Refinement

For a short time, approximately 3yrs ago, we owned the house next door.  We already had a rental on the north end of town, but this house would be to ‘flip’.  Buy it cheap, fix it fast and sell it quicker.  We had a solid game plan when we purchased it but without a psychic friend Cabrina, we had no way of knowing

Letting a tid be a tid

 

Gerrit & Emma have known about Chuckie Cheese’s for a long time but we’ve never gone.  As I drove down 28th street, they never failed to see the mouse off in the distance and scream “Chuckie Cheese, Mom, Chuckie Cheese!” like crazed Beatles fans.   This was always followed by “can we please go?”, more begging ensued.  It never seemed a practical time to go.  Either we were doing something right then, money was tight or it was nice out and I refuse to take them in the summer when we can play outside for free. 

Gerrit would remind us constantly “Chuckie cheese is where a tid can be a tid”.  I know Gerrit, we’ll go soon. 

A huntin’ we will go

As I do every year, yesterday I joined all the other crazed shoppers for Black Friday savings.  I planned on going with Megan, Joy & Sandy to the various stores to claim our winnings.  The ads rolled out Thanksgiving day and we made our plan.  Megan & I decided that this year, we would have to play with the big dogs… Walmart.  They had their Leapsters for $30 and there was no way we could pass up that savings.  Add in the other steals and deals they were offering and we knew we had to brave it.  “We ran a half marathon, Megan.  We can do this!”  I assured her but I was nervous myself.  One of the Walmarts here in town made national news in ‘05 when a woman was trampled.  She ended up being ok thankfully but some othershave not been so lucky while shopping at Walmart the day after Thanksgiving. 

We decided that we would go to the one near Megan’s house even though that was a 28 mile drive for me instead of a 5 mile one.  We figured it would be worth it since the store was not in Grand Rapids, we would increase our chances of getting the coveted Leapsters.  Joy was going to spend the night at Megan’s house and I would make my drive out to pick them up early in the morning.  Sandy decided to brave one of the local Walmarts since they were the only ones carrying the TV on sale that she wanted.

3:15am arrived and I rolled out of bed. 

Life lately

What a difference a month can make.  What was my life a month ago, is just a faded memory at this point.  Summer was so relaxing and fun, I guess it’s only fitting that now I have to work my butt off.  It’s only fair.  And in this post, I’m not complaining.  I’m merely stating the difference in what was my life and what is my life now.

The same day as Emma’s first day of school, I started watching a 10 month old baby girl.  Her name is Nadia and she is adorable.  In a lot of ways, she reminds me of what Emma used to be like as a baby so it’s nice to have her around.  She is a sweet baby girl and I love having her around 3 days a week.  In fact, she’s so sweet and easy to handle that I almost feel guilty taking money for watching her.  Except at mealtime.  I actually  earn my money when I feed her.  She hates to eat and I have to trick her into eating the majority of bites at every meal.  Just one more thing she has in common with Emma LOL.  It’s been almost a month exactly since I started watching her regularly and I’ve grown very attached to her in that time.

The next baby to come into my daily life is my nephew, Rylan.  Of course, he’s been in my life before now but now I am watching him on the days that my sister in law works.  Rylan in so many ways reminds me of Gerrit and always has.  While being

Happiness and anger

School is coming up for us and I have been very excited for both the kids to start.  Emma will be going into an amazing Young 5’s program at a great Charter School.  (For those that have never heard about Charter schools, read here)  We had our new parent orientation last night and I was so impressed with so much about the school.  As they explained more and more about their policies and beliefs, I truly realized why there was such a demand to get into the school.  Emma had been fortunate and drawn #2 on the waiting list during the lottery this spring.  After a week, she had been accepted.  There are about 200 kids waiting to get into the school still! 

Her being accepted took a huge weight off my shoulders.  The public school that she would be attending here was not even an option.  While Dan & I attended school in the very same school district all of our lives, it was really different then.  The school district stood apart for trying to teach excellence to kids and a better than average education was expected.  Now, for what ever reasons, they have chosen to dumb it down.  The old days of ‘here is our rules and everyone is expected to follow them’ have been replaced with

The week of Emma part cinq

 

Emma’s 3rd birthday was fun and came fast.  That was a crazy year for us.  We already had a rental and decided to purchase the house next door to ours to flip.  It sounded great on paper, but real life is rarely as you plan.  Little did we know that our renter was going to bail on us and that the housing market would take a big dump.  It was a tough year but we somehow managed.  Her birthday party was a nice

The sky is crying

Reading music

The sky is officially crying.  Can you see the tears roll down the street?  A part of  me is gone forever and I don’t know if I’ll find it again.  It started innocently enough.  I drove to the car lot to test drive a vehicle.  I parked my Expedition there and little did I know that a part of me would stay forever locked in it’s doors.

Jerry was a race car driver

Listening music

Watch out Toyota, GM’s bringing their A game to town.  GM CEO Rick Wagoner has announced moving the Chevy Volt from a concept car to production.  GM is confident thus far that it could launch it’s revolutionary car by 2010 (scary that it’s not that far away). 

While comparisons will be made to the already wildly popular Prius, from what I’ve read so far, GM is already trying to make the distinction that they don’t consider this a hybrid but an extended-range electronic car (E-REV). 

I don’t know too much about cars but the Volt has a little more style to it than the Prius.  At least in my taste.  I’m sure Toyota will continue to corner the market with the granola crunchy people and the Volt will draw out those that want to be more ‘green’ conscious but want to look good doing it.  As always, price will be a major factor for us regular folk and I can’t help but wonder what this increased demand on energy (i.e. electricity) will do to our already hit economy.  Lord knows, with gas prices and food going thru the roof, the last thing we need is electricity blowing up on us.

I say keep on keeping on though.  Keep bringing us new concepts and ideas.  I think we’re all aware of how out of control the oil prices are (whether real or contrived) and necessity is the mother of invention.  So go on wit yer bad self GM.  Do us Michiganders proud and start rolling ‘em out from your Detroit-Hamtramck, Michigan plant.