Parenting/Family

I’m going in late today. A few weeks ago it was decided that the districts and divisions needed to start working some evening shifts, which is actually a pretty good thing. It allows us to do a bit of training with some folks that don’t normally work with us. It also allows me to sleep in a little bit since I have scheduled most of my seconds to come right after my one or two days off. I hate working the evening shift because it means I don’t get to see my family but you have to do what you have to do to make money I suppose.

It is still raining off and on here, thank goodness. I know my plants and fish really appreciate it, but that means that we have done no more decorating since the other day when I posted those pictures. Maybe tomorrow afternoon if it is dry we can get a bit done, otherwise there is probably stuff to do inside the house. We have to start getting ready for this weekend. My daughter turns ten tomorrow and her birthday party is Saturday. As usual we are having a Halloween party. That’s one of the things she gets to enjoy each year. Since her birthday is so close to Halloween they normally wear costumes and have a bit of creepy fun.

She has already received her big birthday present. The wife took her out and let her get her hair done, now she has colorful streaks in it. Other than that she has asked for some board/DVD combo game from Disney that I need to go out and look for.

Took me a second to find the game on Amazon, but this is what she wants…

I just ordered it for next day delivery but it looks like they won’t have it here until Thursday. Plenty of time before the party anyway.

RePete wasn’t feeling very well today apparently. The wife called me at 11 and asked me if I could go pick her up from school. She seems fine to me but she normally doesn’t complain and spent most of the morning in the teacher’s lap. We have just sort of hung out today. We came home and she ate lunch and then we napped (it was worth picking her up just for that) and she’s been hanging out coloring for quite some time.

There is a down side and that is the fact that if we have to miss any work for something like this we have to make up the hours, so as soon as the wife gets home I have to go back in for a few hours. That’s OK, I have a bunch of paperwork I need to get finished anyway. I am still going to try and be home by eightish as it would be nice to see the rest of my family for a little while before they go to bed.

Back in August we went and did the yearly thing spending a small fortune on school supplies. Pens, pencils, paper and notebooks and as usual we had to send all of it in at one time. This is supposed to be the supplies for the entire year.

Jump forward to today, two months later. I get this email from one of her teachers:

???

Ask them if they need notebook paper, pencils, or a red pen? What the fuck happened to all of the stuff I sent in two and a half months ago. Oh, hell no. If I am supplying stuff for the kids whose parents are too damned lazy or cheap to send stuff in then they need to come right out and say so, otherwise I may just start keeping the shit at home next year and dole it out as I see fit. I don’t have a problem donating stuff if they let me know exactly what it’s going to be used for but if I recall we sent in plenty of stuff.

It’s definitely weird to try and write after several beers. Thank goodness for the spell-checking plugin I use with Firefox. We’ve had a pretty good time a the Marine’s going away party. As much as I talk about beer, I am actually pretty much a lightweight. I am on my 6th or 7th beer and am pretty much toast. The only down side to this is that I have to be up at 4:30 tomorrow morning.

I have to call all of the store pretty shortly and hope that they are staffed. I am most certainly not in the condition to drive to work if someone hasn’t shown up or calls in, which is unfortunately exactly what will happen if I get hung tonight.

No matter what happens we have had a pretty good time, although I think I might try to hit the sack at a decent time.

Just got off the phone with my stores and they are all staffed. I’m either going out for another beer or I am going to hit the sack…

I think I found exactly what I need to get for the older girl for stocking stuffers this year. She recently got her ears re-pierced and has been doing a pretty good job at taking care of them, so I am sure that we will get her some ear-rings, particularly since she has started looking at jewelry lately. I thought about getting her some animal jewelry. She’s not at the age yet where I have to get extremely expensive stuff so that would be perfect for her. I still have a little time before I have to start worrying about it but I do need to shop for her birthday since it’s at the end of next month. Ten-years-old. A decade. Sure doesn’t seem like that long.

Man, that Luna moth this morning was cool. The photos were just taken with my phone and sent to Flickr. I think I have one more I need to email myself and then post later this afternoon.

Today was a pretty uneventful day at work. I cooked all day and then hit the door right at the end of the shift. All of my managers are in so they can take care of all the mundane day to day stuff while I sit on my ass here at home and blog for awhile 🙂

The wife is napping right now and I have the girls set up in the driveway selling lemonade to support my ugly beer habit. All is well in my world today. The boy should be finished/finishing with the Crucible right about now or possibly in the morning. I know that was a tough row to hoe for him but he’s tough. I am really looking forward to seeing him for the first time since June, later this week. We are driving up to Beaufort on Wednesday afternoon and will check in to the hotel that evening. Any of you guys on the coast want to get together for a beer or something on Thursday or Friday night give me a call or shoot me an email.

Back to the Crucible. The hardest part for him I am sure will be the ten mile hump they have to take at the end. He’ll probably want to sleep for two days straight when he leaves with us Friday afternoon.

Saturday I think we are going to spend the day on Hilton Head. This will probably be the last chance for us to see our friend Niqui before she and her kids move to Cyprus so I know the wife is looking forward to it.

Technorati : Crucible, Parenting, U.S. Marines

Yeah, that’s pretty much all I’ve got this morning. I just woke up a couple of minutes ago and here I am sipping coffee trying to wake up an hour late. The good thing is that I don’t have any managers off today so I can roll in right at 7 and it won’t be a huge issue.

Taste of Carrollton was busy last night. This is the 4th year that we have participate and there was a pretty sizable crowd last night. Although I don’t have the restaurant in Carrollton anymore I still enjoy going and helping out. I did get to see the family at least. The wife brought my girls down and they hung out pretty late, which was really cool since I wasn’t able to get home until after 9 o’clock.

The boy should be in the Crucible right about now, most likely for the last 24 hours. When he comes out he will be a Marine. I am so proud of him.

I may have a bit more to post this morning. I need to come up with something to put up at Eric’s site and will most likely stick it on here as well.

Have you signed up to win $50 in my post contest yet?