Bullets for Monday

• Liv is in this phase of saying and doing completely hysterical things. For example, when I got up on Saturday morning, and my hair was a mess she asked me if I was doing crazy things in bed. I told her I wasn’t and then she thought for a second and said “Well, was daddy doing crazy things to you in there?” (he wasn’t). I could not contain my laughter. She also has an imaginary friend named Riley. Riley comes everywhere with us. When we were on vacation, she was not allowed to ride any rides because she was being bad. She’s been to the playground with grandma and papa and I’ve crushed her more times than I can count. She kept me company when Liv did gymnastics by herself for the first time on Saturday (she was in mommy & me last year), and went shopping with us Saturday night. Riley has yellow hair and she is tall. She is 29 years old.
• Our dog has a major chewing problem. Maybe major isn’t the word, because she only does it when she is bored or feels like we’re not paying enough attention to her. We had a pretty busy weekend and yesterday morning we sent her and the kids outside in the yard to burn off some steam and so we could finish reading the paper in peace. At one point I noticed that it was very very quiet and I got up to see what the kids were doing. They had been in the playhouse and the dog chewed a hole in the inflatable ring of our pool (Hub had drained it and was letting it dry out in the yard). It is unrepairable; there is a dinner plate sized hole. I mean, I know it’s only an $80 inflatable pool, but damn it! That was supposed to last at least through next summer. She’s better today, with a whole slew of new toys to occupy her, plus Hub and I took her for a good long walk at lunch time. Having a dog is worse than having a kid, I tell you.
• I cannot get over how quiet the house has been with the kids off at school. I am really enjoying being back in the routine though. We fell off the wagon hard core when FIL died, and that led right in to summer which was just crazy. The house was in shambles, I couldn’t get any work done, seriously, nothing worked right. So we’ve revamped our chore charts and it took the few days last week to get back in the swing, but now things are moving well and have fallen in to place nicely. It would be nice to still have that extra pair of hands around, but what can you do.
• We ordered the girls bunk beds from Amazon. They came on Friday. I can’t wait until Hub puts them together. Of course we have to buy mattresses and bedding now, which excites me, but will cost money so it does not excite Hub. But these beautiful full sized bunks…I think the girls will be very pleased with them.
• Putting up the bunk beds means taking down the crib, currently in use as a daybed for Liv, for the first time in 8 years. This gives me a sad feeling in my gut. Sad indeed. And for as much baby stuff as we have sold (all of it), this is one of two things that Hub insists we keep for “just in case”. The other is my breast pump, FYI.
• I did well at the Fall consignment sale…not as well as I wanted to, but I made $400 which isn’t too shabby. I accidentally marked all of my leftover items for donate though, and had to scramble like a mad woman to pull them from the racks and get them out of there at the end of the sale. Now I’m at the point of deciding if I want to put them up at another sale, or ebay them. I do know that outfitting a very picky 6-year-old for the fall has been expensive, even with the used things I’ve bought. I have a sickness when it comes to ebay though. It will consume me. I have done well there in the past. And many online stores take paypal now too, so that is probably the way I’m going to go.
• Finally, and speaking of clothes, a friend gave me some really good Gymboree coupons and I used them to make my first ever Gymboree purchase, in nearly 8 years of motherhood. I don’t like most of their stuff, if I’m being honest. But that whole line of owl stuff got me. When you see a couple of girls dressed from head to toe in owl garb, you’ll know who they belong to,