Toy soldier fun in the sun

JT and his best bestest friend, who lives close, brought out all of their toy soldiers and put together a fun game. The sun was out and the weather was at least 70 degrees. A perfect day to play outside. Now I just need to get them to clean the porch up. Winter really does a number on the outside of the house.

City Pride Day and Community Clean Up

All done, time for donuts and home. We are soaked from the knees down.
Cenneidigh found a rock full of quartz so she brought it home to put in the fountain.
A dirty wet, not as cool as last year, job. We cleaned around East Side Lake, just like last year. The kids all whined when I told them about it last night, but they came excited to see what fun things we would find this time.

1. Large rusty electrical screw driver(Looked like a great murder weapon, but we never found a body, at least not a human body.)

2. Child's bow, but no arrows.

3. Top to a plastic garbage can

4. Poke balls they use to catch fish with(JT's idea for all the bobbers we found.)

5. Fishing lures

6. A few dead fish

7. Many unused paint balls(we burst them then picked them up for the garbage.)

I swear the park was cleaner this year then last.

Following a shower for everyone, the three youngest and I went to see The Unwicked Witch at Matchbox. Amanda won tickets on the KAAL morning trivia contest on Friday. I've entered several times and never have won. I need to send it out to the universe so I can win one of these days.

Be polite and fair

People work hard to get here, it isn't fair to allow everyone to go just because. Sometimes things need to be earned or they mean nothing.The choirs invited here were prepared and the music was beautiful. Allowing anyone to perform would not be fair to those who worked so hard to get there.

Being polite is important and even when someone asks me to do things I try to remember to thank them, politely. Qatar's first word was Thank You, we said it to him every time we handed him anything and he would take the item and say Thank You. It is sometimes not easy to be polite, especially when we are tired, but being polite is something anyone can do.(it may not have worked with everyone and we made many and still make many mistakes in this area)

Being fair is difficult because everyones idea of fairness is different. Is it fair that everyone is given the same opportunities without doing the same effort? We need to be careful here, being fair to Gunnar is different then being fair to Qatar. They do not need the exact same things and so giving them those is really not fair after all. Wages and education need to have some association. If you are willing to spend years in school then you should get a higher wage. It doesn't mean your smarter, it just means you can put the time in to learn something worth learning and sharing with others for a salary. I know plenty of smart people who did not go further then high school, but that extra 4 years makes a huge difference in jobs you can get and money you can earn.

After reading Nickel and Dimed, I've thought about this issue. It would not be fair to pay everyone the same or to raise the minimum wage. Raising the minimum raise will raise the price of things and give inflation something to sticks its teeth into and then we are making more on paper, but have less buying power then before. Be fair, but lets look at the big picture. I really don't have a good answer for you in this regard. What is being fair really?

Great Day!! Being 40 is making me happy!

I was subbing at the high school the other day. One women I worked with could not believe I had a 16 year old, she wanted to know if I had been 16 when I had him(I now love her). Then on the way out the door(I did not realize the door was locked on the inside) a man was nice enough to show me another way out if I got stuck at that door without someone with a swipe card. He then called me back to tell me something else and he said I quote: "Young Lady, there is ....." The rest is unimportant. Did you hear that, YOUNG LADY, David said it must have been an old guy, no he was maybe in his late 40's, got to love it. I think I will start telling people I'm 49ish, then I really look good for my age. Being 40 has not been bad at all. The alternatives to getting older are not pretty, so I'm OKAY with being 40 and all the years that come. If I start to feel bad about my age, I'll just lie and tell people I'm a few years older then I really am. Why bother with trying to be younger when it is more fun to have people tell you you look young.

Books 57 and 58

Good suspenseful story. Romance and thriller mixed in one.
Love it and cannot wait until the next comes out in August. Read this series, very well written and it keeps you thinking. Loved it highly recommended.

Do it now!!

Why? Why? Why? I don't want too, I will do it tomorrow, or maybe next week. I'm going to hate this one. Procrastination is my middle name. Yes it is, Lisa Procrastination Peters. I can't help it, I was born to delay. If you have any ideas let me know. I know the whole thing about how to eat an elephant, one bite at a time. But please, some tasks are meant to be delayed.

Example: Cenny needed to have her palate widened for braces, well I forgot to get the two teeth pulled, the ones needed before they could do the procedure, for over 6 months. Finally done and they then decided she didn't need her it widened any longer, see it works sometimes. Intermittent rewards are the worst for procrastinators like me. If it worked one time, maybe this time it will too.

Tell me your strategies, please do it now!

AHS Concert at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis

When we arrived we tried to get Gunnar's attention but he was more interested in talking to the girls around him.
All the choirs together at the end for 2 selections.
Gunnar singing along.
Austin Concert Choir after the performance. This is a once a year honor for the best choirs in the state.
AHS Concert Choir was chosen to perform with 5 other HS choirs at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. It was a great honor and the booster club made it even better with matching T-shirts, labeled water bottles, and snacks. The water bottles were labeled with the choirs and the honor of being picked to perform. They had a guest conductor and spent the day at Concordia University for workshops. Gunnar was exhausted after the concert and so were David and I.

We took the spectator bus up with many other parents. The booster helped with that, so it was only 5 dollars a person to ride up and 12 for the tickets. All the choirs sounded beautiful and the ride up and back was enjoyable with fun conversations. We all got home at 11:45PM and getting up the next morning was miserable, no seminary for Gunnar(too early) and as luck would have it, I spent the day at pre-school yawning the whole time.(I'm usually awake and getting breakfast and lunches made by 6:15 when I get called to sub, not today I answered the phone in a complete haze and was lucky to remember where I was suppose to go.)

Thanks to Amanda for watching the kids at home so we could share this experience with Gunnar.