Nicki goes back to school tomorrow and honestly I am a bit happy.  For the last couple weeks she hasn’t done much.  I think the lil ones will miss her and I guess I will too because they have been hanging out in her room quite a bit but she needs to get out of the house.  LOL!

I received a call from the speech therapist today for Lil Tony.  He will be starting on Thursday.  Thankfully the therapist is only available on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I am not sure I could add anymore chaos to my school days.  This just means I will be super busy Monday-Friday.

Tomorrow, more school for me.  I don’t feel I will be as stressed because I already know what to expect.  I will say though I am super nervous about English.  I HATE writing, I HATE that people will be reading my Essays.  Really I feel very stressed.  The closer it gets to those assignments being due, the faster my heart races.  Maybe after I write the first one it will all get better.   One can only hope!

Yesterday was my first day of school and I must say it went well.  I was wound pretty tight with nerves most of the morning.  I drank way too much coffee and felt a bit overwhelmed.  After my first class which was at 2pm I felt much better.  I sat in the lounge in between classes trying to work on Accounting homework and browse the web.  I was mostly entertained watching all the young kids talking and carrying on.

I had Algebra and Accounting yesterday and my brain hurt by the end of the second class.  For Accounting it seems like a lot of new vocabulary.  The Professor made it seem like that will be the hardest part.  For Algebra, a lot of it came back to me but some of it I seemed a bit confused.  Fractions are not my forte.

I also worked on some English homework.  My English class is a web course.  Back in the day, 15 yrs ago, I took a telecourse class which was presented through videos.  I have never taken a web course.  I found out yesterday that our Essays will be posted on a group discussion board for everyone to see and critique.  I don’t take criticism very well, LOL!  Well I think the worst part about the class is Tony and I are taking the same one, same teacher.  It would be one thing to post to complete strangers who will probably never meet me.  I could care less what they thought of me. But to have Tony read my Essays and such, I feel intimidated.  He is far too smart and I feel like an idiot.

Oh well, it has to be done.  So, no class today but I have a bunch of stuff due tomorrow so I will be doing homework today.

Tomorrow Nicki starts school.  I am happy she is going back, she needs to get out of the house.  Since she came home from visiting family she has been watching shows on Netflix ALL DAY!  I mean I understand it is hot outside or rainy but she has not been reading either or spending time with the family.

Off to do homework!

Only 4 more days until school starts.  I feel very nervous.  I am not sure why but I am really bummed out today.  There is so much I want to do, with crafting that is, and I just don’t feel I have the resources.  By resources I mean money.  I really want to be able to craft and enjoy crafting and sell craft supplies and make some money doing so but I just don’t see how to make that possible.

I want to be able to have fun doing it but also be able to bring some money in.  I just don’t know how to fix it.  I find great enjoyment in the people I meet online.  I love the idea of owning my own “business”.  I know I am going to school to be an accountant but my ultimate dream would be to own a craft store.  Craft supply store, maybe sell my cards and creations.

I know owning a business takes money and that is something we don’t have any extra of on a monthly basis, which is why I am bummed!!!

I love shopping online.  I have been looking at a couple of my favorite web stores over the last couple weeks.  I really need to get a couple new outfits.  I just don’t want to wear my wore out, stained clothes to school.

Shopping online for shoes is pretty tough but I did see a bunch of pairs of ugg boots I might be interested in.  I am not sure if I want to buy shoes online though.  Since I am not a huge fan of close toed shoes, I would hate to buy them and think they are uber uncomfortable.  So we will see.

I did find a bunch of clothes I would LOVE to buy.  Maybe I will just get a couple shirts and some pants.  I am going to start wearing more black.

Hopefully I will be able to place an order in the next day or so.  :-)

We are going on 8 months without regular cable TV and it has been wonderful.  The only show my kids watch are what they can find on Netflix and any movies we have or may rent.  Nicki is the only one really “stuck” to her computer watching old TV shows.  She just got done watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Back in January when Nicki got my dad’s old computer we ended up just leaving the other one in Lil Tony’s room.  For a while he had to watch a movie to go to bed.  Then a couple weeks ago we realized that was what was keeping him up until midnight or later.  With the start of school and such in the next week we decided we have to get him on a better schedule.  So he is in bed watching a movie by 9pm (we have to try real hard to get this done) and he can watch a movie until about 9:45 and then the movie/computer goes off.  With this change he is asleep by 10pm which is awesome.

The problem we seem to run in to sometimes with the computer is he thinks he knows how to work it and if it freezes or something he just starts unplugging things.  Last night for example.  I couldn’t get any sound, he had no internet connection and the keyboard wouldn’t work.  It took me a good amount of time to figure out what he unplugged and where to plug it in.  Then I had to reboot the computer because I still couldn’t get the keyboard to work.  I really worry with him pulling all the plugs out that he will break something.  We have already had to replace the vga cable once.  I would prefer not to have to spend more money on stuff like that.

We have talked about taking the computer out of his room, I just hate to do this because there have been plenty of times that he just hangs out in his room playing games and watching movies and it gives me a bit of a break.

I think we will just have to figure out how to “hide” or put up all the things he shouldn’t be playing with.  :-)

Rain please don’t go.  First because I LOVE rain.  Ya know I was thinking about that the other day, my favorite flower is a Sunflower.  LOVE how they look, LOVE that they face whichever way the sun is.  They are just pretty and awesome, but I LOVE gloomy rainy days.

We have had rain for the last 2 days and it has been great, my garden is getting watered.  If it doesn’t stop though I may have to go out and get some women’s rain boots. I mostly wear flip flops and those are no fun in the rain.  I hate getting my feet wet.  I probably won’t need them though, it never seems to rain for very long here in Virginia.  Oh well, I enjoyed it while it lasted!  :-)

I am so counting down the days until school starts.  It is only 10 days away, holy crap!  Earlier in the week I made some book bags for me, Tony and Nicki.  It took me about 2 days.  Thankfully Tony had off so I was able to concentrate on it.  Here are some pictures:

I made a computer/laptop sleeve to match my book bag.  The top picture is my bag, then Nicki’s and then Tony’s.  I think I may make one more bag for myself.  I have 3 classes that I actually have to be in school for, the other one is an e-learning course (online).  Two of the three classes I have on the same day and the other one is on a day with no other classes.  So I would like to have a bag for my books for just that class, and then the other bag for the books for the 2 classes I have on the same days.  Does that make sense.

So some days I wish, well most days I wish we lived close to family.  Mostly because I miss them, I wish my kids had a closer relationship with them.  And a small part of me wishes to be close so they could watch my kids.  I say small because I don’t like to be away from them very often or for very long.  Whenever I go to the store or to the gym or well anywhere alone, I can’t wait to get back to them.  Here’s the thing, Tony and I have not been out alone in over 3 yrs.  Well actually that is not totally accurate.  We went to a midnight showing of Dinner for Schmucks 2 weeks ago.  It was late enough at night that the kids were asleep, except for Nicki.  So she sort of babysat.  But we were gone for 2 hours and we sat in the dark watching a movie.  It was nice, don’t get me wrong but I wish we could have an overnight adventure somewhere or a weekend alone.  I posted on Facebook about how I missed being able to just veg in bed.  Not that I want it all the time, just once in a blue moon.  And I jokingly asked if anyone wanted to watch my kids for 24 hrs.  LOL!  Yeah, most people thought I was nuts, except my Aunt Barb.  When I went home to visit over the summer I had so many family members say they would watch our kids so we could go out.  I thought that was so sweet.  Unfortunately we just didn’t have the time to get away like that.  So when we get to move back home in 2 yrs, I will certainly take someone up on their offer.
Well anyways, my Aunt travels to D.C sometimes and she offered to watch the kids so Tony and I could go out.  I thought that was so nice.  Now it would be an overnighter somewhere so it’s not like we could one of the Outer Banks homes, that is certainly too far but  maybe a hotel somewhere close so we could go to dinner and a movie and not have to go home.  LOL!  That would certainly be nice.  :-)

I wish we could take an overnighter before school starts but since that is in just over a week, I don’t see that happening.  I am just going to take it easy at home and mentally prepare myself for what’s to come.