first day of school

his first at the Intermediate School no less! I reminded him about 10 dozen times to stay on the bus when they got to the Primary School and as I have not gotten a frantic phone call I am assuming he remembered-he does have friends on the bus so it really wasn't a huge concern. C complained of a sore throat off & on yesterday and had an ever so slight fever but a shot of tylenol & early bed time he was right as rain this morning. D reminded me the boy had the same sort of minor illness after the day camp sleepover last year so just need to file that info away for next year and tylenol him before the sleepover perhaps. Surprisingly he got right up this morning still stumbling a bit but he stumbled into the kitchen fully dressed and raring to go. I even made sausage & eggs for my baby-biscuits too although they were the microwave kind. His fancy new wrestling backpack has not arrived yet so I loaned him mine for the time being and his Yankees lunchbox was bursting at the seams with food for a growing boy. The bus did come at the correct time, there was some concern because I could not get the information to come up on the school website yesterday or this morning but 6.49 and it was there. One of the girls going into 4th grade informed C his teacher was hard & mean so I can't wait to hear his take on things. I am however sure it will be fine he is mostly a really good kid & a good student.
and I didn't even cry we all know what an absolute sentimental sap I am about this stuff so I was proud of myself-welled up a little but no real tears this year!

I'm not lost I just don't know where I am

famous last words of my mother on more than one occasion. The woman has a great sense of direction and always has a plethora of maps at her disposal in fact the first time my parents came for a visit first thing we did was run to get her local maps so she could navigate her way around town. Dad not so much with the sense of direction and he in fact got a Garmin for Christmas last year, we made fun but he uses it frequently and it did come in handy for the zoo trip even if it did send us to the employee parking lot. D asked if I wanted one & quite frankly I don't really need one my travels are pretty routine and for road trips an atlas is always in the car plus google directions have thus far worked well enough for me. Yesterday had me wanting one though-I was going to the actual house of The House of Flying Monkeys so Friday I printed up google directions originating at my own house(no monkeys just a crazy pug here). As I was about to leave it dawned on me that directions from my work might provide a different route so I looked them up and wrote them on the back of my paper. Arrived using original directions with no problems it was however daylight when I arrived. Leaving later at night in the dark was problematic for some reason I got all sorts of turned around-I know follow the directions backwards for some reason it did not connect for me. Luckily I had the alternate directions with me and before I drove all over creation and wound up in Gatlinburg or worse used up a tank of gas I found a road I could use rather quickly and found my way to Chapman Hwy and from there well hell even the car knows they way from there!

does anyone else

watch television shows that just annoy the crap out of you but you watch anyway?
I have more than one-Rachel Ray $40 a day girlfriend never leaves a decent tip and gets my nerves with the mmm noises and yet I watch anytime it's on.
Tonight's annoyance du jour would be Jon & Kate plus 8 which I not only watched I watched on demand.
I need to go to bed!

it's not just the schools

West Knoxville has better chicken
Bojangle's, now we have a Popeyes can Church's be far behind?

wild and crazy kid free night

it'll be a miracle if I make it till 10 o'clock.

the mommy club

I am not a member.
Well yes I am a mommy but I don't have mommy friends or rather friends I acquired by being a mommy. I have the full range of friends who just happen to be mommies you name it we are bio, step, adoptive, foster, trying to become a mommy and our children run the gamut from the newborn just home this week to the grown woman getting married next spring and seemingly every age in between.
I am friendly with the mothers of his classmates, baseball buddies, church friends etc we carry on conversations for the odd hour or two when we are thrown together but these are not ladies I am lunching or shopping with. It does not bother me per se , for the most part we have just surface sorts of things in common but the one time of year it bugs me is back to school I have no idea what his teacher is "really" like and no one to call and say hey what do you know about so & so what sort of teacher are they?
That being said meet & greet went just fine in fact rather quickly as the new teacher was not particularly chatty with any of the kids or parents. I suppose we'll see. Ran into some kids & parents we knew unfortunately C is only in class with one boy he knows from kindergarten but he makes friends quickly so I am not concerned about his social life. Curious to see what sort of homework he gets this year that will be an adjustment for him. Again I suppose we'll see what this year brings.

I may have burned my retinas

the light fixture in our spare/computer room is up pretty high, high enough I cannot change the light bulbs just standing on a stool. Nope light bulb changes involve a folding chair and letting C know he needs to check and make sure mommy has not fallen & cracked her head open but if she has to please call 911 and let the EMTs in the house when they arrive.
One of the bulbs blew several months ago but I didn't change it because there are 2 bulbs and 1 still worked and provided ample light for the room. The second bulb finally went out-time to drag out the folding chair. We had finally used up the last remaining incandescent bulbs I had on hand and I planned on switching everything over to the CFL bulbs. A great plan except I had not purchased any as of yet. I didn't have time to run into a larger retailer yesterday afternoon and felt strongly enough about not buying generic bulbs so I just picked up a pack of Sylvania incandescent bulbs for the time being. Replaced the light bulbs without incident or broken limb.
Went into the room this morning, flipped the switch and OMG. I don't know if they are channeling power from Oak Ridge or what but those are the brightest light bulbs I have ever seen in my life. I 'm not going back in there unless I have protective eye wear

last week of summer

as summer winds down this last week of summer/daycare/camp(yet again whatever you want to call it) they have not had any field trips but yesterday was dress crazy day C obliged and won the trophy for craziest dress a proud moment indeed. Today they are indulging in a little indentured servitude all of the kids can wear bathing suits as they are going to clean the school van & bus and then Friday is the annual end of summer sleepover. Sleep being a loose sort of idea C will be up half the night and be returned to us Saturday morning a little zombie. D & I don't have big plans yet maybe dinner and a movie.

Friday is also meet the teacher day. The school posted info yesterday no no not online on the building and each grade had assigned times to come meet your teacher on Friday. 3rd grade is from 1-2 why thanks so very much, um not all of us are SAHM moms. Oh well I really didn't want to work all day on friday anyway...

There was more complete and specific list of items the boy need supply-wise posted from his teacher. It would be really nice if they could get that sort of thing together before the tax-free weekend and get it out to us parents! I go through this each year. I guessed most of it correctly but we still need to pick up a few more items this weekend.

I was surprised to hear on the radio that the state is already talking about getting rid of the sales tax holiday. I understnad maybe dropping the spring holday but it seems like a suspect choice to do away with the whole concept. It clearly spurred the economy this weekend in TN and if you abolish ours it will just send folks over to neighboring Georgia next summer to take advantage of their tax holiday

"harassment "starts anew

C starts back to school on Monday and this afternoon the meal plan has started sending me emails reminding me to replenish his card.
I really need to opt out of the emails

wrestling

the boys had a great time at rasslin' and with some help from a friend the spare ticket went to the son of another friend who was very excited & very happy to go along! I was glad not to go but oh the irony-I watched about an hour at home trying to catch a glimpse of the boys on the telly-I did not gave up & went to bed. The boys rolled in around midnight and let me tell you it was fun trying to get everyone up and out the door in the morning. I bribed C with a McDonald's breakfast even getting him a coke to drink, I warned him that it was not really happening and don't ever expect it well ever again. If he would only drink coffee it would have made life easier especially with our fabulous new coffee maker.