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Tuesday, July 31, 2007

I Met My First Goal With My New Business

As you can guess from the title of this blog, it's hooray time around my house. I wasn't sure I'd be able to meet my first goal with my AtHome America business. My first goal was to have sales total $1000 in my first 35 days. Today was the last day of the 35 and I submitted two orders and passed my goal and a little bit more!!! Yeah!
Last night was my first "real" party and it went really well. I played a game so it wasn't just me talking and talking and I think everyone really liked it. I hope so, I plan to use that game and other games again. I think parties where someone stands in front of everyone and goes on and on are BORING, so I definitely don't want to be boring.
I have at least two parties in Aug. and the potential for maybe two more. So far, so good! Hopefully, it will keep going well.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

The Park

Yesterday, I took Ian and his cousins to a park. We had a lot of fun. They played on the playground equipment. I got to visit with Ian's former childcare provider. She's such a nice lady. She lost her husband last year to cancer. I was so happy for her when she told me her first grandbaby was born this year and is 4 months old. It was nice to get caught up on how she's doing.
Going to the park reminded me of when I was a little girl and got to go to the park. I wonder if Ian feels the same way I did about the park. We had two main parks in the town I grew up in. There were several smaller parks but the main parks were Jones Park and Peter Pan Park. To give you an idea of just how much I loved going to the park, I'll let you in on a little secret. Going to the park was even a part of how I was potty trained. My dad used it as a reward and it worked. That was Jones Park, by the way. That one was fairly close to where my grandma lived and had a fun merry-go-round. Big kids could help pump it so it would go around so fast. It also had a big slide and on a hill by itself was a huge cement dinosaur that you could climb in and over. What fun!
Peter Pan Park, however always seemed rather magical to me as a child. I don't know if it was the name, or that it had lots of trees so it seemed liked it had stepped out of a storybook. It had some ponds where you could feed the ducks. It even had an outdoor stage where they sometimes had plays. I remember seeing Alice in Wonderland there. The toys to play on there seemed to go along with the storybook idea. Little picnic tables that looked like fantasy mushrooms and mushroom seats. A slide that reminded me of Cinderella's coach. A merry-go-round. What park didn't have a merry-go-round back then? It had a couple of really big slipper slides that I was always too afraid to go down. They were REALLY high and one of them had a wave in it. The park also had an arbor picnic area and a wading pool. It was a huge park. I loved it when we went there.
I wonder if my son has the same experience when we go to a park? Is it wonderful and magical to him? Something he treasures? I hope so, but even if he doesn't, I do know that when I take him to a park, we have FUN!

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Happy Anniversary (not!)

I am not happy about the anniversary in my life at the moment. Every year for at least the past 4 yrs (this year is #4) I have been hit with a sinusitis attack. Usually the second or third week of July. I tried really hard this year, but I did not escape. I spent most of the week sleeping, blowing my nose and taking antibiotics. I did wake up feeling a little better this morning, so I'm hoping that I'm on the way to being well again.
Today I took over some At Home America catalogs to my friend Dottie so she can do a catalog party. Hopefully, it will go well for her! I finally convinced her to go camping at Friend's Landing (about 5 min. from our house) and now she loves it! It's a really small camping park, but it's super nice. It was made so it would be handicap accessible so the trails are paved and so are the RV pads. Plus it's in between a river and a man made lake....beautiful!
I am trying to keep busy even though I haven't been feeling well. I've mostly been working on getting things going with my new business. I placed my first party order on Thursday and only needed a little bit of help. Now all I need is to get some more people lined up to host some parties....wanna throw a party for me??? :)

Sunday, July 15, 2007

The Power of Fantasia

You might be wondering what in the world do I mean by the "power of Fantasia". Let me explain. I'm sure most of you have heard of the movie Fantasia from Walt Disney. Not really one of their best sellers. When Fantasia came out on video (that's right, the thing before DVDs), I bought it, not really knowing what it was. I was not overly excited by it, but then I discovered it's secret power. The power to make any child nap.
Now, this power is not to be used lightly and you can probably only harness this power once or twice before the child catches on. I haven't had it fail yet. The child sees Mickey Mouse on the front of the video and is sucked in to the idea of watching Mickey Mouse. Only they don't realize that Fantasia is really just cartoons set to classical music.
The first child that fell under the sleeping power of Fantasia was a little girl that I babysat. She had been at a sleepover and was determined to stay up all day and not go to sleep. I had Fantasia with me (newly purchased, so I didn't know about its secret power yet) and she decided she wanted to watch it. I think she lasted 5 minutes and then she was sound asleep on her couch. There's also been a little boy that I watched, at least one niece, maybe two and a few other assorted kiddos. Finally, last week, my son noticed Fantasia on the video shelf and wondered about it. It was afternoon and he had had a long week and since I knew the secret power of the video, I encouraged him to watch it. I wondered if it would work on my very energetic son. Well, he lasted longer than five minutes, but soon he was sound asleep. That movie works every time. I wonder if anyone has ever seen the end of it??

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Crazy Busy

As the title suggests, it has been a crazy, busy week! Both Ian and I were at Summer Hummer Monday through Friday from a little before 8 to around 5:30 (we had to wait for Colin). Every day was so busy that the time flew! I was so tired yesterday that we didn't even stay for family night.
This morning I hosted my grand opening for my new At Home America business. I invited loads of people, but it's summertime. Most people wished me well, but were somewhere on vacation this weekend or packing to go on vacation. Hopefully, I can get a couple of parties going this next week or so.
Tomorrow we have a BBQ/picnic at the church we've started visiting. I'm excited! Hopefully, we'll meet people that live closer to us.
I hope this made sense tonight, I'm so tired that my thoughts are a bit jumbled.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Hot and Tired

Wow! This is a busy week. It's Summer Hummer at church and I'm helping with Preschool craft in the morning and the bead room in the afternoon. Ian is an all day "camper" for the first time this year. He's having a lot of fun.
It's been really hot the last two days. Yesterday it was around 98 degrees and today it hit 101! Yuck! Thankfully, all the kids are getting plenty of water and everyone seemed to do okay. If you want to see pictures from Summer Hummer to see how crazy it is look under the links, I'll put one there so you can see.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

A Sad Happening

I haven't blogged much this week. I've been busy and I've been sad some this week. We all had so much fun on the 4th of July, but not everyone was having a great day. On our street a couple of young guys hurt themselves with fireworks and then I heard that an 8 yr. old had been hurt in Tumwater (that's pretty much Olympia, if you don't already know that). Thursday I found out that the 8 yr. old didn't make it. Then I saw his name. He belonged to one of the moms from my MOPS group. I only know her just a little bit, but I am still so sad for her and the whole family.
The family had been celebrating the 4th at the boy's grandparents house and the grandfather (I think) had a small (18 inches long) cannon. It exploded, sending the pieces flying and even though the boy was 100 ft. away he was hit by a piece. The memorial service is at 7 pm on Tuesday night at Westwood Baptist.
I am praying daily for this family and I hope you will add them to your prayers as well. I cannot begin to imagine everything they are going through right now.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

The 4th of July

We had a nice 4th of July at home. The day before was kind of crazy as our fridge had leaked some water. It was probably just the fact that I had turned the temp. control a little warmer because it had been freezing some of our food at the back, but we decided it was time to bid the dinosaur a fond farewell. This started a mad dash to find a replacement quickly. So I looked on Craigslist (one of my newer addictions, love the list) and found several possibilities. The best possibility was in the Tacoma area(that's at least an hour and a half away) and it was being offered for $150. White, Kitchen Aid, Side by side, 26.5 cubic feet. It had been listed at 2:30 in the afternoon and by the time I was looking, it was 5:00. I called and left a message, but didn't think I had a chance. Refrigerators at an awesome price move very quickly on the list.
Colin got home around 6:30 and about 2 minutes after he got home, the phone rang. It was the man selling the fridge. Good thing he was a very nice guy. We had to call him back at least 3 times trying to decide if it would fit in our kitchen (it would if we ripped out a cabinet--bye-bye cabinet), when we should pick it up (right now or in the morning), and what time Colin would be there to pick up the fridge.
So Colin picked up the fridge that night and we bribed a neighbor with some homemade cookies to help Colin unload the fridge (it was after 10:30 after he got back-what a nice neighbor). We plugged the fridge in for the night so it would be cool in the morning and we would be able to transfer all the yummy food for our party. By the time we got to bed it was around 1:30 am.
We were up early July 4th to get everything ready for our little party. We transferred the yummy food and all the contents of the old fridge. Colin made several trips to Home Depot to buy a water filter for the new fridge and to go back for a part that he threw in the garbage there only to later realize, he needed that part. We got the old fridge out of the kitchen and into the garage. We cleaned and cleaned our formally clean house. Bringing in a new fridge and having my AtHome America supplies arrive the day before had added some mess.
Before we knew it, it was time for the party. We had fun with Colin's mom and his aunt and two of her kiddos. We cooked out burgers and hot dogs and the kids played with water guns in the backyard. Colin even got in our pool to cool off. The weather was beautiful (which is a welcome change out here, many years it's cold and overcast on the 4th of July). Our friends Dave and Dottie came later in the afternoon and we enjoyed setting off fireworks with them and watching the neighbors set off some fairly large fireworks. The big fireworks were making some big booms and then we heard a massive boom. I thought it didn't sound right. It was much too big. About five minutes after the boom we saw 2 ambulances, a rescue truck and a police car head down our street. We later found out that a couple of young guys had been using a pipe as a homemade cannon (that's what the paper said) and that it exploded on them and they were hit with shrapnel from it. Scary.
Overall, I'd say we had a great 4th of July at home. We avoided all the crowds and had a great time. I hope you had a great time, too!

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Mama Bear Mode

I must say that today, I'm pretty sure I went into "mama bear mode" or at least "I do not feel safe and don't mess with me mode". It happened when I took the boys (Ian and his 2 cousins) to Toys R Us. We found the items we wanted and were checked out. There was a conversation in the background between two female workers and I was halfway listening. You know that kind of listening. It's going in your ears, but you aren't really paying that much attention to it. I heard them say something about a guy who had asked them for money. I think I also heard the words parking lot. I didn't think much about it. I paid for my things and walked out of the store with the boys. We walked through the parking lot to my van and I unlocked the van. The boys started getting in as I was putting the bag in the back of the van. I was looking at my receipt when all of the sudden there was a man right next to me. I didn't hear him come up at all, he was just there, closer than I liked. He started to say 'excuse me ma'am... That's all he got out of his mouth. I didn't jump or anything, but I was startled and so my response was swift and perhaps strong. I very firmly and not quietly (but not yelling) said "NO! YOU NEED TO GET AWAY FROM ME RIGHT NOW!" Thankfully, that worked and he backed off. Ian hollered out from his seat "Good one, Mom!"
I am still amazed at my reaction to this. Usually, I'm very kind when a stranger asks me something. There was no hesitation in my response, I felt that he needed to get away not only from me, but the boys, too. After he left, I felt a little bit bad about the situation. As a Christian, I want to treat people nicely and with love and compassion. Something about this situation made me feel the need to protect myself and the boys. Maybe it was God protecting us. I have never responded that way so quickly in my life. Usually, I think of what I should have done about 30 minutes later. So, yes, I think God protected us in that situation. Thanks, God! Or as Ian might have put it "Good one, God!"