpful! Thanks! 

   It’s strangely quiet at my house this morning, and I’m not used to it, not at all. Today my children are back in school, summer is over, and I can’t believe I only have three little ones at home now. D managed to find a ride with a friend since he is way too cool to ride the bus. Craig took C to school since we had some registration issues to straighten out, which took all of five minutes thankfully, so he was back home in time to help me get the last two ready and out the door. He stayed with F and M while G and I took N and H to school. They didn’t even look back at me as I left each of their classrooms, they could hardly wait to find their desks and get started. I thought for sure they would at least wave goodbye, but they were far too busy saying hello to all of their friends, and looking to see who was in their class from last year.

As it turns out, I’m the one that wanted to cry. I’m not ready for the new school year to start, because that means summer is over. I guess with all of the work we did on the house, we didn’t get a chance to have a real family vacation like I wanted. I did make sure the kids each got to spend a few weeks with Mammy and Pappy, and C had a fun filled time in California, so I know they didn’t miss out on anything. I think it must be just me. I wanted a break with all of us together, not all farmed out. Oh well, I’ll pine for my lost summer later, right now I have some house cleaning to do. We are replacing some carpeting in the house, and they’re coming to measure for it today, so I have some housework calling my name. And with Finn asleep, M and G occupied with their toys, I might actually get it all done. Well, I can hope now can’t I!

I’ll try and keep this brief and to the point-

-I am in the middle of moving my blog, so I am am temporarily without a gallery for now.

-We are listing the house for sale the day after Labor Day, and we are nearly done with all of our projects.

-I am re-finishing our dining set, and it looks beautiful. I sanded the old varnish off of the table top, stained it, and I’m painting the legs, apron and chairs black. I am loving the whole process, it’s been so much more fun than I ever thought it would be.

-I am spending this entire weekend getting my four school age children outfitted for the new school year since I left it all to the last minute. School starts Monday, and we aren’t even close to being ready for any of it.

-D has worked faithfully all summer long at his job, but has now put in his two weeks noctice so that he has time after school for cello and homework. He didn’t want to quit, but the mean mom that I am, I made him. He can’t work 30 hours a week AND get good grades while trying to do the cello and drums too, so the job was expendable for now.

-The house is looking great, and I am excited to get this house on the market and SOLD!

-F is nearly 4 months old, and I cannot believe that much time has really passed. He is still an adorable little sweetheart, and the number one fought over favorite of his siblings.

-Our nephew David just got his mission call to Santiago, Chile. Congrats Dave, it’s so exciting, and we are so happy for you!

Well, that’s about it for now. Wish me luck as I head into the mall this weekend. It won’t be pretty, but it’s my own fault for leaving it all until now. Curses!

   Ok, Heidi, Laurie, and now Melanie have inspired me (aka ‘I’m totally copying them’) to write about how Craig and I met, so here goes… 

   I had just quit my job at ‘K-Mart’ to go on a two week family vacation to Canada. The store manager had changed and was in the midst of revamping the staff, with a lot of positions being done away with, mine being one of those, so I would have been jobless in a few weeks anyways, not a big loss. When we got back, I immediately went to apply at ‘Convergys’ (a call center handling billing, accounts and activations for a major cell phone company) at the urging of several family members who said it was a great place to work with lots of fun people. During my interview, while doing my typing test, the interviewer left the room as I began to type (the computer I was taking the typing test on monitored my speed). When he came back he saw my words per minute were well within the parameters, and I had no misspellings or giant mistakes. Had he stayed, he would have discovered that in reality, I DO NOT touch type, I’m just very, very fast at hunt and peck. No one ever seemed to have a problem with this though, so I figured it was fate that he left the room at just the right time. Either that or total boredom after interviewing the bazillionth person that day. So after a quick chat about my phone and social skills, I got the job. Two weeks later my training class started. The very first day as we introduced oursleves, I remember Craig stood up, and part of his introduction was talking about his band. He was sitting between two girls and talking with them (I later learned he didn’t know them until that day), and my first impression was that he was a total player, very good looking, and I intended to steer clear of him (although since I pegged him as a lothario, I was sure he would be the one steering clear of me since I was a single mom). There were also two people in the class I became very fast friends with, starting on the first day, and they were Katie and Ryan. Ryan lived only a few blocks from my house, so I often got a ride to and from work with him, and Katie was a very cute and fun girl, and we liked to hang out together quite a bit. Craig later told me he thought I was dating Ryan because he and I had been hanging out a lot.

   A few days into training, when several of us in the class, myself included, told the instructor we were struggling with a particular part of the training, he asked for volunteers that would be willing to help some of us to understand the concept. Craig was one of the volunteers, and the instructor paired us up. It didn’t take him long to help me sort the whole cell phone thing-a-ma-bob out that was confusing me, and we began chatting in the interim. I was still under the impression he was a guitar playing, bad boy, love em’ and leave em’ player, party boy, and that he was probably 21, if that. I was very surprised to learn how nice he really was, and that not only was he not 21, but his birthday was the next day, and he was turing 28 (In fact it was Sept. 28th, his magical birthday!) We ended up talking quite a bit that day, during break and everything. I learned he too had been married before, was currently divorced, and I was impressed with the way he talked about it all. I even went on to tell him that I too was divorced, and I was surprised at the way he took the news that I had two small children as well. You need to understand this….I didn’t normally talk about my children with my co-workers/guys. I had quite a few bad experiences with guys thinking that as a single mom I was an easy target for their “moves”, so I had learned to keep that part of my life quiet unless I felt it was relevant, and it worked out a lot better for me. I had even had several guys seem mildly interested in me, then when they found out I had children, they suddenly got VERY INTERESTED, which immediately sent up a red flag (um, pervert!). Although I took A LOT OF CRAP for it from some people, it had nothing to do with deception on my part, just lots of creepy guys. Seriously, you have no idea!

   That same day Craig gave me and my cousin (she was in my training class too) a ride home in his Jeep and I remember she made some comment about how she thought his Jeep wasn’t as nice inside as she thought it would be, I guess she thought it would have a ton of bells and whistles or something. I just don’t think she realized Craig wasn’t a “pretty boy” and he liked his vehicles more on the rugged side, something he could get out there and have fun 4-wheeling in the mountains with and not worry about it. His Jeep was really nice, just not brand new. I just wanted to kick her since insulting his vehicle seemed like a crummy payback for the ride he was so kindly giving us home. Especially since it was totally out of his way, he lived just across the street from Convergys and we lived quite a bit farther away. But Craig didn’t seem to care what she thought, ignored her comment, and ended up offering to come and pick me up for the dinner party some of us in the class had planned for later that night. Our training class was very friendly with one another, and we ended up very quickly deciding that parties, dinners and outings together would be a lot of fun, and we were quite a tight knit group even after our training ended. For some reason, Craig was usually the one to pick me up and take me home anytime there was a gathering, and we were asked quite a bit for a while if we were dating, which we were not, we really were just friends. I also was under the impression he was seriously dating anthother girl named Alecia, so I figured he was off limits, and anyways, I was having a great time just hanging out with him and everyone else. And as a group we really did a lot togethere after work. It was a really fun time, and I met some very nice and incredibly fun people.

   Our bedroom, and the bathroom are done, and the living room is almost there. The new paint looks fantastic, and it’s so much bigger with the TV out of there. The only problem is that as we finished de-cluttering the living room and moving the furniture to make the fireplace more of a focal point, we realized how dated and tired the fireplace really looks. Do we really want to highlight a tired and dated looking fireplace for potential buyers? No, not really. We keep on finishing projects, only to find more we want/need to do before we move on to the next room. So we’re now discussing the best and fastest way to possibly re-tile the fireplace, and still have the house ready to list next week. I’m just tired of all of the projects, it has eaten up all of our time this summer, and I am longing for a break. Oh well, we are ‘this close’ to being done, and it will all be worth it……at least it had better be!

   I read this article on time saving tips for Moms, and thought there were some good ones. I might even be applying a few to my own house shortly, so I’m passing it along, the link is below-

http://lifestyle.msn.com/mindbodyandsoul/careerandmoney/articlelhj.aspx?cp-documentid=923086

   And I also read this article on sneaking nutritious foods into other foods in order to get uber picky children (and maybe some husbands too!) to eat healthier without knowing it, and also without any fuss faces too. So check it out of you want, I thought it had some good ideas, and it might be a way to get some extra vitamins into a picky eaters diet, who knows!

http://lifestyle.msn.com/familyandparenting/raisingkids/articlesc.aspx?cp-documentid=4895616

   I love to wear black. It’s simple, goes with almost everything, and well, I just like it. I currently own about 7 black t-shirts, all short sleeve, 6 round neck, one v-neck, and all very soft and comfortable. My favorite outfit is jeans, black tee and flip flops. I’m not goth, depressed or boring (ok, maybe boring), I just like the simple ease of throwing on a black tee with my jeans, slipping on a fun pair of colored flip flops, and I’m on my way. I don’t mess with button down shirts much, although I do own a few. And I don’t own any khakis, just jeans. I do own several pairs of nice dressy sandals and shoes, but I much prefer the ease, fun, and simplicity of a cute pair of flip flops. I do have other colors in my t-shirt repertoire, but black is the one I have the most of, and the one I love to wear more often. And while it doesn’t make me a vampire, I realize it might make a lot of people wonder how often I do laundry.

alternate titles: “Hey, can I borrow your black lipstick?” “I’m channeling my inner AC/DC” and “Of course that’s me in the pic above wearing the jeans!”

(Get out your reading glasses and get comfy, this is a long one!)

It has been a very busy week for us, but we got a ton of stuff done, and we are that much closer to being ready to list the house. Yipee!

We made enough from the garage sale to take the giant sting out of D and C’s giant registration fees for this school year, which is a load off of my mind. I did pull an all-nighter however, sorting, pricing, and bagging items, but I wanted to make sure we sold as much stuff as possible, and make a dent in some of the mountains of stuff we don’t need anymore. I finally got to bed a little after 8:30am, and slept until just after Noon, I just had to get up and see how much stuff we sold. Craig and I are both pleased that so much of it found new homes, it means more space has now been freed up in the garage and our closets.

Rob and Amy showed up at about 7am to pick up C for the drive back to California since she will be staying with them for 10 days, and flying home before school starts. I was so grateful that I was able to get in some goodbyes before they left, I didn’t get to visit with them as much as I would have liked. But right before they left, Amy slipped me the cutest gift she made for me/F, and I just have to tell you how much I love it!!! She made me a diaper/wipe container out of the cutest monkey flannel, and it fits my travel wipe container and three diapers perfectly! So no more endless searching for the diapers and wipes in the diaper bag, they are all there, in one handy and easy to grab case, which can also be used solo on little jaunts about town too. Thanks Amy, I absolutly love it!!!

My Mom, who had been kind enough to come out to my house in the wee hours of dawn to help with the garage sale, also volunteered to help me with the kids. She went totally solo too while Craig manned the garage sale, and I caught a few hours of ’shut-eye’. Mom, I cannot thank you enough for all of your help today, it made it all go so smoothly, and we could not have done it (sanely) without your help! Later in the afternoon, after Craig finished tinkering with the car, I headed into town to hit the stores with Korby. We had planned on Friday, but Saturday ended up being the big day instead, and I could harldy wait! We hit Michaels first, and got some pretty great stuff, then Ross next, where I made the biggest haul of all. I found almost everything on my list, some things better than what I had just bought at Michaels, so I will be returning several items now since Ross had the better deals.

I got blankets for my bed and the boys bunk beds, sheet sets for almost all of us, pillow cases and shams, three beautiful throw pillows I am totally in love with, two gorgeous brushed silver lamps, a few decorative trays, some vases, a funky little clock, and my favorite…the large dark brown rectangular upholstered ottoman, in the exact size and shape I have wanted, and for less than I had been intending to spend. Oh Yeah! But when we hauled it all up to the front to checkout, we found out that they were having trouble with their internet for credit/debit cards, so they could only accept cash at that time, of which I had none. The checker was so kind, and graciously offered to hold all of my items, and on top of it they were going to give me 10% off of it all too “for my trouble”. Oh Happy Day! So I left them my home and cell numbers and off Korby and I went to T.J. Maxx for some plundering before they closed.

We weren’t in the store more than 10 minutes when I got a call on my cell from the checker at Ross saying their internet was back up, and if I wanted I could come back and buy my stuff now, and still have the discount. So we hurried through the rest of T.J. Maxx, found a few more great treasures, paid for them, and headed back to Ross. I left Korby in the car with F thinking I would be out in a jiff. Nope, I ended up going through the entire scanning the merchandise, bagging it all, swiping my card, and everything, only to have the checker realize she forgot to give me the discount. The manager came right over to help void the first transaction, then we had to un-bag everything, and re-scan it all. The manager then turns to the checker and said “Give her a 20% discount”. Ka Ching!!!

   They kept telling me how badly they felt for all of the trouble I had been through, but frankly, I was so thrilled to have found so much on my list, I was just ecstatic to get a huge discount on top of it all, and needless to say, I just kept thanking them for all of their help and kindness, they really went above and beyond, I thought. It did take about 30 minutes to get it all straightened out, and poor Korby was still in the car with a very mad F, wailing his little lungs out, so she gets a gold star for kindness and patience on top of all of the help she gave me finding all of the great ‘booty’ today. Korby, I am so sorry, you are such a trooper, and so much fun to shop with!!! And I hope you know I would never have found all of the great stuff I got today if it hadn’t been for you. Thank you so much!!!

So anyways, I am home now, and feeling completely thrilled and happy with my purchases (and discount!). F is fed, jammied up and ready for bed, and I am too. Now all I have to do is hurry and lay out the little ones Sunday clothes for tomorrow. Heaven help me, church starts at 9am, and I am so not ready.

   My children are currently playing “Fire Drill” where they pretend there is a fire and then they try to warn everyone so they can all get out in time. Sounds noisy right? Wrong. For some reason, not known to me, they are whispering “fire fire” so quietly, no one would ever hear them, let alone if we were all sleeping. We’re all gonna die.