We got up at 6:30 this morning. Not by choice. Lexi woke up sick (seriously, that kid throws up more than I’ve ever seen any other kid throw up) and so she hung out in our room watching movies while Kevin and I attempted to get another hour or so of sleep. Didn’t work so well. We moved the party downstairs so Lexi could watch movies on the laptop and I could sew. It didn’t work so well since all she wanted was to eat. Which she couldn’t do because it all would come right back up. I did get some sewing done in the morning but most of my morning was spent trying to console a very pissed of sick and hungry toddler who kept lifting up her shirt and shouting “See?! My tummy’s not sick!” She did manage to keep food down and then take a nap. She woke up from the nap crying. Kevin and I raced in there thinking she may need to throw up again. She was didn’t. We asked what was wrong. “I’m just still so hungry! I want to go to Los Cabos.”

While Lexi was sleeping I did get a lot of sewing done. I finished another Christmas present. I made myself a cute cell phone holder. (I had a bunch of scraps and I wanted to see if an idea would work. It did.) And I finished my 12 quilt blocks for the quilt square exchange. I also got 2 new blocks in the mail this weekend. Keep on sending them in people!

Kevin was also productive. True to form, he’s ahead of schedule for NaNoWriMo.

Daylight Savings has also thrown everyone for a loop today. Lexi started asking to go to bed at about 5:30. I was ready to crash by about 8. (Although I just got a second wind). I forgot how much I dislike it getting dark at 5 in the winter.

I realize that there has been a lack of blogging on my part. Actually, many of the blogs I read have slacked off lately, seriously people, what’s up with that?

I’m out of things to ramble about (for now).

I don’t want to talk politics anymore. That subject got old about 6 months ago.

I really don’t want to talk about economics because
a) I don’t like economics
b) because I don’t like it, I don’t understand it
and
c) everyone’s sick of hearing about it, so what’s the point?

I know that everyone is super excited about all the stuff I’ve been making lately but you can check that link for yourself.

My kid is still cute but today, not so much. She stuck her hands someplace that nobody wants to hear about.

We are at #11 on the waiting list for our baby - but the movement is slow.

My kindergarten is testing the limits. I fear bootcamp may be in their future.

So, maybe I’ll come up with something else soon. But there’s the list of everything I don’t feel like talking about right now.

Leslie Bennetts is the author of the book The Feminine Mistake and says “says women who opt out of the workforce — or never join it in the first place — are putting their financial lives at enormous risk.”

You can read the whole interview here but here are a few quotes that I found intriguing.

Regarding financial planning:

All the investment advisers and financial planners that I talked to said that women have a tremendous tendency to leave these things to men. They may pay the household bills, but they don’t really involve themselves with the larger financial planning of the family.

Regarding becoming a widow:

The average age of widowhood in America is only 55. (according to the AARP)

Regarding the long-term planning and risks of being a stay at home mom;

I am not saying it’s not a valid choice to stay home with your children; I’m saying it’s an extremely dangerous choice and one that works out very badly for many women and their kids. In my book, I say was it really worth it to be home when your second child lost his fourth tooth if something happens to your husband and you end up losing your home entirely? I’ve talked to so many women who find themselves suddenly without a breadwinner and a lot of the adverse consequences of divorce in the society are really a result of the economic impact. Women’s standard of living plummets by 38 percent in cases of divorce, whereas men’s standard of living goes up by 26 percent. But it’s the women and the children who suffer. So I’m not criticizing the inherent worth or value of the decision to be home with your children, but I am saying it’s a very risky choice.

Before I get angry comments from all my stay at home mom friends, let me just say this: I am jealous of your ability to stay at home with your kids. But for me, being a working mom is not a choice because a) we need the income, b) staying at home is not in my nature (trust me, Lexi and I would kill each other if summer break lasted longer than 3 months), and c) while my family always comes first, I love my job and would feel like I was missing something if I wasn’t teaching.

I do agree with what she is saying about women needing to learn about their family finances and being prepared if something were to happen. Just something to think about.

I’m not the biggest fan of dress codes. At my previous job I worked there for almost 4 years before a dress code was implemented. The rule was no jeans. Actually, no denim unless is was a skirt. We could wear what ever tops we wanted and apparently cargo pants, sweat pants, and any other style pants were O.K. as long as they weren’t denim. Now as a toddler teacher no jeans is not the best plan. Jeans hold up against paint, markers, various body fluids, sand and crawling around on the floor for most the day. But they did one better on the dress code, we had to wear a lab coat over it. A full length, pale blue lab coat. We looked like dental assistants. It was ridiculous.

Now, job number two has decided to implement a dress code. Pretty much the same thing - no jeans. Although I think colored jeans are allowed and we don’t have to wear a stupid lab coat. We do have to have nicer tops, t-shirts aren’t outright forbidden but they are strongly discouraged.

The good in all of this is that I get to go shopping (well, got to go shopping but I’ll probably go again with birthday cash). I went to Kohl’s yesterday and tried on almost everything in the store and came home with a few pairs of pants and a new tops - that I love. I hate shopping for shirts because they always look cuter on the hanger than on me but I actually like the way these tops look - now I just have to stop myself from wearing the same three shirts over and over.

Hmm…this was a really long post just to be able to say: I got cute new clothes!

This summer I did a lot of sewing.

I made a quilt for Lexi, a few string backpacks, a taggy blanket, a wipes case and I think I’m going to try my hand at making felt dolls (except I’m not going to use felt).

I also want to make a few bibs and a small blanket/quilt for the new baby.

After that, if I have time and we aren’t on our way to Ethiopia, I want to try making clothes.

Kevin is in Chicago for a couple of days, leaving Lexi and I carless. At first I thought it would suck to be stuck at home for 2 days with no real way to get out of the house. Then I remembered how much Lexi loves to ride the city bus. Today we rode the city bus. A lot.

We caught the 67 at 10:00 and rode it to the library. Only to discover that on Mondays the library does not open until 11:30. No big deal. We played in the park, looked at art downtown, ate at Subway and then went to the library. Caught the bus home at 12:45 and Lexi went down for a nap.

After her nap I needed to go to the post office and Target, so back on the bus we went. This time we caught the 67 going the opposite way at 4:00, got off at the post office, mailed our letters and transfered to the 68 at 4:45 and went to Target. We got our supplies, ate dinner and went to wait for the 68 to take us home. Well, after rush hour (which ends at 6:00) it stops coming every 10-15 minutes. And it only comes once an hour. So we waited at the bus stop for almost 45 minutes. During that time Lexi entertained herself by telling us what color the cars were that passed. And she earned $0.50. The guy who was waiting with us was impressed she new her colors so he gave her the change. Go figure. Anyway. The but came. Problem was it got to our stop at 7:00. The 67 (which we needed to catch to get the rest of the way home) left that stop at 6:53. We had to wait until 7:53 for the next bus. I was not too excited about that. But there was a Caribou Coffee at the stop and they have toys for kids to play with so we killed some time there. Lexi was pretty well behaved for the whole thing. Considering it took us over 2 hours to get home (if we would have gone by car it would have been 10 minutes at the most). When we got home I still let her watch her Veggie Tales movie that I had been promising her all day long. Hopefully I wore her out and she’ll sleep in past 8 tomorrow.

My favorite part of the day? Lexi and I were on our way home from the library. She was laying around in my lap, jabbering away. Suddenly she stops, folds her hands and says, “Dear God, Thank you for city bus. Amen.”

Today Lexi and I came home from our play date around 12:30. I pulled the car into the garage, put the emergency break on, turned the car off and got out. As I was unbuckling Lexi from her carseat I noticed that the car was moving backwards. Yeah, you read that right. It was rolling backwards and out of the garage with my kid half strapped into her carseat still inside. I couldn’t open the driver’s door because at the time my thought was “if I open the door, the door will hit the garage wall and wreck the car even more.” I tried to reach the emergency break through the window but couldn’t because now I was in danger of getting smushed into the garage wall. So the car kept rolling. And rolling. And rolling. Until it stopped. And it stopped because our neighbors have a nice picket fence directly across the alley from our garage. Okay, they used to have a nice picket fence. Now the have a mostly nice picket fence and a partly smashed up picket fence. The smashed part is about the same width as our car. At this point I am now back in the car and shaking because I looked at our neighbor’s yard and realized that if the fence hadn’t been able to stop the car, the car would have gone through the fence and over a retaining wall. With my kid in it. Don’t worry. Lexi’s fine. She thought it was pretty fun. I’m fine. Even the car got off with only a few dings in the bumper. And because we are honest people we left a note for them telling them to call us and offering to repair the fence. Several hours later they still hadn’t called but they were out back when we came home tonight. We went over, apologized (a lot) and they told us not to worry about it. Seriously. I broke their fence and their response was “it’s okay, we needed to replace it anyway.” So that’s the story about how we have the world’s greatest neighbors and how I am such a spaz.

Lessons learned today:

1. Always make sure the emergency break is completely engaged and the car is in gear.

2. Abby is a spaz.

3. If you are going to back your car into your neighbor’s fence make sure they don’t care and are planning on replacing it.

4. Honesty is always the best policy.

5. Shut the garage door before you get out of the car so if this happens again the car can only roll 3 feet and damage your own property.

I’ve you haven’t heard of freecycle then you are seriously missing out. If you don’t mind getting used stuff, it’s a great way to go.

I’m on a hunt for books, puzzles and dramatic play stuff for my classroom. Today I replied to an add for children’s books and puzzles. Once she found out I was a teacher she unloaded a car full of stuff. I left with 4 bags of movies, books and puzzles, 3 Mr. Potato Head dolls, 2 dolls, an easel (which I think Lexi may have claimed), 2 games, a grocery bag of markers, crayons and paints, and a bucket of building block toys. Not a bad deal for free.

Yesterday I picked up a bunch of arts and craft supplies from someone cleaning out their craft room.

My porch is starting to look like we are getting ready for another garage sale. I’m going to have to start hauling stuff to school pretty soon.

Today was a fun filled day of getting free stuff and running errands. Lots and lots of errands. And then a few more errands.

This morning started with gymnastics classes for Lexi (or as Lexi calls them snacknastics). And they were free. A friend teaches the classes and invited Lexi to come for this session. It’s actually the same class we took this winter but now that she just a few months older she’s gotten really good at following directions and using the equipment the right way.

After we got home I went through the huge bin of material my mom gave me. Remember my love for fabric stores? Well free fabric is even better than a fabric store. Especially free fabric that has some great potential. I’m debating trying to make a stuffed letter alphabet, possibly a couple baby slings, or maybe a small quilt for Lexi’s dolls. Possibilities are endless.

Next up - free hair cut from Juut salon. Yup, free. Apparently, when you cut your hair for Locks of Love the hair cut is complimentary. I had an 11 inch ponytail cut off. And believe it or not I still had enough hair to keep it at about chin length. (Okay, so my entire trip to the salon wasn’t free - I also had my brows done and they talked me into buying shampoo - but still, free hair cut.) Oh, and if you are a new customer to the salon you also get a free book by the founder. It’s a page-turner.

When I got home we decided to go get dinner and run errands. It’s a long story but the short version goes like this:

5:30 leave for Rosedale Mall for dinner. Traffic sucked so we got there around 6:15. We were supposed to be at Barnes N Noble at 6:30 to drop off books to sell so we changed our plans and went there first.

6:15 Dropped 4 boxes of books to sell to Barnes N Noble

6:20 - 6:45 Eat dinner at the food court

6:45 - 7:30 Go to Victoria’s Secret to use the $10 off card I had. It’s the huge semi-annual clearance sale so I had to wait in line for most of that time to try stuff on.

7:30 - 8:00 Back to Barnes N Noble to see how much money we made on the books. They only bought about 20 of the books. Shopped for a while, bought 3 new books.

8:00 - 8:30 Drive to Half Priced Books to drop of the still full boxes because Half Priced books isn’t picky. They’ll buy anything.

8:30 - 9:00 Grocery shopping.

9:30 - 9:45 Get home and put Lexi to bed. And considering she was up 2 hours past her bedtime, Lexi was very cooperative for the whole evening.

It’s been one week of summer vacation and this week has flown by. I’ve lost all sense of what day it actually is and was a little surprised when I realized that I haven’t seen my class in over a week. And even more surprised to realize that I miss them - just a little bit.

I also got a lot done this week. I have all the squares cut and ready to be assembled for Lexi’s quilt. I also have the fabric purchased and washed to make a baby sling for a friend/customer (and it’s going to look so cool - I found the best material). Kevin and I got the house clean. Laundry is done. The rummage sale wouldn’t end is over. And 99% of the left over crap has been delivered to Good Will.

We had a birthday party for Kevin and he shaved his head. So it’s been a busy week.