I'll Spare You The Photo

Yesterday I came downstairs and found my camera case sitting by the front door. It was empty.

I tried to remain calm as I asked all the kids if they'd used my camera.
Nick said: "Oh, yeah. I did. It's in my room."
Me: Can you show me?
Nick: Yeah, sure. (You have to hear him say "sure." Sooo cute!")
We run upstairs and fortunately my camera is on the floor of his closet, unharmed.
Me: Nick, this is Mommy's camera. You need to ask me if you want to see it.
Nick: Well, Mom, I went poop in the potty.
And sure enough, he took 8 pictures to prove it.

Summer Day

We spent the afternoon at the pool and my Dad's wife and boys came too. It was a perfect summer day hanging out in the shade with Diane eating peanut butter pretzels and the kids playing in the water with friends.

Late this afternoon I had to stop by the school to pick up a list of new students because I'm doing the school directory this year. In walked the principal from an all-day meeting -- a meeting for a program that my PTA commission is over. Last year she'd asked the commissioners to attend this monthly meeting. However, when I agreed to work in this commission this year, I talked to the principal (who I also consider a friend after working together so much when I was PTA President) and said I wasn't that excited about this particular program and didn't feel I could justify taking family time to go to these meetings (the previous commissioners said all the other schools principals attended anyway so I felt justified in not attending). She understood where I was coming from and agreed to attend the meeting and I would help in another way.

What I realized when I saw her today was this: I had spent the day with my kids at the pool. If I'd had to go to that meeting, my kids would have spent the day with a babysitter. Nick had enough of that a couple of years ago when I was President. Good choice, Angela.

Musings

Just taking a moment from reading Breaking Dawn to blog instead. Only 50 pages left, but the laundry needed to be changed and I just hate when the washer gets done but I forget about it and 20 minutes go by until I remember. I prefer catching it a minute before its finished and pulling the clothes out of the dryer so I'm all ready for the washer when it finishes up. When I catch it just right I feel very successful -- like I haven't wasted a single minute of possible laundry time. However, when I forget and 20 minutes or an hour go by, I am not happy when loading the final load... "I really should be done by now. If I hadn't forgotten and wasted that 20 minutes, this load would already be in the washer..." Perhaps I have a bit of washing and drying timing OCD.

Speaking of laundry, my sisters told me that Dawn takes grease spots from clothes -- even after they've been dried. Dan gave me an opportunity to test this theory when while eating dinner at our local amusement park, he loaded his pockets with foiled pads of butter for everyone's corn. One butter...pad...escaped his notice and melted in his pocket. I didn't have any Dawn handy and because it's summer, very limited time to shop for dish soap or anything else. So I tried Mela-Magic from Melaleuca. However, I accidentally dried his shorts after the first washing. (Even after telling my sisters and mom how awesome I am at laundry because I put a little "Alta" magnet on the dryer whenever I've got something in the washer that shouldn't be dried. And it reminds me to get it out.) After the errant drying, the spot was significantly lighter but not gone yet doomed because I'd dried, right?!. But Noooooo... I spotted the spot with more Mela-Magic and let it sit overnight and Guess What -- it worked! The stain is gone. So now I've treated all the t-shirts and we'll see if those spots come out. It would be especially gratifying because I'm forever spilling on my t-shirts and that would be fabulous if a shirt wasn't ruined by one little misplaced spot.

Tomorrow is the neighborhood breakfast. And by neighborhood, I mean all the people who live in the geographic location of our church boundaries. So if you live one street over from me, even though it would seem we live in the same neighborhood, it's not YOUR neighborhood breakfast. You're having yours on another date.

The other day I saw tons of cars on the circle one street away from our home. Out of curiousity I convinced Dan to drive up and see what was going on. As we got to the top of the circle I suddenly remembered seeing a flyer sitting on the church pew for the previous congregation's neighborhood breakfast and that was what was going on. "Turn around! Turn around! Someone might see us! This isn't our neighborhood breakfast -- it's theirs!!" Panic and ducking ensued. Wouldn't it be great if we hosted a REAL neighborhood breakfast -- and several wards sponsored it -- so we could really get to know our neighbors and not just the ones that live on our side of the street in our ward "boundary?" Who do I talk to?

Finally... Only two more weeks left of summer. I will be sad to see it end. I'm not ready for bedtimes, alarm clocks, homework, carpool, kids gone all day, PTA, less daylight, cold weather. This year I will try to appreciate early Fridays now that I don't have a child who needs to nap.