A brilliant chore idea from Pinterest ...

I discovered a brilliant chore idea from Pinterest.com.

It consists of writing chore ideas on popsicle sticks and drawing one per day.

Since the Dollar Store was out of popsicle sticks, I decided to modify this idea a little bit.

I found some colored straws that will work great!

Orange/White are for monthly chores, and green is for weekly. I'll work on decorating & labeling the jars later.

I wrote one chore on each straw, put them all in the jars, and had Blake pick one out from each jar.

These are my jobs for tonight. A monthly chore and a weekly chore.

Since there wasn't a good before/after difference for Blake's bathroom, I thought I would show you the pantry:

The pantry before.

Much better! :-)

Time to update!!

It's been a few weeks since I've updated, so I'll give you a quick run-down on what's been going on:

We hung out at the Park Theater for their "We got a new roof" party a few weeks ago. We had a blast listening to the boys jam! This is a picture of our friend Chuck Nivision and Jon's brother Chuck. The two Chucks. (giggle!)

Here's Chuck N., my Jon, and our friend Kurt Thomas jamming on the stage.

I bought a new car! (new to me, that is!) I love this vehicle, especially the color ... sexy blue!

Here's Jon & Blake hanging out at Chuck's house.

Blake & I went to Sam's Club and found the largest camping chair we've ever seen!

Blake had his 3rd grade Fun Night yesterday. He met his new teacher, saw his school buddies, and had a great time! It's hard to believe that school's starting up in a few short weeks!

This morning, one of our Neon Tetras wasn't acting like its normal self. It was swimming like it was half asleep, and the blue stripe was almost invisible. I thought uh-oh, this can't be good. Sure enough, I got home from work and our poor baby had passed away. :-(

Lastly, our green Expedition is up for sale. If you know of anyone looking for a great 4x4 truck with a remote starter, let us know! (Asking $4500).

Quite the storm ...

Last night we had quite the storm. Lots of lightning, thunder, and a complete downpour in the middle of the night.

When we got to work this morning, this was in our parking lot:

Thankfully no vehicles were damaged. The box truck got a little tiny nick on a top corner, but that's about it. It could've been really bad if there were other vehicles parked in this area.

This is a close-up. The box truck is on the left.

By the time I left work in the evening, most of the brush was taken care of. All that's left are these big branches.

Most amazing clouds ...

As I was on my way to pick up Blake from daycare yesterday, I noticed the most amazing clouds in the sky:

Heading east on 40th St

Corner of 40th & S. Washington

I realized at this point, I was taking pictures while driving. Not the smartest move on my part. It was time to pull over and take a picture by a local nursing home. I was mesmerized.

These are the clouds behind our house. It was as though we could touch them. I was so captivated by how puffy and close they were!

Simply beautiful!

An explanation ...

I've been noticing that in the last couple of weeks, I'm been over-reacting to a lot of things in my life, not just Blake's recent doctor's appt. For some unknown reason, my nervous system went off track for a few weeks and it needed to be "reset".

So be assured that I'm much better. I made a slight adjustment to my medications (with my doctor's approval) and I'm back to where I need to be. Much calmer and happy!

Just wanted you to know. :-)

Blake's 8 1/2 year check-up ...

Blake had his 8 1/2 year check-up today. He did very well with creativity when it came time to answer the Dr's questions:

Dr: "Blake, who do you live with?"
Blake: "Nobody. Just me."

Dr: "Do you have any pets?"
Blake: "5 chickens and a LOT of FISH!!! They just keep having babies and more babies!!" (And then goes on to describe all the fish that we have).

Dr: "Blake, what is your favorite home-cooked meal that your Mom makes?"
Blake: "Meat eggs!" (I am so thankful I just made them this morning ... they are scrambled eggs mixed with Ortega taco sauce sprinkled with shredded cheese ... otherwise I'm sure he would've said chicken nuggets!)

He currently weighs 53.2# (24th Percentile) and is 51.4" tall (51.5th Percentile).  Everything went well except ... he failed the vision test. His right eye is 20/100 and his left eye is 20/40. He needs to see an eye doctor.

I was shocked. He's had perfect vision all his life up until now so it really took me by surprise. The sensible part of me (about 10% of my emotions) thought, "This is fine. He'll probably need glasses. We can handle it."

The over-reacting part of me panicked, "Oh. My. God. My child has a tumor."

Blowing-things-out-of-proportion at its finest. Thank goodness for Xanax.

Anyway, his appointment to see the eye doctor is next month. I asked the receptionist if we should wait that long, is this something serious? (Again, over-reacting).

She said, "He's probably fine. Because the weather's been so dry, people's eyes are dry, and when that happens, our vision becomes a little skewed. Some eye drops should help."

Unfortunately, Blake doesn't want anything put into his eyes, so we'll just have to make do until his appointment.

And pray it's not a tumor.

Today's update ...

There are two items I am blogging about today:

The first is Tulip City Beauty College. Usually I go to Le Salon for my pedicures, but earlier this week I received a coupon in the mail for a pedicure at this beauty school (located on 8th St). I went there for the first time today and it really was a great experience! My cosmetologist's name was Dana and she'll be graduating later this year. She was excellent and I already booked my next appointment with her. This beauty school is like any other salon, except that the instructor checks the student's work before they start and again after. So obviously you're going to receive the very best salon experience!

I was actually quite surprised to see a gentleman getting a pedicure there too. He was saying how all men should have this done because of how relaxing it is. He said his wife got him hooked on pedicures 5 years ago and absolutely loves them. ~Awesome!~

Second item of the day:

I have quite large amounts of algae growing on my aquarium decorations and decided that I was going to have to: 1) buy new decorations, 2) take these out and scrub them, or 3) buy some more algae-eaters. I do have a flying fox who had been working quite hard, but I think it's more than he can handle. I talked with Larry at Petco about this situation and he recommended that I buy some more algae-eaters, especially since my water is testing perfectly. He said having algae is normal for lighted tanks. I walked out of the store with 4 japanese algae-eating shrimp, which should do the trick. The nice thing is that these don't count towards my fish quantity, because algae-eaters are in a separate category. (P.S. For those who are allergic to shrimp, as long as you don't eat them, you'll be fine.)

Here is one of the shrimp on the mayan ruins.

There's one on the filter.

The problem with these shrimp is that they are iridescent. They are commonly called "ghost shrimp" because of how difficult they are to find. After I added them into the tank, it took me awhile to find them. I think I'll call them my "hidden workers".