True to Form

When Bobby's traveling for business, I tend to spend money, declutter, and blog a lot.

He's in California this week. Check, check, and check.

Spend money:
Paid for the gutter work $$$. Paid for the electrical work $$. Lined up the guy to remove our popcorn ceilings $$. Reserved a place to stay for three days while the house gets de-popcorned $. Purchased a new pair of sandals for James once I realized the new pair of sandals I had already bought him for this summer was a whole size smaller than his current size $. It was a typo, not a growth spurt, and he's been cramming his feet into them for a month. Poor guy.

Declutter:
Took a van load to Goodwill. My only mistake was letting James witness the act. I managed to stop the tears (and buy his silence) with a package of fruit snacks $ from a vending machine. I pray this will never come back to bite me.

Managed to find a good home for our old microwave, James' too-small sandals, and possibly the can roller. Anyone want a bike rack for their car? It hooks on to the trunk area. I've had it for almost 10 years and finally decided to take it for a spin. Well, true to my style*, I managed to overload it with four bikes and drive it over some terrific speed bumps, thus denting our rear door (argh!). Maybe you'll be wiser than I was...

Blog a lot:

My first attempt at creating beautiful flower pot arrangements. I was aiming for "thrill, fill, spill" and got mostly "spill." Love seeing the colors on my patio, though.

My giants and dragons (giant zinnia mix, snapdragon assortment). They look a lot better in person. I promise.

I let the kids pick all the pink snapdragons. They were thrilled.

James not only got on the climbing wall for the first time this week, but he managed to get to 10 feet before looking down and freaking himself out. He climbed a little higher (15 feet) once to retrieve a Batman action figure that the instructor/guide had planted there for him.

*Over stuffing burritos, over loading suitcases, trying to stack just one more thing on the top shelf of the fridge...it's called "Mommy-itis" at our house and I've got it bad. "Daddy-itis" is the inability to see the thing you're looking for especially if it's right in front of your face. Bobby has it the worst, obviously, but Alice has developed a pretty nasty case of it herself.