Beth & Cory's Mom

Dusting, vacuuming, straightening up all day. How does this place get so messed up? And so cluttered? Part of it is the samples we have on the table with all the colors for shingles, siding, garage doors, and trim - and NO we haven't decided on our colors - but that's not all of it. Mail and newspapers and just general clutter, they all seem to take over. Jeffrey says now that the kids are gone the house shouldn't get so messy, and there won't be so much to do. If only I can get everything cleaned and caught up first, then maybe he's right. I'm afraid that's going to take a while, though.

Now that the kids are gone, I suppose I could just wear little sexy costumes when Jeffrey gets home from work, and he'd never notice the house. Of course, we could never have anyone over, because they'd be sure to notice the mess.

Which means that I better get back to cleaning.

I probably shouldn't say anything for fear of jinxing it, but it looks like Blogger has the formatting thing fixed.  It has been bugging me that I couldn't see my cursor in Compose mode, that all the line breaks kept disappearing, and that I couldn't even insert line breaks in Compose mode.  What was up with that?

OK, never mind. I just tried hitting enter, and nothing happened - except that I couldn't type anything new until I switched to Edit HTML mode. And when I go back to Compose, my line break disappears, and all the text is in one big block.

Is this bothering anyone else? I thought maybe it was an issue with Firefox, but since I've been using Chrome, I've had the same issues. I really, really hope they get it fixed soon.

We're getting together with the contractor tonight to decide what colors we want for our new siding and shingles, and garage door.  I was originally thinking I'd like to stay pretty close to the siding color we have now, but we've been walking every morning and watching what everyone else is doing, and now I'm wondering if we might want to change everything after all.  Some of these houses are really looking good. And some of them aren't so good.

We've also been playing with some pages online that let you choose colors and see what they'd look like on a house, but I think it's really hard to see what it's really going to look like until it's actually done - and then it's too late.  There are some houses in the neighborhood that would look a lot better if they'd just picked a slightly different color for the trim, or the shutters, or the roof.  But choosing colors for your house isn't quite the same as choosing the design and photo for your Christmas Photo Cards. With the photo cards, you can design it online and see exactly what it looks like, and if you don't like it one year, you can choose something completely different the next year. With the house, that decision is going to be with you for a long, long time.

Oh! The pressure! I hope our contractor has some really good samples and that the colors we choose will look good together - after they're on the house.

Our son is now a college student. Today was Move-in Day.

We got all his stuff to his room and set up, met his roommate, attended a parent meeting, and then he hooked up with some friends and didn't need us any more. So we came home. Alone.

It kind of reminds me of his first day of kindergarten, when I walked him to school, and as soon as he saw his teacher, he was all ready to line up - and he didn't need me any more. He actually turned to me and said, 'you can go now, mom.' So I went, and I probably cried on the way home, but there were no tears from him. The boy was ready to move on with the next step in his life then, and he's ready now.

Mom on the other hand - I'm wondering what happens now. It's not like kindergarten when I got to go back to school that afternoon to pick him up and hear all about his day. No, he's not coming home, except for sometimes on the weekend - he lives there now. He sleeps there; he eats there; he'll have his friends there; h'll be studying there, or at least he better be. While I'm wondering why we didn't look into Online Schools so I could keep him here with me for a while longer, he's getting on with his life. Like he's supposed to.

Thankfully he's not all that far away, and we do have facebook, email, twitter, Skype, and cell phones. I'm bound to get a glimpse or two into his college life.

I think Weasley would still like to be friends with Tillie, but she’s not ready for that.  She tolerates him.  He’s usually pretty good about giving her space.  Sometimes she chases him, but she doesn’t want him to chase her back, and I don’t think they’ll ever snuggle up together and take a nap.  Sometimes they get kind of close, though.

Camera Critters is a fun weekend meme hosted by Misty Dawn.Visit the Camera Critters headquarters and join in.

I’m so glad there’s a meme like Looking at the Sky on Friday, because it means all the time I spend looking at the sky, and taking pictures of it, has a purpose! Click the badge for more info.

The sunset the other night had me taking my camera out to the deck again, trying to capture the light and color in the sky.  Sometimes it’s just amazing.

You could read all kinds of camera reviews trying to find the best camera, but I think the best thing is just to pay attention to what’s around you, and when you see something you like, just take a bunch of pictures.  Some of them are bound to turn out, right?  That’s pretty much my approach to photography.  Thank goodness for digital cameras, because it doesn’t quite work that way when you have to pay to get rolls of film developed.

If you enjoy skies as much as I do, be sure to check out Looking at the Sky on Friday.

When I tried to start Firefox this morning, I kept getting an unresponsive script warning.  It said:

A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will complete.

Script: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Mozilla%20Firefox/components/nsExtensionManager.js:623

If I hit 'Continue' the box would go away for a little bit and then come right back.  If I hit 'Stop Script' the box just goes away and comes right back.  Apparently, there's some extension or add-on that is ready to update, but the script is all unresponsive, so nothing will happen.  I can't start Firefox!

I restarted my computer a couple times to see if that would help, but no luck.  So I've been using Chrome today.  Cory uses it all the time, but I've been happy with Firefox until now.

Has anyone else had this problem? Is there a way to fix it?

I'm not feeling much better today than I did yesterday.  I hate this whole headache thing.  Unfortunately it's something I've always had to deal with, and the best I can do is just try to get some extra sleep and wait for it to go away.  Excedrin used to be the only thing that worked for me, and I only took that as a last resort, but I can't take it any more, so I just have to wait it out.  Thankfully it feels like it's on the way out, and now I'm just really tired.  If I'm smart, I'll go to bed early.  Except I'm probably not that smart.

I'm hoping that by tomorrow I'll be back to normal, and I can get some stuff done.  At least more than I got done today.  I did some cooking - made Taco Dip and a zucchini pie for dinner.  Then, of course, I had to wash the dishes from cooking, and I got a couple 'presents' today in the mail and delivered by UPS, and those had to be washed, too.  So I guess I don't get to completely take the day off even if I don't feel good at all.  No sense pulling out the Blue Cross Blue Shield NC card, that is if we lived in North Carolina, and running off to the doctor or something.

Then tomorrow, when I feel better, I can try out my new 'toys' and see how they work.  Hint: one of them is from CSNStores, so I'll definitely be telling you about that one.

Image via WikipediaWhile Cory's packing the clothes, I've been putting some things together that he's going to need.

• tea - English Breakfast (need to get some mint)
• instant coffee
• hot cocoa mix
• coffee/tea mugs
• plastic forks and spoons
• Emergen-C
• Fire sauce from Taco Bell
• Easy-Mac
• and RAMEN!

A while back I got a Senseo personal coffee maker for around $15, but I never really use it.  It's kind of convenient if I just want one cup of coffee without making a whole pot, but mostly it just takes up a lot of extra space on the counter.  Also, you have to buy special coffee pods to use it, and they cost quite a bit more than just buying coffee beans or ground coffee.  But, for heating water in a dorm room, we think it will work fine.

It heats the water up really fast, and Cory can use it to make his tea, hot chocolate or coffee.  Also, it makes really good Ramen, as Cory discovered this afternoon.  He was thinking that we needed to get some of the Ramen cups that you just need to add hot water to, when he decided to try breaking his usual Ramen into a mug and filling it with hot water from the Senseo.  It worked!  He used the two-cup setting and then the one-cup to get enough water to fill the mug then let it sit for a couple minutes, stirred it, and had Ramen.
He just ought to survive college, now that he has his Ramen.  What do you think?

Cory has been cleaning his room the last couple weeks - he's a teenager, and it really was that bad.  He's been doing a really thorough job, going through everything, tossing junk, boxing stuff up, and deciding what he's taking to college and what he's not.  He's in the process of deciding what clothes to take now.  Thankfully, he's only going to be about 15 miles from home, so he doesn't have to decide everything right now, and he doesn't have to take everything with him when he moves in on Monday.  He can get settled in and take more stuff as he figures out what he needs and what he doesn't, and what he actually has room for.  Winter clothes can wait until it gets colder.


The room just needs to be cleaned up, straightened up, and organized.  We need to be able to walk in there, and his window needs to be accessible, when it's finally time to replace it.  It's not like he's moving out and never coming back.  Thankfully.