There are indeed a few nice people left in the world. Or at least one.

Yesterday, we went to Lowe's to buy a free-standing closet-type thingy (storage cabinet?) to put all the coats and shoes downstairs in, as this house has no closets downstairs and usually that stuff winds up all over the floor just inside the door. The box had the weight listed at 150#; it was huge, and heavy.

As can be imagined, I was/am in no position to be helping hubby lift said box. The employees at Lowe's helped us move it into our van (where it was a tight fit up over the seats but it went) and we brought it home. Hubby pulled the van up as close as he could to the front porch steps, and managed to wrangle the monster out of the van, but was struggling even to make the first step up to the porch (there are 5 total). He was trying to "walk" it if you will, but it was obviously not an easy task. Toddler and myself stood on the porch "supervising," both equally helpless to assist poor hubby in his back-breaking endeavor.

And out of the blue, some guy in a pick up truck pulled over, got out and said to hubby, "You really look like you could use a hand!" He proceeded to lift one end of the monster box and the two of them got it inside the house with much less effort and pain. He wouldn't accept anything as payment, not even so much as a Pepsi.

It probably took a whole five minutes out of his day, if that, but what a difference that small act of kindness made! It made my whole day to know there are still people out there who will go out of their way to help someone in need, even if said someone is a complete stranger. Made my heart happy.

So now I have a beautiful "closet" just behind the front door which is plenty big enough to hold ALL the shoes and coats and backpacks that accompany 4 children and I can actually walk through the door without fear of tripping over one (or many) of the above objects. Woohoo!

Oh, and high school algebra is not easy.

So we have survived the first 2 weeks of school and things are starting to have a nice, concise schedule. Sort of. As much as things can be nice and concise with 4 children anyway. The books came in at the high school, and teenager is actually "doing" something now. And for now he's keeping on top of his homework and such, so we'll hope he keeps it that way.

My daughter's teachers must have been having a bad day that first week, as they have since "come around" and she is back to loving school again (yay!) And my 1st grader is just happy to be doing what the older kids are doing, anxious to get in on the homework-doing. If only that would last through high school...

Had a festival of sorts in our small town this weekend, complete with plenty of "fair food" and rides and even fireworks to unofficially end the summer last night. Bummer. Summer is over. I hate that.

My belly is huge... well, you'll have that at 27wks pregnant. What I want to know, however, is why complete strangers feel they have the right to comment on one's size when one is pregnant. A lady that I have never met before came up to me at the ink store just the other day and asked when the baby was due. I told her first of December. Her reply? "Oh my GOD are you having TWINS??? YOU"RE HUGE!" What I really *wanted* to say was, "Well so are you but I'm pregnant, what's your excuse?" but of course I didn't have the guts to actually do it (why is that?) and just walked away. I'm a small person usually, so this 27wk belly really does stand out against the smaller "rest of me", but really, what gives people the right to comment on how big I am?

Just a pet peeve of mine. In my opinion, the only appropriate thing to say to an obviously pregnant woman is "Wow, you look great!" I don't need to feel like a freak of nature thank you very much.

Okay, rant over, time to get the kiddies some breakfast!

This has been a hectic couple of days, to say the least. I'm a bit upset with the new schools here, and I hope that by next week they will have all their "bugs" worked out so my children can get back to the business of learning. They finished two new buildings, which now combine all the children in town into one main campus. They are very impressive buildings. However, today I'm left wondering if perhaps our local school board spent ALL the year's budget on the buildings and had none left over for the common sense stuff?

Teenager is in high school, first year. The past two days, they haven't been able to "do" anything (per his report) because they have no trash cans in the building (I've been meaning to ask what happened at lunch) and the new books have not arrived yet. I don't know who was in charge of ordering books, but I had really hoped that they would be in before the students. Nope. So they had a pep rally most of the day yesterday, and a ribbon cutting ceremony today. Maybe tomorrow their trash cans and books will come and they can actually get to "doing" something.

The elementary school, which houses my younger two (1st and 5th grade) has books and trash cans, but is seriously lacking in a couple of other departments. For one, they instituted a new system for lunches, so that each child has a pin number which they must memorize. I am to send money (or checks) with said child, who is to take it to the office and have it added to his/her account. Then, at lunch, they enter their little pin into the machine and purchase their lunch from their preloaded account. Nice for the 5th graders. Not so much for my 6 year old who can't seem to remember his pin and had it written on his hand but forgot and washed it off and so didn't get to eat lunch today.

And then there's the issue of the transportation... They were due off the bus yesterday at 3:35 (the younger two). They actually arrived home at 4:45. No phone call, no explanation, nothing. Calling the school resulted in no one answering the phones. My dad went down there for me, but by the time he finally found someone they had actually made it home (I didn't start to panic until after 4:00, being the first day and all). Then my daughter reports to me that my son almost got lost, as his teacher put him on the wrong bus at the end of the day. He didn't ride a bus last year, so this is new to him. The buses were closing their doors getting ready to pull out, and my daughter noticed her brother missing and told the driver. She saw his teacher standing to the side, so she ran and asked where he was. The teacher ran to stop the bus that had my son on it, and thankfully they got him off and onto the right bus. Today I drove them and picked them up, but the traffic is... well, crazy! And this coming from someone who lived in Chicago until last year. This apparently is what made the bus so late yesterday, as they have two runs. My children are on the second run, which means the bus had to get back to the school, reload, and get back out through that traffic. There are no traffic lights to ease the congestion. Today there were lost kids, lost parents, frantic teachers, people crying (kids and parents) and a lot of general chaos. Luckily I had instructed my children to walk to the library (half a block away) and we were able to avoid most of that. I'm glad all the other parents didn't think of that.

Meanwhile, my daughter comes home crying today because two of her teachers are "mean." Apparently she had the wrong kind of folder for one of her classes, and if we don't go get her another one RIGHT NOW then she will have detention tomorrow. I told her maybe those teachers were having a bad day, she said she hopes so and if they don't get nicer she's not going back. I'm at a loss, as this one usually LOVES school, has never even seen a "B" in her life, and generally thrives in any academic situation. I can't stand to see her crying over school, especially over something as silly as a folder.

But my son's teacher has yet to take his supplies out of his backpack, and the child has been carrying around 20 lbs of tissues, scissors, paper, notebooks, crayons, etc. for two days now. I took them out tonight, and I guess I'll send them back when they ask for them. Apparently they don't actually "need" them yet.

I knew it was going to be rough getting used to the new schools, new systems, bus schedules, and all that, but jeesh I really do hope it settles down next week! Off to buy a new folder, wouldn't want anyone in detention tomorrow...

Oh the joys of back to school!

Yup, it's that time of year again. Mom's got her party clothes out and I'm doing my happy dance, they're going back to school tomorrow! I can hear my teenager still up there rumbling around in his room, undoubtedly still trying to ensure that he has the "perfect" outfit planned for tomorrow. As a girl growing up, I always thought that boys just didn't care as much about how they looked (and maybe they didn't back then) but that's not the case in my house. There is a very distinct difference between my 14-year old son and my 11-year-old daughter, however. My daughter has had her back to school outfit planned for ... at LEAST 3 weeks, down to her undies. She's had time to call all her friends and discuss the possibilities, find out what everyone else is wearing, try on numerous combinations for me and aforementioned friends, and settled on that perfect get-up weeks ago. She also packed her backpack, sharpened all her pencils, labelled all her notebooks/folders, and has everything laying there next to her bed ready to go. For 3 weeks now.

My son, on the other hand, came home tonight around 8:30 (from his grandma's house), freaking out because the shirt he wanted to wear is nowhere to be found. Why? Oh, because he wore it last week to some function, and took it off at Grandma's where it still sat tonight. A few frantic phone calls later, his shirt was delivered and he set about trying it on with various pants combinations, relying solely on his sister and myself to inform him what looked best. By 9:30 his sister was already asleep, while he was in the shower and going through the post-shower ritual of applying his anti-acne-good-smelling-man-face-wash stuff that I had to buy @ $15 for an incredibly tiny tube, and trying to get his hair to lay the right way so that it will not be all curly in the morning (he still won't do showers in the morning because it means he has to get up 15 minutes earlier).

After this ritual, he came downstairs with a different shirt, same pants, and we begin again with which pants look better with THIS shirt and is it too (dressy, casual, black, whatever) for the first day? Two outfits later, going for 10:30, and we're back to outfit #1 and me telling him he REALLY has to get to bed. But wait, he hasn't even unpacked the bag of school supplies yet! And now he can't remember what he did with them...

Finally located said lost bag and hastily loaded new backpack with a few pens, pencils, notebooks, folders, and paper (none of which are labelled with even so much as a name mind you) and it's off to bed with him. Before 11:00. (bedtime is 10:30 for the teenager ).

Now it's a little after midnight and I can *still* hear him up there (quietly) rustling through stuff, and I KNOW he's second guessing that outfit choice again. I'll try to be awake enough at 6 AM to make a good call when he asks for my opinion on whatever he's thinking about right now. For now, I'm going to pretend he's sleeping (not like I can force him).

Oh, and for the record, my 6 year old (son) went to bed at 9:00 gladly, but he still let me sharpen all his pencils for him, pack his bag, and lay out his first day of school clothes. He's just too young to care yet.



At 6:00 a.m. tomorrow, it starts. Teenager has to be out of the house by 6:50. The younger two get up at 7:00 and are out of the house at 8:00. Then mom can go back to bed until toddler decides to get up.

Here's hoping the first day goes smoothly and everyone is happy with their clothing choices...

I thought "nesting" didn't kick in until much later, but with all this time on my hands lately my house is in a new state of cleanliness! My poor hubby got up this morning (at his usual 11 a.m. but don't get me started) and couldn't believe his eyes. I think (for the first time) he was very happy that I quit that job! I didn't realize really all the nooks and crannies of my house that have been neglected while working full time and dealing with 4 children, and it's good to get it back into shape before i'm too tired to deal with it.

On another note, I got a notice from BWC today saying that my employer has denied my claim. Luckily for me I guess, I already have an attorney all over this one, so I'm just going to let him deal with it. I don't see how there's any way they can not pay my dr's bills and the 3 weeks worth of work that I missed because they wouldn't accomodate his restrictions, but if they want to try, that's okay too. I just had to sign a few papers and it's out of my hands. For once I'm glad there are people out there who deal with this sort of thing (even if I have to pay them 1/3 of whatever I get) so that I don't have to.

All in all, I'm cruising along, feeling good, and resolved to not worry about things that I don't have to worry about. It's working quite well for me at the moment.