Don't Let Your Mouth Write Checks ...

First, although my lovely husband has provided me with a working camera card reader, the picture of my head exploding is far to graphic to upload here.

So, I was driving Amira to school today on the other side of the park when I had a thought. Well, I had more than one. My first thought was that I had intended to ride bikes to school but that we left the house too late for me to get her there and get all the way back to Neal Dow Elementary in time to do my weekly volunteer work. But I digress. Truly, the striking thought was that this was the last year I was going to have to deal with sending my kids to different schools!

For the school year of 2009-2010 I would have all three of my kids in THE SAME SCHOOL. Granted, Amira would only be there for a half day kindergarten ... but we could all ride bikes and it is so close to the house. Hooray! Simplicity at last.

It's thoughts exactly like those that set the trap ... let's just say that by 3pm this afternoon, it was pretty much decided that Valerie would not be attending Neal Dow next year. She would be attending the Waldorf Charter school we'd been oogling over the last year. And believe me, the people at the Blue Oak Charter school are probably ready to smack my wishy-washy face.

I'm not even going to go into the long road that brought us here ... but now I'm trying to wrap my head around things like two different schools, pretty far apart ... different start and end times (thank goodness) ... and now totally different vacations and start and end days. Oh, not to mention that I am really involved in the Neal Dow PTA and will be required to be in the "Parent Guild" at Blue Oak.

Holy smokes! Oh, and then there are the Brownies ... Valerie had signed up for Brownies. They conveniently meet every other Thursday at Neal Dow just after school. Somehow I don't see that happening anymore.

I haven't even started the next school year and I'm already trying to figure out which days I'm going to volunteer, how I'm going to ride my bike instead of drive, scouts, soccer, PTA, parent guild, book club, field trips, cook dinner, do laundry, keep my job, attend the pets and garden ...

How do I get myself into these situations? I had a grandmother who always said my eyes are bigger than my stomach (as I loaded up my tray at the Senior Buffet with everything in site). But now I'm thinking she wasn't just talking about the food.

No Camera Card for this Lucky Duck

It's been a long, long time since I've written. I've got lots of excuses. But the main two are:

1. I broke my camera card reader right around Easter
2. Dang! I've been busy!!

It is the end of the school year for all three of the kids. And every class is cramming in a performance or field trip or both. Rex played a scout in "The Pirates of Grammar Island." Valerie played a mail order bride (?!) in a play called "We come from Everywhere". And Amira played herself, an alien and a kitty in the "Day in the life ..." play at Montessori.

But it's not all work around these parts. Michael and I have had a couple of fun date nights. A few weeks ago we attended an "End of the Frost" dinner at the Elks Lodge. My neighbor was selling tickets and talked me into buying a couple. She went on to tell me how "everyone is a winner" with all the raffle prizes they have donated. I protested telling her how I win NOTHING EVER. She pretty much assured that I'd win something. Well, how could I resist? Plus the grand prizes were pretty neat: flat screen TV, tickets to the 49ers, BBQ, etc.

So, Michael and I headed over to the Elk's Lodge where we were surrounded by farmers, ranchers, FFA and 4-H and some more farmers. Oh, and my neighbors (who are NOT farmers!) Anyhow, we were definitely strangers in a strange land. We parked a table with some Almond Farmers. They were a hoot. We chatted with them while Michael cringed at my persistent mispronounciation of the word "almond" ... (if you didn't grow up in the valley here, you're probably mispronouncing it too!) When suddenly my raffle number was called. I was so tickled. I won some leather work gloves, John Deere coffee mug, some honey and a gift certificate to a local deli. I was just so excited to win SOMETHING.

Soon, Michael's ticket number was called. He won a LARGE t-shirt, John Deere coffee mug, baseball cap, almonds, leather work gloves and a $30 gift certificate for fuel (preseumably for the tractor we don't have).

Anyhow, the evening progressed with an auction (with a real auctioneer!) and was about to end with a drawing for the Grand Prizes. Our dining companions began to pack up to leave. Michael and I asked them where they were going since they were just getting to the "good stuff". We were then informed that if we won a grand prize and accepted it, we were then on the committee to put on the dinner next year. Well, we're a bit over worked with all we have going on. We decided we'd sneak out too. We were satisfied with our goody bags.

The following morning my neighbor was standing on my front step with with her hands on her hips and a stern look, "WHERE'D YOU GO LAST NIGHT? YOU GUYS WON THE GRAND PRIZE!! YOU WON THE FLAT SCREEN TV!!! BUT YOU LEFT????!" I laughed so hard. I had to let it go that just knowing I would have won if I stayed was satisfaction enough.

I'd go on about the raffle prizes I won at the Bunco for Breast Cancer event a couple of days later ... but let's just say, I got lucky!

Oh, and then last week Valerie won a gift certificate for $350 toward a new bike in a raffle.

How cool is that?

Now, I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it would be nice if I could win a camera card reader so I could put pictures back up on the blog!