Busy Summer

Wow, I've been so busy lately, I've completely neglected my blogging efforts, but here's an update of what we have been up to.

First of all, the kids got out of school on June 6. Brenden passed and will be moving on to Junior High next year. Where has the time gone? It seems like it was just last year when I put him on the bus for the very first time to go to kindergarten. Sara flew through 2nd grade and I am certain she will flourish in 3rd grade as well. She absolutely loves going to school and she does very well.

After school concluded for the summer break, Mike decided it was time for a trip to Disney World. We left on June 20 and came back on the 27th. We drove down in our Ford truck, and made a few sightseeing stops along the way. We kept a journal of our trip and I plan on posting that on here soon.

As soon as we got home from the trip, we had to start making our Independence Day plans. We ended up planning to go to the parade, and then a get together up at my aunt Becky's house. We invited our new friends Robin & Mike, who brought his two sons along. We cooked out on the grill and then watched the town fireworks from the hill on Becky's property. After those were finished, we had a bonfire and let off our own fireworks.

I've finally had a couple of days off now, but tomorrow I have to go to a book sale, and I really need to get back to work on my book store. Sales have been trickling in, but I could be doing so much better if I put in more effort.

I also have been slacking on taking care of myself, so I am going to be headed to Weight Watchers to get started on building a better me.

A Message To The Tooth Fairy

When one of my daughter's teeth came out recently, she wanted to keep it, so she wrote this little note to the tooth fairy. She never really gave me an answer when I asked her why she wanted to keep it, but the "tooth fairy" let her keep it, and mom safely stored it away in a memory box along with the note.

School Project

My son, who is in sixth grade, had to create something to do with an historical event for a recent school project. It took him some time before he could actually decide what he wanted to create, with the materials we had on hand, but he finally decided to build a Pueblo Indian dwelling. We all worked on it together and it was actually pretty fun to create.

We started with a small styrofoam cooler and worked from there. The Pueblo Indians used "oven domes" to cook with, so we made one of those out of homemade salt dough, then we glued small stones in a circle, put a few twigs in it, sprinkled some of my husband's red chalk from his chalk line tool for embers, and sprinkled some ash from our pellet stove around that to create a small fire pit, and we glued some twigs down next to that for a wood pile that we topped off with some cotton to create a smoke effect. I took some small pieces of leather and we created rugs out of them and decorated them with some of the symbols that the Pueblos used to communicate with. Then finally, we topped it all off with a few mini clay pots filled with various items such as corn and indian seed beads.

It turned out really good and he was so proud of it. His teacher gave him the best grade possible, and while we were at the Education Fair, we heard several people who were looking at it talk about how cool it was, which made Brenden even more proud of himself.

Here's some pictures:

View from the side



View from the front



Corn in a clay pot & clay pitcher



Fire pit and stack of logs

View from above

Our Trip

Well, we made it home from the trip. It actually turned out pretty decent. The kids had their fair share of fighting, but we had enough fun to overcome all of that. I took tons and tons of pictures, but wouldn't you know, I could not get the kids to pose for even one picture together where they were not actually arguing, so most of the shots with both of them in the picture have forced smiles.


We started out driving through Howell, the town I grew up in, to see how things had changed, and boy they have changed. It's amazing how time changes things in only four years. Funny though, as much as I've missed being down by the city, I realize how much of a rat race is really is, and it makes me glad I now live in the country.


After we checked into our hotel, the kids enjoyed some swimming in the pool, and then my son just had to go try out the treadmill without my knowledge and he wiped out. He had little imprints on his chin from the tread and a big gash on his lip from his tooth. He stayed away from the treadmill for the rest of our visit. LOL


Our second day was spent down in Detroit visiting the Henry Ford Museum, driving downtown to show the kids the Renaissance Center (aka the GM building), watching the animals at the Detroit Zoo, and showing the kids where I used to work off of Telegraph Road in Southfield. I was quite surprised, even with the Final Four going on, there was hardly any traffic, although the zoo was quite busy.


On Sunday we drove down to Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor and then I just had to stop at Colasantis in Milford before we finally hit the road to come home. Colasanti's is a market, slash deli, slash bakery, slash nursery, all rolled into one. When we lived in the area, it was one of my favorite places to shop. I miss it immensely and wish I could find something up here that compares, but as of yet, I've had no such luck...


Here's a few shots of our trip...

This is a cactus flower from the botanical gardens.

The polar bear at the Detroit Zoo as seen from the underwater tunnel.

The Henry Ford Museum, note the plane flying overhead.

The kids swimming in the pool.

The Night Before

Here I sit, catching up and passing time while I catch the final episode of ER. I have to rise early tomorrow for a mini-vacation with my mom and my two kids. We are going down to my hometown for three days. I moved away from the Detroit suburban area four years ago this month, and I have only been back a couple of times, the last time being when I attended the funeral of my ex-husband in 2005.

Anyhow, the vacation will involve a little trip down memory lane, as we plan to drive by some of the old haunts. We are also planning a visit, per my son's request, to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, and a trip to the Detroit Zoo in Royal Oak, for my daughter, who wants to see the polar bears and the penguins. And as for me, well, I want to visit the University of Michigan's Matthaei Botanical Gardens. My mom wants to do some shopping, so I am sure we'll be making stops at a few thrift shops and nurseries along the way. I can't wait. The funny thing is, I have been to all of the places listed many times. When we lived down there, I would make a point to go at least once a year to both the zoo and the museum, and the gardens, well, I went to them at least once every couple of months, it is just such a wonderful place to visit, even if you are not a big plant fanatic.

I am feeling a little nervous though, funny as it sounds, I have grown to love the country life and the thought of dealing with all the traffic and rush rush kind of scares me. Not to mention, the NCAA Final Four will be going on in Detroit this weekend, so the traffic is going to be a little higher volume than usual.

I'm sure I will be fine though, that is as long as my kids can keep from fighting for more than an hour at a time....

Saying Goodbye

I have a MySpace account, that I started about two years ago, to help network with other internet booksellers and ebay moms. For a while, I really liked it, I never had any problems and could share links in my blog, bulletins, and profile updates. Well, all of that is a thing of the past. I switched over to the Firefox browser last year when I was having delays with Internet Explorer. It turns out MySpace doesn't like Firefox very much because I seem to get lots of error messages when I try to update my status. Then I started having problems updating my music player. Now, I think I have reached the breaking point. I am a lover of photography, for those who didn't already know, and I frequently share the link to my photo blog with my MySpace friends. Until now, I have never had any problems, but a few days ago, I posted my blog link after changing the background on my blog, and I asked my friends to give me their opinions on it. I got an email this morning from my aunt who is one of my MySpace friends, and she said she clicked the link and got a message from MySpace that they had blocked my link, the reasoning being that my site was a spam site and contained inappropriate content. Anyone who has ever seen my photo blog knows that the majority of my photos are of a naturalistic content, and every now and then I may share a photo of a family member or local event. I do not post nudity, profanity, or even political or religious content, so I am quite offended that MySpace would block my link. I am seriously thinking about closing my page down and focusing on my Facebook and Twitter accounts....

Love Notes From My Daughter

My little girl is such a sweetheart. She loves to read and write (she is the second best reader in her class), so almost every day, she writes me a message. I got these two in the last couple of days. The top was is in reference to my son (her older brother). They've been fighting like cats and dogs lately. The bottom one is telling me that she can't wait until Mother's Day. Hmm, I wonder what she has in mind? I almost can't wait just to see what she has up her little sleeve.

A Little Plug For Sees Candy

My husband is from southern California, and ever since we have been a couple, he's told me about his favorite place to get chocolate, a place called Sees Candy. He swore it was the best chocolate in the world, and I always just dismissed him and figured "yeah, whatever". That was, until his mom sent us a box of Sees Chocolates for Valentine's Day this year. Oh my, one bite and I was in heaven, this stuff is just plain decadent! My favorite is the one shown above, it's called a Milk Chocolate Bardeaux. It is pure delight. They have a website, so if you ever want to give it a try, or send a little piece of heaven to someone you love, check them out at www.sees.com . I guarantee if you like chocolate, you will not be disappointed.

Drive-In Theaters

When I was young I used to love going to the drive-in theater. We'd load up our pillows and blankets into car and head to the theater. Once there, us kids would go play on the swings while the parents would go load up on goodies from the concession stand. When the movie started we'd all rush back to the car and have our goodies while watching the movie. Then would come time for intermission and it would be a quick potty break and another quick trip to the playground before the second movie began.

Once my teenage years came around and I had a license, my best friend and our boyfriends would usually double date. I'll admit that not much movie watching was done at that time, we were too busy making out or doing whatever else us kids did back in the 80's. Unfortunately the 80's were a time of change and not many theaters stayed open after the 90's came around.

There are a few still open here and there, but there aren't any in my neck of the woods. To get to the nearest drive-in, we would have to drive about 3 hours away. I sure wish there were one around here though. What a perfect way to enjoy a cheap night out, especially with two kids. The price you pay to go to a cinema is so expensive, and to be able to go to a show and let the kids be kids without having to constantly hush them up would be wonderful...

This picture shown above is from am movie theater that I used to live by. I only went to this drive-in one time, but it was one of the bigger ones in the area. I took this photo several years ago, after the big screen, concession stand, and speaker stands had all been torn down and replaced by a gas station. The sign stood for quite some time before they finally took it down.

If you would like to see where the nearest drive-in still in operation is, you can check this website http://www.driveintheater.com/

Winter Blues

It has been so snowy here this year, and now we are getting single digit temps along with a wind chill that is supposed to fall into the negative 20's. It's really taking a toll on me this year. I hate going out into the weather and have found myself becoming somewhat of a hermit.