Morning....it is a deary, rainy day here in Minnesota!

YESTERDAY

I ended up not working late last night since we decided to go test drive a Toyota Echo.   It is way too much of an economy car for me.   It just isn't me....I agreed to down grade my vehicle....but not that far!  I also tried a Toyota Corrolla (ok) and a Honda Accord (ICK).    I didn't like either of them enough to buy them.  I still need to look around a lot more.   The place called around for a bid on my truck and would only offer me $4,000.00 for it.  ARE YOU CRAZY??   I will try to sell it on my own for a while before I will give it away like that.   I have a very decked out truck!  I love it and don't want to get rid of it to begin with so I will not give it away for $4000.00.   My hubby is going to drive the truck from now on so I don't put some many miles on it before we sell it.  We will begin the adventure of trying to sell it on our own.   Never have done that before ...so we will see how that goes.   

We got home and Erik said his homework was done.....which it wasn't!   I let hubby deal with that and I went to my committee meeting at church.   He had nearly two more hours of homework.   He said he handed in the assignement and it was in his bag undone.  

Tommy and I got ready for bed and read a few books and worked on his letters until we fell asleep.  

TODAY

I am heading to Duluth for work.  I hate this drive.  I will hopefully get alot more of my book on tape done.   Four hours of driving always gets alot of a book done.   I hope this is a fairly uneventful meeting, though I don't think it will be.   I get so tired driving home from Duluth.  I usually have to stop and walk around the outlet mall a bit so I can stay awake for the rest of the drive home.   They have a nice Old Navy store and a Kitchen Store...wish they had a book store though!

I am waiting to shower until Erik heads to the bus.  He needs verbal prompt to leave at the correct time.  If I shower he will forget to go.   Then I will take  Tommy to Preschool for his field trip.  It is raining so maybe they will cancel the trip to the apple orchard??  Hmm...We will see. 

Not sure what time I will get home tonight...hubby is working overtime until 10:00.   So Josh is watching the kids for us.  He is a great kid...we are SOOOO lucky!

TOMORROW

Work....church.....not much else going on.    

READING - East of Eden - John Steinbeck
LISTENING TO:  Baker Towers:  - Jennifer Haigh

Splurged alot this weekend and still lost a bit at Weight Watchers...YEAH!!    I am heading in the right direction.  

Morning.....The start of a new week...not feeling that rested after the weekend.   We are all feeling a bit under the weather still.  

YESTERDAY

I went through Tom's clothes and took out his summer clothes and found his winter clothes.  Of course it is warm today!    We took over three bins of clothes to the twins that Tommy outgrew.  Hopefully they can use some of it.   Tommy has a ton of clothes in size 4 so we are set for the winter.  I will have to start going to garage sales again next year as we are almost out of future sizes of clothes for him.   I will pick things up on clearance here and there and at Once Upon a Child as well.  

We watched the movie Hostage with Josh and Amy while I went through bins of clothes.  Laundry is all caught up and the house is clean.  Great way to start the week!  

Erik came home from his Mom's and had about an hour of homework to do.    He also had to read for a bit since he is behind in his AR reading tests.   I went through his purple binder and he has a major project in there that the rough draft is due on Tuesday I think it was.   Of course he didn't start that over the weekend.   So he will be doing 3 to 4 hours of homework all week again.   Then I had to spend the evening answering the massive amount of emails from the teachers last week about Erik in class.   I sure hope this is a better week than last week!

TODAY

Back to work....busy week at work.   Today I am going out to start updating my budgets for the new year with families.   I have one on Monday, Tuesday I am in Duluth again and Wednesday I have two budgets.  BUSY, BUSY ,BUSY!!   I also have a case I need to transfer to a different social worker.   I will be getting 6 new cases in the next few weeks as well.  Someday I wish I had a different reputation so I wouldn't get so many requests from intake.   I hate to turn down people that are requesting me personally to work with their family.   I have weight watchers today at work....not thinking I lost , but we will see!    I do so terrible on the weekends!  I do great during the week!

After work I have my special Deliveries meeting at church at 7:00.   So it is a late night again.  

TOMORROW

Tomorrow my entire day will be spent going to Duluth.   I have a big meeting up there.   I am not looking forward to it.   I will drop Tom off at preschool and head to Duluth.   Tommy is going on his first field trip.  The preschool is going to the apple orchard.  He is excited about riding the bus!    Thursday he will have his school pictures taken at preschool.   Preschool is a pretty big expense for us, but very very well worth it!   You have to invest in your children when they are young!  It is money well spent that is for sure! 

We are continuing to work on identification  of the letters with Tommy.  He is currently able to do the first 10 with little problems.  He has trouble with G and J.    I will add some more letters this week I think.   Once we have the ID down we will start working on the sounds.   My SIL gave me the whole set of MY "A" Sound book, etc.   He has two more years of preschool before kindergarten, but he is loving learning the letters so we are continuing.  So what if he can read by the time he starts kindergarten.  LOL!!   We need to take advantage of this love of learning he has right now!  I hope to be done with identifying the letters by the new year.  Then in 2006 we will start with learning the sounds.   There is a book called teach your child to read in 100 lessons, that I want to look into for 2007.   Has anybody used this book???  Would you reccomend it??

It is so amazing watching Tommy learning so much.   He is a smart turkey!   My hubby is in awe.   I am not sure if Tommy is on track or a bit ahead.  Erik was delayed and Josh was stubborn.   Either way we will keep teaching him as long as it is fun!  

SUPPER :  Hubby cooking - Hamburger Helper

Off to get ready to leave for work.  Have a great day!!!  

GOOD MORNING...not sure if we are going to church or not...everyone is getting sick around here.   Josh and Paul aren't feeling the best.  I am ok...but feel like I am coming down with something.   I am letting hubby sleep.  

YESTERDAY

We were busy yesterday, but had a nice day!   We got up early and headed to Walmart to pick up some paper plates and Tommy's Christmas present since it was on sale.  He is getting a V-smile for Christmas.   I hope he will like it!   We also picked up a clearance toy for the birthday party at daycare on Tuesday. 

Then we got groceries.  We found a great deal on meat.  They had boneless pork tenderloin cut into chops for 1.88 a pound so we stocked up a bit.   We went to two stores for groceries than headed to the library. 

Once home we had a long conversation about selling my SUV and figuring out what will be the best decision financially for us.   So we decided to sell it to save money on gas and other things as well.   I just drive too much!  I put on over 30,000 miles in the year I had the SUV.  

Then I got Tommy down for a nap.  After nap we dropped him off at his Aunties and went to STOMP at the ordway.  It was a lot of fun!  Always a great show!   Then we picked up Tommy and went to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings.   I was done for after that and came home and Tommy and I went to bed.  

TODAY

Like I said everyone is feeling a bit under the weather.   If hubby wakes up soon we will get ready for church otherwise I think I will let him sleep.  He has had insomnia a couple times this week and been up for the day at 2:00 am.   So he needs to catch up on some sleep. 

Not much planned for today.  I need to work on a few things for church, do laundry and read my book!     We also rented two movies from the library that we might watch as well.    I have a few more recipes to add to my website that I made last week. 

SUPPER:  Sloppy Joe's/ Baked Beans/ Coleslaw

TOMORROW - Back to work......I work late on Mondays so I am very busy.  Hubby has to hold down the fort at home until I get home around 7:30 or 8:00.  

NEW RECIPES ADDED TO MY WEBSITE:

PIZZA DIP

I love my blazer....but we have come to the conclusion that I have to sell it and get an economy car due to my employment.   I drive at least 400 miles a month just for work and the gas for the blazer is killing me.   And those 400 miles don't include to and from work/Office.    So looks like I will be moving back to a smaller car.  I am looking at the Toyota Echo or something like that.   I will miss my SUV, but it is common sense to buy a car that will save us alot more money.  DRATS!  Gotta save money where we can.